Renvue

About the Project

Renvue.ai is an AI-powered investment marketplace designed to connect investors with early-stage startups through natural language search, built for a hackathon under the "Best AI Hack" and "Product Hunt Track" category.

Inspiration

We were inspired by the struggles of early-stage founders who have brilliant ideas but lack the connections to secure funding, and investors who drown in irrelevant pitches. Tools like Crunchbase and Product Hunt exist, but they're clunky and manual—nothing ties them together with smart, conversational search. We saw an opportunity to use AI, like Perplexity's natural language processing, to bridge this gap and create a two-sided marketplace that feels effortless for both sides.

What it does

Renvue.ai lets investors type queries like "AI startups in healthcare under $1M valuation" and instantly get a curated list of early-stage startups, complete with profiles scraped from YC, Crunchbase, and Product Hunt. Founders can sign up, build a profile, and get matched with investors based on their idea, category, and funding needs. It's a fast, AI-driven hub that cuts through the noise of traditional investment research.

How we built it

We built Renvue.ai with a Next.js frontend using TypeScript (TSX) for a snappy, type-safe UI, and Next.js API routes for the backend to handle data processing. Here's the breakdown:

Data Sources: We integrated APIs from Crunchbase (company data), Product Hunt (trending startups), and scraped Y Combinator's startup directory for fresh early-stage leads.

AI Layer: Perplexity's API powers our natural language search, parsing investor queries into actionable filters, while Deep AI Search enhances matching by analyzing startup profiles and investor preferences.

Frontend: A clean Next.js TSX interface with two entry points—"I'm an Investor" (search) and "I'm a Founder" (profile creation)—built with responsive components.

Backend: Next.js API routes fetch and process data from APIs/scraping, then feed it to the AI for curation and matching.

We hosted it on Vercel for quick deployment during the hackathon.

Challenges

API Limits: Crunchbase's API rate limits slowed us down, forcing us to cache data aggressively and prioritize YC scraping for fresher startup info.

Data Scraping: YC's site structure was a nightmare to scrape—we had to pivot to simpler regex patterns after our initial parser failed.

AI Tuning: Perplexity's natural language processing sometimes misread vague queries (e.g., "cool startups"), so we added fallback filters to keep results relevant.

Time Crunch: Syncing frontend and backend in Next.js under hackathon pressure led to some late-night debugging—TSX type errors didn't help!

Accomplishments

Winner: We won the “Best Product Hunt Use Case” prize worth $5000!

Working Prototype: We got a fully functional demo where investors can search and founders can sign up, all powered by AI in under 24 hours.

Seamless AI Integration: Combining Perplexity and Deep AI Search to match startups and investors feels magical—it's fast and smart.

Two-Sided Design: Our homepage nails the dual-user experience, making it intuitive for both investors and founders.

What's next for Renvue.ai

Smarter Matching: Train the AI with more data to predict investor-founder compatibility beyond keywords.

Profile Enrichment: Let founders upload pitch decks and auto-generate richer profiles using AI analysis.

Scalability: Move from hackathon-scale scraping to robust API partnerships with YC and others.

Mobile App: Build a Next.js-powered mobile version so investors can browse startups on the go.

Funding Rounds: Add filters for pre-seed, seed, etc., and pitch Renvue.ai to real VCs post-hackathon!