PitchBoulder

PixelPay (https://www.linkedin.com/company/pixelpay-app) — Co-Founder Hannah Michaud presenting — is a hardware and software platform that enables digital payments on coin-operated machines.

Millions of coin-operated machines still rely on cash, creating lost revenue and inconvenience for both operators and customers. PixelPay enables digital payments through a small internal retrofit device that connects to a QR code displayed on the machine. Users simply scan and pay instantly without requiring a traditional card reader.

Unlike most payment upgrades, PixelPay does not require cutting into the machine, making installation faster, cheaper, and compatible with both vintage and modern equipment. The goal is to modernize coin-operated machines without expensive hardware replacements.

Our target market is owners and operators of coin-operated machines in the U.S. who need low-cost digital payment upgrades and are willing to pay for higher revenue, easier maintenance, and better customer experience.

Our competition is traditional card reader systems, machine replacement, and cash-only operation. Our competitive advantage is noninvasive installation, lower cost hardware, QR-based payments, and compatibility with older machines.

The total market size in 2024 is the U.S. unattended retail and coin-operated machine market, and the total market revenue in 2024 is $10B+.

Top 3 challenges:

1. Limited time since the founding team is working full-time jobs
2. Scaling hardware manufacturing and supply chain
3. Building distribution through machine operators and industry partners

Our PitchBoulder ask: We are looking for warm introductions to owners and operators of coin-operated machines of any kind, as well as recommendations for local PCB and cable manufacturers with fast turnaround times. We also welcome feedback on scaling a hardware startup while still operating part-time.

Retrocycle (http://retrocycle.org) — Co-Founder MK Katz presenting — is building a town-wide reusable cup network to replace single-use coffee cups in Colorado communities.

Colorado throws away millions of single-use coffee cups every year, most of which cannot be recycled and end up in landfills. Retrocycle replaces disposable cups with a shared reuse system where customers borrow a reusable cup at one café and return it anywhere in the network. The company manages cup design, inventory, distribution, signage, and café onboarding, making the system simple for both businesses and customers.

Retrocycle partners directly with municipalities such as Breckenridge, Vail, and Steamboat to align with local climate goals and help fund reuse programs. The result is a turnkey, town-branded system that reduces waste, lowers café costs, and makes sustainable behavior easy.

Our target market is municipalities, cafés, and environmentally conscious communities in the U.S. who need practical alternatives to single-use packaging and are willing to pay for waste reduction, cost savings, and climate impact.

Our competition is single-use packaging, small independent reuse programs, and deposit-return systems. Our competitive advantage is a turnkey, town-wide reuse network that combines municipal partnerships, café onboarding, and centralized logistics.

The total market size in 2024 is the U.S. food service packaging and waste reduction market, and the total market revenue in 2024 is $25B+.

Top 3 challenges:

1. Scaling operations and logistics across multiple Colorado towns at the same time
2. Building sustainable funding through a mix of municipal support, philanthropy, and earned revenue
3. Driving behavior change so residents and visitors consistently use and return reusable cups

Our PitchBoulder ask: We are laying the groundwork for a future customer app to support rewards and engagement within the reuse network. If you have app engineering experience and are interested in contributing to an impact-driven, community-focused project, we would love to connect. We also welcome feedback on scaling civic and climate-focused business models.

Pristino Labs (http://www.pristinolabs.com) — Founder George Bezerra presenting — is building infrastructure that makes AI agents reliable enough to operate on enterprise data without constant human supervision.

Today, AI agents struggle to work safely with real business data because systems are fragmented and meaning is inconsistent across tools. This creates a “trust gap” that forces companies to keep humans in the loop, slowing down automation. Pristino Labs solves this by creating a Unified Logic Layer that encodes business intent and gives AI agents a consistent way to understand data. Their product is a standardized MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that acts like an operating system for AI agents. This allows many specialized agents to work together reliably, unlocking truly autonomous workflows across the enterprise.

Our target market is enterprise software teams and data-driven companies in the U.S. who need reliable AI automation across complex data systems and are willing to pay for infrastructure that enables safe, scalable autonomous workflows.

Our competition is custom internal AI tooling, workflow automation platforms, and LLM orchestration frameworks. Our competitive advantage is a deterministic logic layer that reduces AI errors, standardizes context, and enables multiple agents to operate safely across the data stack.

The total market size in 2024 is the enterprise AI and automation infrastructure market, and the total market revenue in 2024 is $50B+.

Top 3 challenges:

1. Finding strong design partners and early traction
2. Building a technical team capable of executing the vision
3. Raising initial funding as a first-time founder

Our PitchBoulder ask: This will be my first time raising venture capital, and I’m looking for honest feedback from an investor perspective. What would you need to see to believe this can become a venture-scale company, and how can I improve my pitch, story, and traction to be ready for VC conversations?