Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started In this interview, we speak with Alex Rai, the creator behind Summa, an AI-powered investor matchmaking platform. We discuss how the platform connects early-stage founders with relevant investors using semantic search and the project's recent hackathon success. Summa What does Summa do? And why is now the time for it to exist? Summa is an AI-powered investor matchmaking platform that helps startup founders find the most relevant investors for their company. It uses NLP and semantic similarity to match founder pitch descriptions with investor theses, check sizes, stages, and geographies, saving founders time and increasing fundraising efficiency. Now’s a good time for Summa to exist because AI and semantic matching can finally democratize access to capital, making fundraising more merit-driven and less dependent on warm introductions. How many people does Summa reach? Summa currently serves early users through direct founder outreach and demos, with dozens of founders testing investor matches monthly. We are in active iteration based on founder feedback and expect usage to scale as we expand our investor database and add messaging features. Who does your Summa serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers? Summa is built for early-stage startup founders (pre-seed to Series A) who are fundraising and want to identify the most relevant investors efficiently. It is especially valuable for first-time founders, technical founders, and founders outside major VC hubs who lack warm investor networks. What technologies were used in the making of Summa? And why did you choose the ones most essential to your tech stack? Summa leverages a modern technology stack that includes Bright Data, Neo4j, Algolia, and Storyblok, deployed on Google Cloud Run. We chose Python, Pandas, and NLP embeddings to power our backend because they are crucial for accurately cleaning data and executing the cosine similarity pipelines that match unstructured founder pitches with investor criteria. Additionally, we use React and TailwindCSS on the frontend to provide a clean and intuitive experience, while integrating Genesis AI for dynamic investor summary generation. Summa scored a 62 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/summa) Summa scored a 62 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/summa) https://proofofusefulness.com/report/summa What excites you about this Summa's potential usefulness? Fundraising is one of the most time-consuming and opaque parts of building a startup. Summa demonstrates how AI can turn unstructured text—founder pitches and investor theses—into actionable matches that save founders weeks of manual research. What excites us most is enabling founders with limited networks to access the right investors faster, making fundraising more merit-driven and less dependent on warm introductions. Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: brightdata.com Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: more Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Start for free . Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Learn more

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Summa Earns a 62 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building an AI-Powered Investor Matchmaking Platform

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