Protege Raises $10 Million and Launches Platform for AI Training Data

Protege announced a $10 million seed round and the launch of its AI training data platform to help resolve one of the biggest issues in AI development — sharing and accessing the right training data. The round was led by CRV with participation from SV Angel, Liquid 2 Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Flex Capital, Adam D’Angelo, Travis May, and more.

“The lack of availability of training data is the biggest bottleneck in AI today,” said Bobby Samuels, CEO and Co-Founder of Protege. “By creating a platform for data holders to allow controlled access to their data assets, we enable the construction of critical models in a faster and safer way.”

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The exchange of training data today can require months, if not years, of negotiation and friction, as different parties navigate complex intellectual property, technological, and governance concerns, often for the first time. Protege equips data holders with the resources to make their data available for AI use cases safely and painlessly and enables model builders to find and access the data they need, with confidence that the data is sourced responsibly.

Protege was founded earlier in 2024 by Samuels and Travis May, CEO of Shaper Capital and co-founder and former CEO of LiveRamp and Datavant.

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Protege focuses on types of data that are especially impactful for AI, much of which has never been made available for external use and is proprietary to data owners rather than in the public domain. Protege’s vision expands beyond any one industry, given the training data bottleneck exists across the spectrum of AI.

“I believe this is one of the biggest data opportunities of all time,” said May. “Five years ago, there was no market for training data. Today, every major LLM and thousands of novel AI applications are looking for training data – but there is too much friction in this process. Unlocking seamless and controlled exchange of training data will help unleash the power and benefits of AI to the world.”

“The training data opportunity is one of the largest I’ve seen in my career,” said Saar Gur, General Partner at CRV. “We’re incredibly excited to partner with the Protege team in pursuing this massive vision.”

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