Vision — from discovery to marketplace
Solana startups surface scattered across X, Telegram, Discord, demo days, and private groups. If you want to know what is being built, who is raising, or which teams are open to acquisition conversations, you piece it together from threads, screenshots, and word of mouth. There is no structured venue where stage, traction, and intent are visible in one place — and trustworthy when you find them.
That gap hurts everyone. Founders repeat their story in a dozen channels. Investors and acquirers scan noise for signal. Builders cannot see who is actually hiring or shipping.
Orbital exists to close it. It starts as the discovery layer — a clearer view of what is being built across Solana — and it is becoming the marketplace where Solana startups raise funding, find buyers, and eventually hire. That is the destination, not the current product: today Orbital is discovery and intent, and everything beyond that is roadmap.
Stage 1 — Discovery and intent (live today)
This stage is shipped and running in production.
- Verified profiles. Listing is free, and a human reviews every submission before it is approved and published. No listing goes live unreviewed.
- Market signals. Founders declare intent with two signals — "Raising funds" and "Open to acquisition" (an invitation to a conversation, nothing more) — and anyone can filter the marketplace by them, alongside stage, categories, and tech stack. No account needed to browse.
- The Orbital. A 3D globe of geo-located published startups. Click a marker to open the startup; featured ones show in gold.
- Founder contact. Outbound links to a founder's X or Telegram. There is deliberately no in-app inbox today — see Messaging for why.
- Featured listings. 20 USDC for 7 days of top placement, paid on Solana and verified on-chain before activation.
Start with Discover or List your startup.
Pillar A — Funding
Today, "Raising funds" is a self-declared signal. Orbital does not verify fundraising claims, and the conversation itself happens off-platform through the founder's public links.
The vision is to close that distance: raise profiles with round details, investor accounts, and structured intro requests, so that discovery converts into funding conversations on-platform instead of dissolving into DMs.
Pillar B — Acquisitions
Today, "Open to acquisition" means exactly one thing: the founder is open to a conversation. It implies no price, no process, and no commitment from anyone.
The vision is a real acquisition flow built on that signal: acquisition listings, deal rooms for diligence, and eventually escrowed USDC settlement on Solana. To be explicit: Orbital does not broker, execute, or settle acquisitions today.
Pillar C — Talent
Every published startup already lists its team, and every team member has a public profile. The natural extension is a jobs layer: startups post roles, and builders find them through the same trusted profiles they already browse. We are exploring this direction — of the three pillars, it carries the softest commitment.
Why Solana rails
The marketplace vision is not a bet on unproven infrastructure. Real USDC payments already run in production on Orbital: featured listings are paid with a USDC transfer on Solana, signed through embedded wallets with one-click, single-signature UX, and verified on-chain before the placement activates. Users who arrive without crypto can fund their wallet by card through the built-in onramp.
In other words, the rails that will later carry marketplace transactions already carry real payments today. The details are in Technology.
Principles
The order of operations above is deliberate. These principles govern it.
| Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Trust before transactions | Discovery has to be trustworthy before money moves. We ship marketplace mechanics only on top of profiles people already rely on. |
| Every listing human-reviewed | A person reviews and approves or rejects every submission before it is published. |
| No crypto friction | Sign in with email, Google, or a wallet. An embedded Solana wallet is created automatically for users who arrive without one. |
| Radical honesty | We state plainly what is live and what is planned, in the product and in these docs. |
What this vision does not mean today
Orbital does not hold funds in escrow, broker deals, verify fundraising claims, or endorse any listing. In-app messaging, intro requests, deal rooms, investor or buyer accounts, and a jobs board are not live. The Roadmap tracks the current status of every item on this page.