Research view
Why local, why AI, why now.
This thesis comes out of field research: talking to merchants, couriers and independent service pros about where their money actually goes and what they would switch for.
Extraction is the gap
National marketplaces price for shareholder margin, not neighbourhood viability. Every point of take rate above cost is money leaving the local economy permanently.
AI collapses the coordination cost
Matching, routing, support and onboarding used to require headcount per city. A small AI-native team now runs that layer, which changes what take rate is survivable.
Supply side first, always
Couriers, barbers, tradespeople. If the earner makes more per hour on our rail than anywhere else, supply compounds and demand follows at near-zero acquisition cost.
Density beats geography
We launch corridors, not cities. One dense corridor at real density proves unit economics far faster than a thin footprint over a whole metro.
One core, many verticals
Identity, trust scoring, scheduling, payouts and support are shared. Each new venture inherits the core and only builds its vertical-specific logic.
Locals as owners of the outcome
Earner-favourable splits, transparent pricing and reinvestment into the corridors we operate in. Economy boosting is the strategy, not the marketing.
How a venture qualifies
The four tests before we build anything
- 01
A measurable fee, wait-time or trust gap in a real local transaction.
- 02
A supply side that is under-earning and reachable without paid acquisition.
- 03
A coordination problem that AI meaningfully reduces the cost of running.
- 04
A corridor where we can reach density with a two-person local team.