NextGem

Written By Derrick Fountain

AI-Driven Discovery for Rare Sports Cards

NextGem is a digital marketplace for rare and graded sports cards. I took over as CEO to relaunch the platform with a focus on growth, modern UX, and AI-powered card discovery. The result was a platform showcasing over 250,000 unique cards, valued at more than $100M.

Key Contributions:

  • AI-Powered Search: Deployed computer vision models for smarter image tagging, filtering, and price discovery.

  • Growth Strategy: Designed content-driven acquisition funnels that tapped into niche collector communities.

  • Automation: Built workflows to ingest, verify, and publish large volumes of cards from sellers and collectors.

  • Investor & Stakeholder Management: Raised seed capital and led communications with investors during relaunch and pivot.

Derrick Fountain
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