There is something almost funny about the fact that a $300+ billion market still runs on spreadsheets, sticky notes, and systems that barely talk to each other.
A rare watch gets bought in-store, listed online, shown at a convention, posted on social media, and sold through a marketplace. Along the way, data gets lost, pricing changes go unnoticed, and inventory becomes harder to track than the asset itself. For a market built on value, scarcity, and trust, the plumbing is surprisingly messy.
That is the problem WRTH is trying to fix.
The Miami startup, led by co-founders Justin Elliott and Jahreem Samuels, is building what it calls a vertical AI-native commerce intelligence layer for real-world assets, starting with collectibles. Put more simply: WRTH wants to become the operating system behind how physical assets are identified, valued, tracked, authenticated, and moved through commerce.
For CTO Elliott, the road to enterprise software began on stage.
Before tech became his full-time focus, Elliott [pictured above] spent a decade as an international touring DJ and music producer, performing across more than 20 countries while also building a seven-figure event production business. By early 2020, he had reached what felt like the peak.
“I had one of my songs playing on three radio stations at the same time,” Elliott told Refresh Miami. He had bookings lined up for the next 18 months.
Then the world shut down. So Elliott began thinking about what came next and returned to an old passion: technology.
A mutual connection introduced him to Samuels, who had built a resale business from the trunk of his car into one of the top sellers on StockX before opening a sneaker store in Wynwood. What followed was less a meeting and more a two-hour flood of frustration.
Systems did not connect. Inventory was hard to manage. Pricing intelligence was weak. Authentication was clunky. Every sale required jumping between tools.
What struck Elliott was how familiar it all sounded.
Years earlier, he had run digital commerce for one of the largest luxury jewelry buyers in the country, dealing in Rolexes, Pateks, and other high-end pieces. The workflow then was nearly identical: identify the item, authenticate it, price it, list it, track it, and somehow stitch together multiple disconnected platforms.
“That was kind of shocking to me, that in 2024 he was still having the same problems I was having in 2014,” Elliott said.
That became the spark for WRTH.
The company is building infrastructure for categories ranging from watches and jewelry to fine art, luxury handbags, cars, comics, and trading cards. Its system creates a live record of assets across fragmented channels, constantly updating pricing, spotting trends, and helping businesses make sharper decisions.
A card shop, for example, might be sitting on inventory that quietly jumped 10% in value because of a player milestone or cultural moment. WRTH’s platform is designed to catch that instantly.
“We’ve taken workflows that used to take thirty minutes, an hour, twenty minutes, whatever, and condensed those to seconds,” Elliott said.
“These businesses have been underserved for decades,” CEO Samuels said of WRTH’s target customers. “To me, this platform means finally giving these merchants infrastructure that matches the sophistication of their inventory – unified intake, multi-marketplace crosslisting with automated cross-delisting, real-time market valuations, consignment management, CRM, POS, shipping, taxes, and AI agents that actually do the work.”
Elliott, who also serves as one of roughly 50 global ambassadors for Anthropic, has become a visible voice in South Florida’s AI community, hosting meetups and hackathons that bring together everyone from teachers and doctors to engineers from major tech firms.
He has little patience for hype.
“The notion that you can build a functioning billion-dollar app with one prompt is absolute BS,” he said.
That practical mindset shapes WRTH’s product philosophy. Use AI where it creates real utility. Use blockchain where verified records matter. Skip buzzwords when they add nothing.
Now the company is onboarding early beta users across physical retail, ecommerce sellers, brands, and event operators, with plans to manage more than $100 million in inventory and commerce this summer alone. The team is also growing toward 25 people.
And it is doing so from Miami, a place Elliott believes is finally moving beyond flashy networking and shallow startup chatter.
“I’m starting to see a lot more serious businesses,” he said. “People are actually building things of substance.”
His bigger hope is simple: build here, stay here, and win here.
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