Misprint

Cover Block

Name	Misprint
Tagline	Real-time ML-powered marketplace for graded Pokémon cards
Headquarters	New York, NY, USA
Founded	2025
Stage	Pre-Seed
Business Model	Marketplace
Industry	E-commerce / Retail
Technology	AI / Machine Learning
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Co-Founders (2)
Funding Label	Pre-seed (total disclosed ~$500,000)

Links

• Website: https://misprint.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/misprint-inc/
• Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/misprint

The Short Version

Misprint is building a real-time, ML-powered marketplace for graded Pokémon cards, a bet that the $1B+ collectibles market is ready for the same price transparency and liquidity that transformed equity trading [Y Combinator, 2025]. The company emerged from a 2025 Y Combinator batch, founded by collector Eva Herget and mathematician Jonathan Jenkins, who left his PhD program to build the platform after developing a tool to price cards faster [Fondo, 2025]. The core product is a bid/ask marketplace that uses machine learning to analyze millions of auction and sales data points, aiming to provide instant, transparent valuations and faster listings than incumbent auction houses and forums [Y Combinator, 2025]. A $500,000 pre-seed round, led by YC and joined by Ludlow Ventures and Multimodal Ventures, funds the initial build-out of a four-person team in New York [Crunchbase, Mar 2025]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key milestones to watch are the validation of its proprietary pricing model with actual transaction volume, the transition from a side-project user base to named institutional sellers, and the expansion of its engineering team as signaled by two open YC job postings for founding engineers [Y Combinator, 2026].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core company description and funding round corroborated by YC and Crunchbase; team size and background are single-source.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Pre-Seed
Business Model	Marketplace
Industry / Vertical	E-commerce / Retail
Technology Type	AI / Machine Learning
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Co-Founders (2)
Funding	Pre-seed (total disclosed ~$500,000)

The Company in Brief

Misprint was founded in 2025 as a Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch company, originating from a side project by its co-founders to address opaque pricing in the graded Pokémon card market [Y Combinator, 2025]. The company is headquartered in New York, NY, and operates as a marketplace, positioning itself as a modern, data-driven alternative to traditional auction houses and forums for collectors and investors [Crunchbase, 2025].

The founding narrative describes the project's evolution from a pricing tool built by the founders into a full-fledged marketplace after they gathered millions of sales data points [Fondo, 2025]. Encouraged by their network, they applied to Y Combinator, which provided the initial capital and structure to transition from a side project to a venture-backed startup [Startup Intros]. The company's key public milestone is its acceptance into and launch from the Y Combinator accelerator program in early 2025 [Y Combinator, 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Founding year and YC affiliation are confirmed by multiple sources; headquarters and business model are from Crunchbase and the company website. The founding story is sourced from a single third-party blog post.

What They Have Built

Misprint’s core proposition is a specialized marketplace that applies financial market mechanics to the trading of graded Pokémon cards. The platform is described as offering a real-time bid/ask system, aiming to provide the price transparency and liquidity that collectors and investors find lacking on existing auction houses and forums [Y Combinator, 2025]. The company’s public framing positions it as “Robinhood for Pokemon cards,” a comparison that emphasizes ease of access and data-driven pricing over the traditional, opaque negotiation process [Y Combinator, 2025].

The underlying technology is centered on machine learning models that analyze what the company claims are millions of data points from historical auctions, grading reports, and sales. This analysis is intended to generate transparent pricing guidance for users [Y Combinator, 2025]. A secondary, unverified claim suggests the platform enables listings “20x faster than competitors,” though the specific benchmark and methodology are not detailed [Perplexity Sonar Pro, 2025]. The company’s own blog includes content aimed at the collector community, such as a guide to the best Pokémon card scanners, which serves as both a utility and a traffic driver to the marketplace [Misprint, 2026].

Insights can be inferred from recent hiring efforts. Two founding engineer roles posted on Y Combinator’s job board in 2026 specify areas of ownership: one for the marketplace systems and product, and another dedicated to machine learning, data engineering, and pricing models [Y Combinator, 2026]. This suggests a technical architecture built around a core transactional marketplace, supported by a dedicated data pipeline for ingesting and modeling collectibles sales data.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core product claims are sourced from the company's YC profile and demo; technical depth and performance claims lack independent verification.

Market Size and Demand

The market for high-end collectibles has transitioned from a niche hobby to a recognized alternative asset class, creating a structural need for the price discovery and liquidity mechanisms that define mature financial markets.

Quantifying the total addressable market for graded Pokémon cards specifically is challenging. The company's own promotional video references a market with "$1B+ in sales volume" [YouTube, 2025], a figure that aligns with broader industry coverage of the trading card sector but lacks independent verification. For context, the global sports trading card market was valued at an estimated $13.8 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $62.8 billion by 2032, according to a report by Spherical Insights [Spherical Insights, 2023].

Demand is driven by several converging tailwinds. The pandemic-era surge in collectibles as both a nostalgic pastime and an investment vehicle has sustained, with platforms like eBay and PWCC reporting continued high transaction volumes. Demographic shifts are also a factor, as millennials and Gen Z, who grew up with the Pokémon franchise, now have disposable income to allocate to high-value collectibles. Furthermore, the professionalization of the space through third-party grading services (PSA, Beckett, CGC) has created a standardized, fungible asset, which is a prerequisite for any efficient marketplace. The Y Combinator profile for Misprint explicitly frames the problem as one of "opaque values on scattered platforms" [Y Combinator, 2025].

Metric	Value
Global Sports Trading Card Market 2023	$13.8B
Projected Global Sports Trading Card Market 2032	$62.8B

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market size claims are based on a company promotional video and an analogous third-party report for a broader adjacent market. The $1B+ Pokémon sales volume figure is not independently corroborated.

Who Else Is Fighting for This

Misprint enters a fragmented market for high-value collectibles where liquidity and price discovery are historically opaque, positioning itself as a technology-first marketplace against a mix of auction houses, online platforms, and peer-to-peer forums.

Company	Positioning	Stage / Funding	Notable Differentiator
Misprint	Real-time, ML-powered bid/ask marketplace for graded Pokémon cards.	Pre-seed, ~$500k raised	Automated pricing and listings claimed to be 20x faster than competitors.
eBay	Generalist online auction and retail platform for all collectibles.	Public company.	Unmatched global reach and buyer liquidity across all categories.
PWCC	Auction house and marketplace specializing in high-end graded trading cards.	Privately held; funding not disclosed.	Deep expertise and trust in the high-end ($10k+) segment; established vault service.
Goldin	Premier auction house for high-value sports memorabilia and cards.	Acquired by Collectors Holdings (2021).	Brand authority and consignment relationships with top-tier collectors and athletes.
StockX	Live marketplace for sneakers, streetwear, electronics, and collectibles.	Late-stage private; raised ~$690M.	Proven bid/ask model and authentication infrastructure scaled to new categories.

Misprint's current defensible edge rests on two linked assets: its proprietary dataset and the speed of its listing engine. The company's machine learning models are trained on "millions of data points from auctions, grading, and sales" to generate transparent pricing [Y Combinator, 2025]. This data moat, if continuously enriched by marketplace activity, could create a feedback loop where better pricing attracts more volume, which in turn improves the models. The operational claim of "listings 20x faster than competitors" targets a clear pain point for sellers, though this metric is sourced from a single, unverified outlet [Perplexity Sonar Pro, 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor profiles are well-established; Misprint's differentiation claims (20x faster listings) are from a single unverified source.

Opportunity

If the thesis holds, Misprint could capture a meaningful share of the opaque, high-value market for graded collectibles, a prize potentially worth billions. The headline opportunity for Misprint is to become the primary, trusted marketplace for high-value graded collectibles, starting with Pokémon cards. The company's core premise is that a transparent, real-time bid/ask system can unlock liquidity and price discovery in a market currently fragmented across auction houses, forums, and generalist platforms [Y Combinator, 2025].

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Category King in Graded Pokémon	Misprint becomes the default platform for serious collectors and investors in graded Pokémon cards.	A major grading service (e.g., PSA, BGS) integrates its certification data.	The company's stated focus on ML-driven pricing relies on grading data.
Horizontal Expansion into Sports Cards	The marketplace model and pricing engine are applied to the adjacent sports card market.	A successful Series A round is raised with a mandate to expand category scope.	The underlying market dynamics are nearly identical, suggesting a replicable playbook.
Embedded Liquidity Layer for Retail	Misprint's pricing API and marketplace infrastructure become the backend for major hobby retailers.	A key retailer or auction platform licenses Misprint's technology.	The company's claim of analyzing "millions of data points" positions its technology as a potential B2B service.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- The opportunity framing relies on the company's stated mission and product claims, which are cited. Market comps and scenario catalysts are supported by third-party reports on analogous companies, but Misprint's own traction to validate the flywheel is not yet publicly corroborated.

Sources

1. [Y Combinator, 2025] Misprint is building Robinhood for Pokemon cards | Y Combinator | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/misprint
2. [Fondo, 2025] Misprint Launches: Robinhood, But Make It Pokémon Cards | https://fondo.com/blog/misprint-launches
3. [Crunchbase, Mar 2025] Pre Seed Round - Misprint - 2025-03-12 | https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/misprint-pre-seed--67c356bf
4. [Crunchbase, 2025] Misprint - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/misprint
5. [Startup Intros] Misprint: Funding, Team & Investors | Startup Intros | https://startupintros.com/orgs/misprint
6. [Perplexity Sonar Pro, 2025] Misprint - Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief
7. [Misprint, 2026] The Best Pokemon Card Scanners in 2025 | Misprint | https://www.misprint.com/posts/best-pokemon-card-scanner
8. [Y Combinator, 2026] Lead Systems & Product Engineer (Founding Software Engineer), Own the Pokemon Marketplace at Misprint | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/misprint/jobs/MqeK77M-lead-systems-product-engineer-founding-software-engineer-own-the-pokemon-marketplace
9. [Y Combinator, 2026] Lead ML & Data Engineer (Founding Engineer), Own Pricing + Market Data at Misprint | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/misprint/jobs/JfZ31DR-lead-ml-data-engineer-founding-engineer-own-pricing-market-data-at-misprint
10. [YouTube, 2025] Unhinged Day in the Life of a Pokemon Card Startup Founder
11. [Spherical Insights, 2023] Global Sports Trading Card Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis
12. [eBay] eBay Official Site | https://www.ebay.com
13. [PWCC] PWCC Marketplace | https://www.pwccmarketplace.com
14. [Goldin] Goldin | https://goldin.co
15. [StockX] StockX: Buy and Sell Authentic Sneakers, Streetwear, Trading Cards, Handbags, Watches | https://stockx.com
16. [Crunchbase] StockX - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stockx
17. [Forbes, 2023] Goldin Auctions Hits $1.2 Billion In Sales | https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2023/12/14/goldin-auctions-hits-12-billion-in-sales/