Protégé reached approximately 250 data partners across its enterprise business
Bobby Samuels · He raised a $10M seed with no revenue—then grew 30x to $30M in year two. | Bobby Samuels, Founder... · PMF Show · Apr 13, 2026 · at 12:22
Bobby Samuels, founder of AI data startup Protégé, discusses the size of the company's data partner network.
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“And so now across the business, we probably have 250 partners.”
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“Notion of we found product market fit and let's scale, which maybe was truer in like a pre AI world. If it exists at all in a post AI world, I think is much more fleeting and you sort of have to be evolving at a historically fast rate on team.”
Texting terms with buyers is the ultimate enterprise relationship litmus test
“The litmus test that I used initially, and then I used for other folks on the team is, are you on texting terms with them, with the like buyer? If you were not on texting terms with someone, I am worried we don't actually have the relationship we need.”
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“I would say the deals we did in 24 were all pretty much like five and six figures. The deals that I'm talking about in 25 were like mid and high seven figures.”
AI data platforms should prioritize speed over take rate or giant partners
“Our take was, this is a market that's moving extremely fast. Figure out the path of least resistance. So don't optimize on take rate. Don't optimize on getting the biggest systems in the world. Figure out the path of least resistance.”
Samuels raised a $10M seed in 2024 with a minimal demand pipeline
“When we raised in two, three, 24... We raised a ten million dollar seed. We had a, basically a DAC and a list of the partners we'd signed up and some very tenuous, like, demand conversations.”
Samuels closed a diagnostic lab deal by ignoring their initial rejection email
“And at one point in the deal, we got an email from the lab saying, hey, the data you have doesn't work for us. We're really, you know, we're sorry, but we'd love to work with you in the future. And I basically ignored the no. And I was like, oh, okay. We actua…”