April 30, 2025
After years of working with high-growth companies expanding into Europe and North America, I kept running into the same paradox. I watched brilliant founders build cutting-edge products using the most advanced tech stacks in the world, yet when it came time to open a new office or factory, they were suddenly transported back to the 1990s.
The roadblocks were constant: fragmented data buried in municipal PDFs, slow decision-making based on anecdotes rather than analytics, and a total lack of clarity around how to leverage available incentives. Companies were making multi-million dollar decisions based on "gut feel" or a few conversations, rather than hard data.
The Spark
In mid-2024, I reached out to Kajal Sanghrajka—someone I had worked with years earlier while co-founding Mindfire. I had an idea to reimagine global expansion using AI. I knew that if we could structure this chaotic data, we could unlock massive value.
What I didn’t know? Kajal was days away from giving birth.
She told me to call her back in a few months—and I did. Once she’d made it through the newborn phase (easier said than done, as any parent knows), we got to work.
Validating the "Black Box" Problem
Our first step wasn't writing code; it was listening. We spent weeks talking to over two dozen founders, CEOs, and CFOs who had gone through expansion firsthand. Their experiences helped us validate the business case and sharpen our vision.
The feedback was consistent and alarming. We heard stories of CFOs realizing two years too late that they had missed out on millions in tax credits. We heard from founders who avoided expanding into the U.S. entirely because the complexity of 50 different state tax codes felt like a "black box" they couldn't decipher.
Together, Kajal and I had seen both sides of the expansion equation: U.S. companies entering Europe, and European founders struggling to navigate the maze of U.S. state programs and hidden incentives. The status quo was not just inefficient—it was costly. It stifled growth and kept capital from flowing to the regions that needed it most.
Building the Solution: Upsite Systems
So we founded Upsite Systems: The world’s first platform to provide comprehensive, real-time location data and a marketplace to connect businesses and governments.
Our goal is to make location-based due diligence faster, smarter, and more transparent. By surfacing available incentives, tax credits, and other support programs in real time, we help companies assess new markets with clarity and confidence. We are moving the industry from "who you know" to "what the data says."
A Two-Sided Marketplace
Crucially, this isn't just a tool for corporations. We are also empowering local governments and Economic Development Organizations (EDOs).
For decades, cities and states have struggled to market their competitive advantages to the right companies. They spend fortunes on broad marketing campaigns with no clear attribution. Upsite allows them to focus their efforts on high-potential businesses that bring real ROI and long-term growth to their regions. It transforms economic development from a passive hope into an active, data-driven strategy.
The Road Ahead
Our first product already maps 2,500+ incentive programs across the U.S., helping companies discover funding opportunities in minutes—not months. This immediate transparency changes the negotiation leverage and ensures that expansion capital goes further.
More to come—but we’re excited to finally share the beginning of this journey. We are building the operating system for global growth.
If you're a founder, CFO, or expansion lead navigating growth across borders, we’d love to hear your story.
