Vendor review · licensed marketplace
Protege
A governed marketplace for AI training data, venture-backed, provenance-forward messaging.
Facts checked against primary sources on July 21, 2026.
- Governance-forward like fiund
- Well-funded and credible - $55M raised across 2025–2026, a16z among backers
- Overlapping positioning - differentiation is about supply, not principle
- Deal-based access - no public fee schedule or catalog pricing
What Protege is
Protege operates a governed data exchange connecting data owners with AI teams, emphasizing rights and provenance. Founded in 2024 (legal name Protege Health Inc.) and based in New York, with co-founder Travis May as chairman, it raised a $25M Series A in August 2025 from Footwork, CRV, Bloomberg Beta, Flex, and Shaper, plus a $30M extension led solely by a16z, announced January 2026. It acquired Calliope Networks in December 2024; Calliope CEO Dave Davis became GM of Protege Media.
Modalities and languages they cover
Multi-modal: healthcare, video, audio and speech, and spatial and physical data. The Calliope acquisition brings hundreds of thousands of hours of TV, film, news, and sports content.
Sourcing model
Owner-licensed through data partnerships — hundreds of data partners through 2025 — with revenue share flowing back to partners.
Rights & provenance posture
Governance-forward — provenance and rights controls are the core pitch; verify each dataset’s licence specifics in the engagement.
Pricing
Marketplace and deal pricing; no public fee schedule.
Where Protege falls behind
A close competitor rather than a weak one; the honest comparison is about supply relationships and modality focus, not a quality gap.
Protege head-to-heads
Sources
- Protege — a16z $30M fundraise announcement
- SiliconANGLE — Protege raises $30M for governed marketplace
- PR Newswire — Protege acquires Calliope Networks (Dec 2024)
Alternatives
Weighing fiund as one of the alternatives? Read how fiund compares to Protege — a first-party comparison that is explicit about where Protege wins.
Frequently asked questions
Is Protege rights-cleared for AI training?
Governance-forward — provenance and rights controls are the core pitch; verify each dataset’s licence specifics in the engagement.
What does Protege cost?
Marketplace and deal pricing; no public fee schedule.
What are the best Protege alternatives?
Depending on what you need, consider Defined.ai, Troveo, Opendatabay. fiund itself focuses on owner-licensed, rights-cleared audio and video sourced to brief.
Want data you can actually defend in diligence?
fiund licenses real-world audio and video at the source, with the rights cleared before anything moves.
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