Executive Summary

Investigative journalists, researchers, NGOs, and true-crime audiences currently waste time and money chasing fragmented, unverified public records across court clerks, archives, and paywalled databases, which slows investigations and undermines credibility. The core pain is both discovery—poor search and linking of scanned materials—and trust—lack of provenance and verification for high-profile documents. You could build a subscription-backed searchable archive and mobile app that ingests scanned documents, applies modern OCR and NER to index and link entities, attaches provenance/verification metadata, and offers bulk API access and research-grade exports. Tiered pricing would serve consumer browsing at roughly $40 ACV while offering higher-priced institutional plans for journalists and NGOs. The addressable market looks attractive at an estimated $1.2B (30M subscribers × $40 ACV), supported by consumer willingness to pay for niche trustworthy content, advances in automated indexing, and growing demand from investigative professionals. This idea can stand out by combining rigorous provenance verification, a curated editorial layer that connects documents to narratives, and developer APIs for investigations; the medium competition level and high market/revenue scores (85/100 and 82/100) indicate strong potential, but be upfront about acquisition costs for archives, legal/rights clearance, and the operational effort required to scale trustworthy verification.

Market Opportunity

Searchable, verified archive and mobile app for high-profile public records targets a $1.2B = 30M subscribers × $40 ACV (global audience willing to pay for niche investigative/true-crime archival access) total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 10% YoY = growth in paid news subscriptions and podcast audiences supporting niche paid content (source: Reuters Institute and industry subscription trends).

Key trends driving demand: Trend — Consumers increasingly pay for niche, trustworthy news and archival content, creating a market for specialized subscription services.; Trend — Advances in OCR and NER allow automated indexing and linking of scanned documents and images, making archival discovery products feasible.; Trend — Journalists and NGOs demand bulk access to primary-source datasets and APIs to power investigations, increasing willingness to pay for research-grade tools.; Trend — Mobile consumption and in-app purchase flows make it easier to monetize small, loyal audiences via subscriptions..

Key competitors include DocumentCloud, Bellingcat, Internet Archive.

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Searchable, verified archive and mobile app for high-profile public records

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

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