UpStage — Seed Funding Pitch Deck

1. Company Overview

UpStage is a direct marketplace connecting non-union actors, creators, and performers with producers, brands, and organisations — no agents, no gatekeepers. Talent builds a profile, discovers open briefs, and can self-pitch; Producers create briefs, review AI matches and pitches, and move qualified conversations into private deal workflows. The September 23, 2026 product surface includes multilingual matching, private messaging, privacy controls, pitch outcomes, and localized inbox experiences. AI matching supports the complete ten-language app set — English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese — and rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings. It does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking. A match, pitch, shortlist, or chat is an introduction — not a booking.

Headquarters: Singapore (serving global markets across 10 languages)
Founded: 2026 | Stage: Seed | Platform: upstageplatform.com
Founder & CEO: Rachel Loh — rachelloh@upstage.network | +65 9272 7466

2. Problem — Fragmented, Expensive & Opaque Talent Discovery

Non-union actors, creators, and performers are severely underserved by a talent industry built around agencies, guilds, and middlemen. For every booked role, thousands of independent performers spend hours navigating fragmented casting sites, paying steep commission fees, and waiting weeks for payment splits.

Talent discovery is fragmented across dozens of platforms with no unified search or AI matching.
Agency commissions of 15–25% eat into talent earnings and inflate buyer costs.
The process is opaque — talent rarely know why they were passed over; buyers get no data on fit.
Asia-Pacific is especially underserved: minimal union infrastructure, rapidly growing creator economy.

3. Solution — Direct Marketplace, AI Matching, Privacy-First

UpStage eliminates the middleman and gives both talent and buyers the tools to work together directly.

Discover → Connect → Close — Talent builds a profile and Producer creates a brief; they review the AI-ranked introduction, move into private conversation and structured deal steps, then use the LOA and completion flow if they decide to proceed. A match or conversation is an introduction, not a booking.
Talent and Producer roles — Talent can browse briefs and self-pitch; Producer can review multilingual AI matches and pitches, shortlist, reveal gated contact fields, chat privately, and send an LOI or meetup details.
AI matching — Supports the complete ten-language app set — English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese — by combining overall fit with an explicit language signal weighted at 10%, plus category, skills, role, experience, and location signals. Selected same-language overlap is rewarded through the explicit language signal, while different selected languages remain eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings. It does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking.
Privacy-first — Brief controls can hide budget or contact information and restrict a brief to invited talent; contact fields remain gated until a pitch is triaged or shortlisted.
Deal workflow — LOI fields cover rate, dates, scope, usage, and revisions; Talent acknowledges the LOI, and the LOA adds liability, termination, and IP clauses before Producer auto-sign and Talent sign/reject.
Private inbox — Threaded DMs, unread state, All/Unread filtering, pitch outcomes, and localized system notifications keep the introduction and deal history in one place. Email work may be queued or retried; a logged notification is not proof of delivery.

4. Product — 3-Tier Subscriptions, 7-Day Trial, 10 Languages

Core	Pro	LOA Add-on
$19/moProfile, DM access, AI matches	$50/moAI-curated matching + priority visibility	$100/moAI-generated Letters of Agreement

7-day free trial — card collected at signup, not charged until trial ends. Stripe-powered with platform-managed expiry reminders.
10 supported locales — The complete ten-language app set is English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese. AI matching rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings; it does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking. Inbox and Open Briefs are localized across all 10 locales.
PROMOTER70 — 70% off for 6 months; stackable on top of trial.
Testimonials — 1–5 stars, optional anonymous, triggered on deal completion.
LOA dual-signature — Producer auto-signs on send; Talent signs or rejects. The workflow carries legal clauses for liability, termination, and IP transfer.

Stage 1

Discover

Talent profiles and Producer briefs meet through AI matching for the complete ten-language app set — English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese — rewarding selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings. Talent can also self-pitch an open brief.

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Stage 2

Connect

Talent and Producer use private threaded chat, pitch review, shortlist, LOI acknowledgement, and meetup details. A match or chat is not a booking.

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Stage 3

Close

Producer auto-signs the LOA; Talent signs or rejects. Completion closes the deal flow and opens the testimonial step.

5. Tech Stack

Render	Backend hosting, auto-scaling web services, auto-deploy from Git
Neon PostgreSQL	Serverless database with schema migrations via raw SQL runner
AWS S3	File storage — profile media, headshots, uploaded documents
Stripe	Subscriptions, 7-day trial checkout, platform-managed payment events, customer portal
Polsia Email Proxy	Transactional email, onboarding drip sequences, deal milestone notifications
OpenAI	text-embedding-3-small for multilingual semantic talent matching
Chatbot privacy	Tokens are consistent within a session and held in memory for up to one hour, and the generated model reply is detokenized before it is shown and stored. Cloak protects the model read path only: raw chat remains in application storage.
Mirage	Mirage generates synthetic test fixtures that exercise all bot flows without touching real data. The CI gate hard-fails any deploy that slips raw PII into test fixtures—no warnings, it just blocks.
Express.js + EJS	Server-rendered web app; session-based auth (PBKDF2); cookie-secure

6. Customer Product Surface

UpStage keeps discovery, introductions, and deal progress in one private, multilingual workspace for Talent and Producers.

For Talent

Profile setup, open-brief discovery, AI alerts, one self-pitch per brief, private inbox, LOI acknowledgement, LOA sign/reject, completion, and testimonials.

For Producers

Brief creation, AI matching for the complete ten-language app set with selected same-language overlap rewarded through an explicit language signal and different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings, pitch review, persistent shortlists, gated contact reveal, private chat, LOI/meetup, and dual-signature LOA.

Introductions, not promises

A match, self-pitch, shortlist, or chat helps both sides evaluate fit. It does not itself create a booking or guarantee a deal.

Private by default

Brief privacy controls, contact-field gating, threaded messages, LOI fields, and LOA clauses keep sensitive deal details inside the platform.

Localized workflow

The complete ten-language app set is English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese. AI matching rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings; it does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking. Inbox and Open Briefs are localized across all 10 locales.

Clear deal stages

LOI sent → acknowledged → meetup → LOA pending/signed or rejected → deal active → complete, with a testimonial prompt after completion.

7. Traction

Product live at upstageplatform.com with the direct Talent and Producer journeys available on-platform.
AI matching shipped — Contextual Semantic Matching for Producers — supports the complete ten-language app set — English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese — and rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings. It does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking; the product surfaces fit, category, skills, role, experience, and location signals.
Self-pitch and review shipped — one Talent pitch per open brief, duplicate state, buyer All/Open/Shortlisted review, persistent shortlists, and `submitted` → `triaged` / `shortlisted` / `passed` outcomes.
Deal controls shipped — private threaded messaging, brief privacy controls, gated contact fields, LOI acknowledgement, dual-signature LOA, completion, and testimonial flows.
10 locales shipped — the complete ten-language app set: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese, including localized Inbox and Open Briefs.
Notifications are durable but delivery-aware — inbox records and email work are separated; queued or logged email is not presented as proof of delivery.

7b. Selected Shipped Capabilities

These customer-facing capabilities are live on upstageplatform.com. Matching, messaging, and shortlisting are introductions and review tools; none is itself a booking.

Discovery

Brief or profile

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Semantic match

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Fit sub-scores

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Inbox or review

Multilingual AI matching

AI matching supports the complete ten-language app set — English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese — and rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings. It does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking. The product surfaces overall fit with language, category, skills, role, experience, and location signals.

Privacy

Cloakchatbot tokenization

Miragesynthetic fixtures

Brief privacy and contact gating

Tokens are consistent within a session and held in memory for up to one hour, and the generated model reply is detokenized before it is shown and stored. Cloak protects the model read path only: raw chat remains in application storage. Mirage generates deterministic fictional Talent profiles, Project briefs, and LOA fixtures; the fixture guard fails on detected, non-allowlisted email, phone, or name patterns. Producers can hide budget or contact details and make a brief invite-only. Pitch review uses All/Open/Shortlisted views, with contact fields gated until a positive review state.

Localization

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10 supported locales

English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Brazilian Portuguese, including localized Inbox and Open Briefs. AI matching rewards selected same-language overlap through an explicit language signal while keeping different selected languages eligible for semantic matching through multilingual embeddings; it does not translate content, guarantee compatibility or a match, or create a booking.

Inbox

In-app inbox

Surfaces AI match and pitch-outcome records alongside deal-thread DMs, with unread state, All/Unread filtering, and a resettable empty state. Email work may be queued or retried, so a log is not proof of delivery.

Talent

Self-pitch submission

Signed-in Talent can open an eligible brief, submit one pitch with an optional HTTP(S) profile link, and see a submitted or duplicate state.

Producer

Pitch review and outcomes

Producers review pitches in All, Open, and Shortlisted views, moving them from submitted to triaged, shortlisted, or passed.

Producer

Persistent shortlists

Producers can retain shortlist selections while reviewing briefs and pitches. A shortlist helps organize evaluation; it does not guarantee a booking.

Messaging

Private threaded messaging

Talent and Producers can keep a threaded conversation for scope, rates, dates, usage, and next steps before a formal agreement.

LOI

Letter of Intent acknowledgement

The LOI captures rate, dates, scope, usage rights, revisions, and additional terms; Talent can acknowledge it before the meetup and LOA steps.

LOA

Dual-signature agreement

The LOA carries liability, termination, and IP clauses. The Producer auto-signs on send; Talent signs or rejects.

Talent

Pitch-outcome inbox state

Talent sees the outcome of a Producer review in the inbox and can track read state for that notification.

Producer

Saved briefs

Eligible Producers can save or unsave briefs idempotently and review saved opportunities from the dashboard.

Producer journey

Public path from brief to LOA

The public Producer journey explains brief → AI match → shortlist → chat → LOA → booked, while making clear that a match or chat is not a booking.

Completion

Completion and testimonials

A completed deal closes the project and opens the testimonial flow, with 1–5 star feedback and optional anonymity.

7c. Admin Vertical Tagging

An operator-side taxonomy layer keeps project categories explicit without presenting an administrative edit as an instant rescore or a guaranteed alert.

Read the full Admin Vertical Tagging deep dive

Operator workflow

Authorized operator

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Select primary vertical

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Persist project tag

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Scheduled match check

A thin control surface for project categorisation

At /admin/tags, an authorized operator reviews Producer projects and saves one supported project_vertical: short-film, commercial, theater, or new-media.

Data boundary

Primary tag versus match arrays

The operator-managed vertical is single-valued and persisted by POST /admin/tags/vertical/:id through setProjectVertical. It is distinct from the existing multi-valued verticals array used as a project matching signal.

AI category signal

Bounded vertical overlap

computeMatchScore() compares project verticals with talent project_types. An overlap adds the bounded verticalBoost inside the existing 40% skills component; saving the singular admin field does not itself rescore a project.

Scheduled downstream workflow

New results can qualify for applicable alerts

On the scheduled match-check workflow, newly detected match results can lead to applicable inbox, DM, and email alerts. The admin Save action does not send a notification, and a logged or queued email is not presented as proof of delivery.

8. Market — Non-Union Talent & Global Entertainment Industry

Global creator economy valued at $250B+^¹ (Goldman Sachs 2023); Asia-Pacific the fastest-growing region at 26% CAGR.
10M+^² non-union actors and performers in Asia-Pacific, LatAm, and emerging European markets — underserved by legacy platforms built for union talent.
The gig/platform economy is growing at 17% CAGR^³, with talent platforms capturing an increasing share of the $45B global casting market^⁴.
AI-powered matching in the creative talent space is nascent — UpStage is positioned to lead with multilingual, cross-regional matching.
Southeast Asia's entertainment industry is undergoing rapid digitalisation, driven by streaming platform demand (Netflix, Disney+, local OTT) for regional content.

^¹ Goldman Sachs Research, "Creator Economy Could Approach Half-Trillion Dollars by 2027" (Apr 2023) — goldmansachs.com/insights

^² International Labour Organization, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023 — ilo.org/weso; supplemented by IFPI Global Music Report 2023 on independent performer populations in APAC & LatAm — ifpi.org

^³ Allied Market Research, "Gig Economy Market — Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021–2031" (2022) — alliedmarketresearch.com

^⁴ Grand View Research, "Casting Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2023–2030" — grandviewresearch.com

9. Business Model — Subscription SaaS + Stackable Add-On

Primary revenue: Monthly subscription SaaS — three tiers (Core $19, Pro $50, LOA Add-on $100/mo). Stackable: Buyers can add the LOA tier on top of any plan.

Talent: $19/mo Core subscription — portfolio, DM access, AI match notifications.
Producers and Brands: $19/mo Core + optional $50/mo Pro (AI-curated matching, priority access).
LOA Add-on: $100/mo — AI-generated Letters of Agreement with dual-signature workflow.
Future revenue streams (planned): Premium placements, verified talent badges, agency white-label licensing, transaction fees, and B2B data & analytics.

The subscription model supports recurring access to discovery and deal workflows, while the zero-commission model lets both sides keep more of each deal.

UpStage

$0 commission

Talent keeps 100% of booked fees. Buyers pay no middleman markup.

Traditional Agency

10–20% commission

Both talent earnings and buyer budgets are clipped by the agency's take — every deal.

10. Infrastructure Partners

UpStage is built on a best-in-class partner stack enabling rapid iteration without a large engineering team:

Polsia	Platform hosting, AI agent runtime, OpenAI proxy, email proxy, Stripe proxy, analytics beacon
Render	Cloud hosting, zero-downtime auto-deploy from Git
Neon	Serverless PostgreSQL — scales to zero, instant branch previews
AWS S3	Reliable, globally distributed file storage
Stripe	Subscription billing, trial management, coupon codes, customer portal
Meta	Paid acquisition — Facebook & Instagram advertising, audience targeting

11. The Ask

We are raising a seed round to accelerate growth and capture the emerging markets opportunity.

40% Paid Acquisition Scale-Up — Ramp Meta ad spend to 5× current; expand into Japan + Germany markets.

30% Partnerships & B2B (Planned) — Hire 1 partnerships manager; agency outreach; white-label pilots with Singapore production houses.

20% Mobile App (Planned) — Native iOS/Android app to increase engagement, retention, and APAC market penetration.

10% Operations — Customer support, content moderation tooling, compliance for new markets.

Rachel Loh

Founder & CEO

rachelloh@upstage.network | +65 9272 7466 | upstageplatform.com

Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm happy to share more details, walk through the platform live, or schedule a follow-up call at your convenience.