AI-Powered Art Opportunities

Callisto

Aggregating residencies, grants, and open calls for 55M+ artists worldwide. One feed. Zero noise.

1,500
Users in first month
$0
Marketing spend
50+
Sources monitored
94%
Complete onboarding
01 — THE PROBLEM

The opportunity hunt is exhausting

12+
Days to find 5 grants
Artists spend weeks just identifying suitable opportunities scattered across hundreds of websites.
10-40
Hours per application
Each grant requires reformatting CVs, rewriting statements, resizing images. No "Common App" exists.
6%
Success rate (Guggenheim)
Top grants have brutal odds. Artists gamble $25-35 submission fees on low-probability outcomes.
Artists spend 20%+ of working time on unpaid administrative work. The result: deadlines missed, opportunities lost, burnout.
02 — THE SOLUTION

One feed. Zero noise.

Callisto is a Telegram bot that aggregates art opportunities from 50+ sources and uses AI to filter them for each artist.

How it works:

1. Connect — Set your preferences: medium, geography, budget requirements.

2. Relax — AI monitors sources 24/7, filters out the noise.

3. Apply — Get personalized digests with direct links, deadline alerts.

Why Telegram?
Zero friction — artists already live there. No app download, no new login. 900M+ active users globally.
Why AI?
Our classifier extracts 15+ structured fields from each listing — funding details, eligibility, career stage, location. Semantic matching based on your actual practice, not keywords. Recommendations that improve with every interaction.
03 — MARKET SIZE

A massive, underserved market

55M
Total Addressable Market
Active opportunity seekers globally
11M
High-Intent Segment
Apply to 3-5 opportunities per year
$3.5B+
Foundation Arts Funding
In US alone. Billions more in EU.
The money exists. $3.5B+ in foundation funding annually. The problem is distribution and matching — the "Starving Artist" is a data problem.
04 — TRACTION

Product-market fit validated

1,500
Users
First month
$0
Marketing
100% organic
50+
Sources
And growing
Quality signals: 94% complete onboarding (set genres). 97% keep daily digest on. 76% of opportunities AI-enriched with location, funding, eligibility data.
05 — TECHNOLOGY

AI that actually understands art

Not just scraping — semantic understanding. Our AI classifier uses chain-of-thought reasoning to extract structured data from unstructured listings.

What we extract:

→ 27 art genres — from Painting to NFTs, Sound Art to Social Practice

→ Location hierarchy — region, country, city with 8 global zones

→ Funding intelligence — is it funded? Fee to apply? Exact amounts

→ Eligibility parsing — career stage, nationality restrictions, age limits

Personalization Engine
Genre-based scoring (10 pts per match). Region filtering with Online priority. Deduplication across digests. Result: every user sees their best opportunities first.
Beyond Discovery
Bookmark with 1-tap. Get deadline reminders (3 days, 1 day). Export to Google Calendar. Share via Telegram inline. Full application workflow.
Growth Mechanics
Referral system with 7-day activation threshold (quality, not spam). Daily inspirational quotes for retention. User-submitted opportunities with moderation.
06 — TEAM

Built by someone who lives this

Kirill Pobedin

Kirill Pobedin

Founder
Domain expertise:
  • Founder of The Frame Society — global art collective mentoring hundreds of artists, $250K+ in artwork sales facilitated
  • Produced Bali Art Residency (2024/2025) — 650+ international applications, featured in documentary films: "Earth Of The Art" & "You May Know Them"
  • Curated exhibitions in NYC, Paris, Milan, Belgium, Bali
Industry access:
  • Partnerships with SuperRare, Ninfa Gallery, Artcrush
  • Speaker at NFT Paris, NFT NYC, NFC Lisbon, Barcelona Digital Art Summit
  • Network spanning collectors, institutions, and MFA programs across 25+ countries
Technical:
  • Full-stack founder — built entire AI pipeline, parser infrastructure, and personalization engine solo
  • 5 production parsers, Claude API integration, async Python backend
Why me:
"I run a grant program myself. I know the pain from both sides — the artist searching for opportunities, and the residency drowning in unqualified applications. Callisto solves both."
07 — COMPETITION

Web 1.0 directories vs AI-native

ArtRabbit ResArtis CaFÉ Callisto
AI Matching — — — Yes
Data Enrichment — — — 76%+
Personalized Feed — — — Yes
Mobile-First — — — Telegram
No Per-App Fees Yes Yes $25-35 Yes
Modern UX OK Dated Dated Native
Deadline Alerts — — — Yes
Incumbents are directories. We're an intelligent agent that works for the artist. CaFÉ charges $25-35 per application. Artists hate it. We charge $10/month for unlimited.
08 — ROADMAP

18-Month Plan

Q1 2026
Launch Premium
Premium tier at $10/mo. AI smart matching. Target: 10K users.
Q2 2026
B2B Launch
Promoted listings. Residency partnerships. Target: 25K users.
Q3-Q4 2026
Scale
EU market expansion. MFA partnerships. Target: 50K users.
2027
Expand
AI application assistant. Web app. Target: 150K+ users.
Use of funds: 60% product development, 25% growth and partnerships, 15% runway buffer
09 — BUSINESS MODEL

Freemium SaaS + B2B

B2C Subscription

Free Tier
Basic search, limited results. Lead generation & algorithm training.
Premium — $10/mo
Full access, AI matching, deadline alerts, personalized digests. Annual: $85/year (~29% discount).

B2B Revenue

Promoted Listings
Residencies and grant programs pay for visibility. $150-300 per listing.
Talent Pipeline
MFA programs and residencies recruit from our "emerging artist" pool. Validated by Handshake's $3.5B model.
10 — PROJECTIONS

2-Year Financial Model

Year 1
46K
Users

Revenue: $79K

EBITDA: $52K

Cash: $77K

Year 2
179K
Users

Revenue: $696K

EBITDA: $577K

Cash: $654K

Assumptions: 33% monthly growth (viral community), 4-6% conversion to premium, $10/mo pricing. Conservative scenario: 18% growth → 2.5x return in 40 months.
11 — INVESTMENT

Revenue Share Model

Investment Ask
$25K
20%
Revenue Share
2.5x
Return Cap
18mo
Target Timeline
How it works
Investor receives 20% of gross revenue monthly until total payout reaches $62,500 (2.5x investment). No equity dilution. Predictable returns. Aligned incentives.
12 — WHY NOW

The window is open

Generative AI
LLMs transform value from listing to matching. We understand artist practices semantically.
80% productivity gains reported
Digital Nomad Boom
53% of EU creatives work cross-border. Artists need global opportunity discovery.
Virtual residencies normalized
Telegram Moment
Artists already live there. Zero friction — no app download required.
900M+ active users
Weak Incumbents
ArtRabbit, ResArtis, CaFÉ are Web 1.0. No AI, bad UX. Ripe for disruption.
First mover advantage
Let's Build Together

The "Starving Artist" is a data problem.

Billions in funding exist. The inefficiency is in matching artists to opportunities. Callisto fixes this.

$25K
Investment
2.5x
Return
18mo
Timeline
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