The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

In an era where humans visiting Mars is in the near future and in an era where cryptocurrency is creating billion-dollar fortunes overnight, the idea of a fintech platform that’s set to rival Microsoft’s behemoth LinkedIn suddenly seems plausible.

LinkedIn has dominated the fintech sector for nearly 18 years with very little competition. If you need further proof of its unchallenged dominance, in 2016, Microsoft MSFT valued and purchased the platform at over $26 billion. Flashforward to today, a new player is set to enter the mostly sparse arena, with its eyes firmly fixed on taking away LinkedIn’s title belt. That company is NeonCEO.

What is NeonCEO?

NeonCEO is a 100% free online collaborative platform that allows its users to build out their businesses. Included in the platform are unlimited free video meetings (with auto translate options), project management timeline tools, global industry analytics reports, and document generation, for NDA’s and other related business documents. 

The focus of NeonCEO is to empower the masses of people worldwide who have amazing business ideas by linking them with talented resources who are willing to take equity in exchange for their time and skills. The NeonCEO platform also allows its users to search for their perfect team by allowing start-ups to review the profiles and qualifications of those seeking work and/or equity. For those not willing to give away equity, NeonCEO offers the capability of simply hiring a freelancer.

What sets NeonCEO apart as a potential contender for the next Fortune 500 Company is that investors are also welcome on the platform. Investors can join NeonCEO and seek out the next game-changing idea - likely at the pre-investment stage. 

Venture Capitalists Rival for Stake in NeonCEO

In late 2020, a bidding war took place between rival venture capital firms, each one hoping to secure their place in NeonCEO’s future. By early 2021, while the platform was still in development, NeonCEO had already received a $10 million valuation. Since then, potential investors have been left scrambling to take a piece of NeonCEO. However, some speculate that although NeonCEO fills a need in the market, the features it promises are lofty and will need a larger development team to truly live up to its promises. 

Bennet Schwartz & Benjamin Sarabande (co-founder and founder of NeonCEO)
Credit: NeonCEO

Co-founder Benjamin Sarabande, a former advertising executive and well-known Australian entrepreneur commented, “Seeing the rise of start-ups during the pandemic inspired us to start NeonCEO. It's estimated there are around 50 million start-ups created every year – from Sydney, Australia to New York – and of those 50 million start-ups, more than 99% fail”. 

NeonCEO’s major shareholder, mining magnate Bennet Schwartz, further commented, “Not all start-ups fail because the idea wasn’t good enough. Many fail due to other metrics like being under-funded, having incompatible co-founders - or no co-founders at all. NeonCEO connects the pipeline of amazing ideas with the supply of talented resources whilst allowing for various capital investment strategies. On top of that, it provides powerful tools to manage and grow your business”.

The Future of Collaborative Start-ups

In the U.S. alone, total business applications were up 42% in May 2021 compared to May of 2020. The pandemic has changed the way individuals view the stability of their jobs. Consequently, some of these same individuals have decided to take their careers into their own hands by building a business.

It's precisely these ideologies that NeonCEO embraces that could spell more disruption for Microsoft, an empire that has dominated the tech landscape since the late 70s. Unless Microsoft is willing to truly listen to new global sentiments that materialized since the pandemic, polarising platforms, like NeonCEO, will eventually out-think, out-innovate, and out-class established giants.

The private beta launch for NeonCEO is expected to launch in the near future. At this stage, the future of NeonCEO is uncertain and untested. However, if NeonCEO can live up to the promise of being a platform that allows its users to realize their start-up and for investors to get an early piece of the pie, NeonCEO will be unstoppable. 

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.