MindSumo
MindSumo was an open-innovation crowdsourcing platform connecting Fortune 500 enterprises with over 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers through online challenges. It operated as a subsidiary of MBO Partners and was officially closed in 2024 after 13 years.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersDurham, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What MindSumo does
MindSumo was an open-innovation crowdsourcing platform that connected enterprises with a global community of more than 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers drawn from over 3,000 universities across 200+ countries. Companies — primarily Fortune 500 marketing, product, innovation, and research departments — launched structured "Challenges" (online problem-solving competitions) on the platform, and solvers submitted ideas, with winners receiving monetary rewards distributed through MindSumo. Each client engagement was supported by a dedicated Challenge Manager who handled midway review calls and quality assurance, and the platform also offered a white-label Challenge Portal allowing enterprises to run branded co-creation campaigns on custom domains.
MindSumo monetized via transaction-based fees: companies paid challenge hosting fees to MBO Partners upon disbursement of the challenge reward to winning solvers. The go-to-market motion was sales-led, targeting enterprise buyers directly with dedicated account managers, supplemented by an Ambassador Program referral channel offering $150 Amazon gift cards for successful client referrals. Notable enterprise clients included General Mills, Pepsi, Mondelez, AB InBev, Microsoft, Amazon, and Deloitte. Over its 13-year operating history, the platform hosted more than 1,300 challenges and paid out over $1.3 million in solver rewards.
The company was founded in 2011–2012 (sources vary) and operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of MBO Partners, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia. MindSumo itself was based in Durham, North Carolina with a small team of approximately 10 full-time employees supplemented by remote staff in Texas and the Bay Area. The company received venture funding from Voyager Capital, Google Ventures, Start Fund, DCVC, Plug and Play, Ulu Ventures, RTA Capital, and StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund), with the largest disclosed round being approximately $1,000,000 in March 2012. The MindSumo platform officially closed in 2024 after 13 years of operation.
MindSumo firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- MindSumo
- Legal name
- MBO Partners, Inc.
- Website
- https://mindsumo.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Closed
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- MindSumo was an open-innovation crowdsourcing platform connecting Fortune 500 enterprises with over 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers through online challenges. It operated as a subsidiary of MBO Partners and was officially closed in 2024 after 13 years.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
MindSumo industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Crowdsourcing & Open Innovation Software
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Lead Generation & List Building Services (Prospecting, Data Sourcing) (BPAFAKAE)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Innovation & Design Thinking Programs (EDAMAHAD)
Keywords
Where MindSumo is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Durham
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices3 records
Markets served
MindSumo business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Challenge Hosting Fees: Companies pay fees to host challenges on the MindSumo platform. Challengers pay fees to MBO upon making payment for the Challenge Reward for the Winning Solution.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Custom challenge-based pricing |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels4 records
MindSumo product offering
Product offeringCore offering
MindSumo operated an online crowdsourcing platform that allowed enterprises to post structured "Challenges" to a global community of more than 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers sourced from over 3,000 universities. Companies paid to launch challenges, received rated submissions reviewed by a dedicated Challenge Manager, and obtained IP ownership of winning ideas; winning solvers were paid cash rewards through the platform.
Product overview
MindSumo is a single unified crowdsourcing platform for innovation. The core offering consists of the MindSumo Platform, which enables companies to post Challenges—structured problem-solving competitions—to a global community of over 700,000 registered solvers. Supporting products include the Challenge Portal (a white-labeled version for internal corporate use with custom branding and domains) and the Ambassador Program (a referral initiative offering rewards for successful client referrals). The platform has now been officially closed after 13 years of operation.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- MindSumo Platform A crowdsourcing platform that enables enterprise clients to launch structured online challenges and source ideas and consumer insights from a global community of more than 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers. Targets marketing, product, innovation, and research teams at large global companies.
- Challenge Portal A white-label custom site that lets enterprise clients host MindSumo challenges on their own domain with their own branding, enabling internal co-creation and branded engagement with a private Problem Solver community.
Quantifiable outcome
- 50% of new product ideas from crowdsourcing for a national home products manufacturer
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use MindSumo
Customer profileNamed customers7 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles1 record
MindSumo technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature3 records
MindSumo partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators5 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights4 records
MindSumo competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Brightidea: Brightidea provides idea and innovation management software for enterprises, including crowdsourced challenges and innovation pipelines — a direct competitor in selling structured innovation programs to corporate clients.
- Topcoder: Topcoder runs challenge-based competitions to crowdsource technical work from a global community — directly comparable to MindSumo's challenge-and-rewards marketplace model, though focused on software/design rather than consumer insights.
- IdeaScale: IdeaScale is an enterprise idea-management platform that runs internal and external crowdsourcing campaigns — comparable to MindSumo's Challenge Portal but with stronger focus on SaaS deployment over transactional challenge hosting.
- Spigit: Spigit offers crowdsourced innovation management software to Fortune 500 clients — a direct enterprise competitor in the same innovation-management category MindSumo served.
- 99designs: 99designs runs crowdsourced design contests where clients post briefs and a global community submits work — the same challenge-plus-prize model as MindSumo, albeit specialized to creative design.
- InnoCentive: InnoCentive (now Wazoku Crowd) operates an enterprise crowdsourcing platform that posts challenges to a global solver network for innovation and R&D — the closest direct peer to MindSumo in both model and target buyer (Fortune 500 innovation teams).
- HeroX: HeroX is a crowdsourcing platform built around prize-based challenges that tap a global solver community — a near-twin of MindSumo's incentive structure and target market of enterprises seeking open innovation.
Regional players
- chaordic (now VTEX): Chaordic operated crowdsourced personalization and product discovery for e-commerce in Latin America — comparable consumer-insights crowdsourcing model to MindSumo but primarily serving Brazilian and LatAm enterprise customers.
Broad incumbents
- Amazon Mechanical Turk: MTurk is the broadest incumbent in paid crowdsourced human intelligence tasks — overlaps with MindSumo's model of paying distributed workers for structured tasks, but at much lower per-task value and with no innovation/insight focus.
- Kaggle: Kaggle operates large-scale prize-based competitions across a global community — comparable challenge-and-rewards model, though now part of Google and focused on data science rather than consumer insight or marketing innovation.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights4 records
Customer concentration
MindSumo social profiles
Digital presenceMindSumo compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
MindSumo financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
MindSumo leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
MindSumo funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors8 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
MindSumo M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about MindSumo
What does MindSumo do?
MindSumo operated an online crowdsourcing platform that allowed enterprises to post structured "Challenges" to a global community of more than 700,000 Millennial and Gen Z problem solvers sourced from over 3,000 universities. Companies paid to launch challenges, received rated submissions reviewed by a dedicated Challenge Manager, and obtained IP ownership of winning ideas; winning solvers were paid cash rewards through the platform.
Is MindSumo a public or private company?
MindSumo is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently closed.
When was MindSumo founded?
MindSumo was founded in 2012. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is MindSumo based?
MindSumo is headquartered in Durham, United States, in the North America region.
How does MindSumo make money?
One revenue line is on record: challenge Hosting Fees.
Who are MindSumo's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Brightidea, Topcoder, IdeaScale, Spigit, 99designs, InnoCentive and HeroX. chaordic (now VTEX) is listed as a regional player. Broad incumbents are Amazon Mechanical Turk and Kaggle.
Does MindSumo have an API?
No public API is recorded for MindSumo.
What industry is MindSumo in?
MindSumo's product category is Crowdsourcing & Open Innovation Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAFAKAE, Lead Generation & List Building Services (Prospecting, Data Sourcing), with a secondary code of EDAMAHAD, Innovation & Design Thinking Programs. Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 7372.