Your next-door neighbor could have the next million-dollar business idea and you might be none the wiser. PitchMap, a Raleigh startup presenting a map-based networking platform for entrepreneurs, wants to change that.
As a child, PitchMap CEO Cameron Yemmi always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. The grandson of a successful business owner in Paris, Yemmi recalled playing pretend as a CEO with his cousins in the living room, doling out wads of Monopoly money.
Yemmi began his career working in sales, but held onto the dream of starting his own business. As a young man, he found that getting started in entrepreneurship was harder than he thought; he felt like he was missing a tool that would help connect him with mentors, investors and fellow entrepreneurs.
“I just imagine if, when I was 18, I had PitchMap on my phone, it would be way easier because I feel like I can just open my phone and then post an ad,” Yemmi said. “I’m gonna be like, ‘Hey, I’m Cam. I’m 18 years old. I want to start my own business. This is my idea. This is what I want to do’ and then my post is seen by all members around the world.”
What’s on the map?
PitchMap offers a website application that shows events, professionals and opportunities for entrepreneurs on an interactive map, encouraging collaboration and community in the entrepreneurship space. Users can filter results by industry, role, distance and more, with a space to amplify opportunities by writing up a quick post that can be shared and commented on.
An integrated AI assistant, CODY, makes the process quick and easy by summarizing relevant opportunities near you and helping to write and optimize posts for a user’s profile.
The application also provides an option to create Groups, wherein users can curate small communities comprised of other like-minded people and create a feed of related opportunities and news. These Groups can be upgraded to a premium version called an Inner Circle, at which point members pay to join the group—similar to a paywalled newsletter or job board.
PitchMap will operate mainly by way of a subscription-based revenue model from the Inner Circle feature. At this premium level, each user pays $29 to join an “Inner Circle” group. PitchMap takes 20% of the revenue from these subscriptions while the owner of the Inner Circle receives the remaining 80%.
Yemmi said PitchMap partially arose from a gap that he felt when using LinkedIn, which on the surface is similar to PitchMap in the way that it attempts to combine social media and the professional world. He emphasized that while LinkedIn is a sort of summary of one’s professional past, PitchMap tries to represent someone’s future: their goals, their passions and their aspirations.
“If I go to your LinkedIn profile, I will see, for example, your previous experience, your education experience, when you went to college and everything,” Yemmi said. “So it’s about your past and what you’ve done. But really, we don’t know what you’re doing in this present moment. We don’t know what you’re looking for. We don’t know practically anything. It’s just a digital resume.
“So PitchMap is about the present moment and the future; it’s about what you’re looking for, what you want to do, what you are building at this moment.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: PitchMap
Founder: Cameron Yemmi
Founded: 2025
Team size: 4
Location: Raleigh
Website: pitchmap.app
Funding: Raising pre-seed
Originally from France, Yemmi moved to the Triangle with his sister in 2022 and fell in love with North Carolina. He mentioned Venture Connect (and other CED events) and Grep-a-Palooza among the events that have helped him immerse himself and learn from the Triangle ecosystem. He also noted that it’s been particularly helpful to see how other founders pitch their companies to the public.
Though the PitchMap application is fully up and accessible online, Yemmi is still at the beginning of his journey. He is working on developing a mobile app for iOS and Android, and wants to work on expanding the PitchMap user base.
That starts with a launch party almost immediately following this very article’s publication (on Thursday, August 13th in Raleigh).
