Protege Targets AI’s Data Bottleneck With $25M Series A

Protege CEO Bobby Samuels had seen the same problem surface across AI projects: promising model ideas stalled because the right data never arrived, or arrived too late. The most valuable datasets, embedded with years of human expertise, were often locked away in private archives entangled in technical barriers. In early 2024, he joined forces with Travis May, a veteran of data-sharing ventures like LiveRamp and Datavant, to build a business around removing those obstacles. “Access to the right training data continues to be the biggest bottleneck to AI’s progress,” Samuels said in the company’s recent funding announcement. Protege just closed a $25 million Series A led by Footwork, with participation from CRV, Bloomberg Beta, Flex Capital, Shaper Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, and o