VerticalScope Taps TollBit to Unlock AI License Revenue and Protect Community Content

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2:05 PM on Monday, September 29

The Associated Press

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 29, 2025--

VerticalScope Holdings Inc. (“VerticalScope” or the “Company”) (TSX: FORA; OTCQX: VFORF), a technology company that has built and operates a cloud-based digital platform for online enthusiast communities, today announced a partnership with TollBit, an innovative platform that connects online platforms and publishers with AI companies seeking to license high-quality data. This collaboration represents an important step in VerticalScope’s strategy to monetize its unique corpus of authentic content while protecting the integrity and value of its forums in the era of generative AI.

With more than 2.3 billion posts across 1,200 communities, VerticalScope owns one of the internet’s largest structured datasets of authentic, evergreen community content. By partnering with TollBit, VerticalScope will establish a scalable framework for licensing its content to AI and LLM providers, with the goal of ensuring fair value exchange and enabling new monetization streams.

Chris Goodridge, CEO of VerticalScope, commented: “This partnership represents an important step in positioning VerticalScope for an AI-first content discovery experience. Our communities generate unique, high-intent knowledge that is key for AI training and retrieval-augmented generation. By working with TollBit, we’re creating a fair and transparent licensing model that ensures our communities remain a trusted source of human expertise while positioning VerticalScope to unlock a new revenue stream. I’m excited to see how this partnership strengthens our platform and accelerates our ability to diversify and grow.”

Toshit Panigrahi, CEO of TollBit, said: “TollBit was built to help platforms like VerticalScope capture the value of their content in an AI-driven world. VerticalScope’s communities are an incredibly deep repository of authentic, domain-specific knowledge that AI systems need but can’t replicate. Together, we’re creating a model where platforms and publishers are compensated fairly, AI companies gain access to high-quality data, and community members see their contributions valued and protected, ensuring these forums remain vibrant resources for enthusiasts. This is exactly the type of partnership TollBit was designed to power.”

As the internet is experiencing a surge in AI-driven traffic, TollBit enables publishers to convert scraping into authorized, revenue-generating access by installing a “toll booth” on websites that monitors AI traffic, authenticates it, and monetizes content requests. This partnership reflects VerticalScope’s commitment to safeguarding community contributions while unlocking new revenue opportunities that support community growth in this evolving AI landscape.

About VerticalScope Holdings Inc.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, VerticalScope is a technology company that has built and operates a cloud-based digital platform for online enthusiast communities in high consumer spending categories. VerticalScope's mission is to enable people with common interests to connect, explore their passions, and share knowledge about the things they love. Through targeted acquisitions and development, VerticalScope has built a portfolio of over 1,200 online communities and approximately 100 million monthly active users.

About TollBit

TollBit is a platform that enables a fair exchange of value between AI companies and websites. By essentially installing a toll booth on websites, TollBit allows them to monitor bot traffic and monetize their data and content, while offering AI agents and applications an easy way to pay directly for that content. The platform seeks to address the shifting economics of content creation in the AI era by reducing the legal uncertainties of scraping and protecting the health of the entire content ecosystem.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation that reflects the Company's current expectations regarding future events. When used in this news release, words such as “should”, “could”, “intended”, “expect”, “plan” or “believe” and similar expressions indicate forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information, including the Company’s plans for organic growth, potential new revenue streams from AI licensing, strategies related to the monetization of community content, business strategy, growth strategies, addressable markets, operations, plans and objectives, is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Although the Company believes that its expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties and no assurances can be given that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include the factors discussed under "Risk Factors" in the Company’s Annual Information Form dated March 31, 2025, which is available on the Company’s profile on SEDAR Plus at https://sedarplus.ca. Actual results could differ materially from those projected herein. VerticalScope does not undertake any obligation to update such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required under applicable securities laws.

SOURCE VerticalScope Holdings Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929049790/en/

CONTACT: For further information

Investor and media inquiries:

VerticalScope — Vincenzo Bellissimo, Chief Financial Officer, Tel: 416-341-7166,[email protected]

FNK IR — Matt Chesler, CFA, Tel: 646-809-2183,[email protected]