Protege is a legitimate AI training-data platform, founded in 2024 and backed by $65 million including a round led by a16z. Holders of health records, video and audio license data through it, keep ownership and earn a revenue share each time a buyer uses it. It publishes no rates and pays only when data is included in a deal.
- Protege licenses health records, medical imaging, video, audio and other proprietary data to AI developers.
- Partners keep ownership and are paid a revenue share each time their data is used; no rate is published.
- Payment depends on your data being selected for a buyer's dataset; nothing is paid for data that is not included.
- It is well funded ($65 million) and its buyers include most of the "Magnificent Seven", by its own account.
Protege review: the short version
Protege is a real, funded company that sits between data holders and AI developers. It suits an organization with a large, rights-clean library, such as a hospital network, imaging provider, broadcaster or studio, that wants recurring income without building its own AI licensing team. It suits a company less well if it needs a fixed price up front.
What Protege is: funding and founders
In January 2026 Protege announced "a $30 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)", which "brings total funding to $65 million since the company's founding in 2024" (Protege). That extended a $25 million Series A led by Footwork in August 2025 (Protege). Its chairman and co-founder, Travis May, is the "previous CEO of Datavant and LiveRamp".
What data holders can license through Protege
Protege licenses "media content, audio recordings, de-identified health records, and medical imaging" (Protege), plus spatial and physical data and other domains. Its healthcare program takes structured records, clinical notes, imaging, audio transcripts and more, prepared through "de-identification, certification, and tokenization" (Protege).
For video and media, partners license content they "Own outright, or Control under global all media or similarly broad rights" (Protege). In July 2026 Dailymotion made its catalog of "roughly 40 million videos" available through Protege (Protege).
How Protege pays data partners
Protege "provides revenue share payouts to data partners with each use" (Protege). For media, it formalizes "licensing through a clear revenue share agreement", and "Your content is included in qualified deals, and you receive transparent, timely revenue share payments" (Protege). For healthcare: "We deliver the dataset to the buyer and pay out revenue share to the participating partner(s)" (Protege).
Protege does not publish its revenue-share percentage or typical payouts. Its own figures: it had generated "tens of millions in revenue for its data partners" by August 2025 (Protege), and a case study says "A major EMEA-based broadcaster earned over $1M in 6 months". Treat both as company claims.
Who buys data through Protege
Protege says it works with AI companies "including the majority of the "Magnificent Seven"" (Protege). Luminate, a media data firm, reported that its media unit "now counts over 100 media partners" and that "Protege has struck deals with the biggest AI companies as well as many smaller ones" (Luminate). Buyer names are not published.
Licensed media is used "exclusively for AI model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and benchmarking" and "is not licensed for public exhibition, redistribution, or consumer entertainment use". Protege says it does not permit name, image or likeness duplication (Protege).
Source: Luminate: Protege Media is licensing video to train AI (Dec 2025)
Limits to know before you join
We found no named news report or court filing alleging misconduct by Protege. The limits are structural. Your data is paid only when it is selected: in healthcare, "only qualified data moves forward" (Protege). Protege, not you, structures terms with buyers: it says it will "structure sustainable terms with AI buyers" (Protege), and in healthcare "Protege links and pools siloed datasets" from several partners (Protege). Your share depends on terms you should read closely.
- No published revenue-share rate or minimum payment.
- No guarantee your data is included in any deal.
- Buyers are not named in advance.
- Rights must be clean: partners keep ownership but must own or broadly control what they license.
What to check before you sign with Protege
- The revenue-share percentage, how each use is counted and how often you are paid.
- Whether the license is exclusive, and for how long.
- Who de-identifies the data and who is liable if identifiers remain. See de-identifying company data before licensing.
- Whether you can approve or refuse a buyer or a use.
- Compare routes: health data licensing programs compared and video data buyers compared.
Next step
A revenue share is worth comparing with a one-time fee for the same records. Find out what yours could fetch before you sign.
Origin Data Partners works with companies that own data and helps get it bought. We are independent of the services on this page, and a buyer may pay us when a deal closes (how Origin is paid). See what your data is worth.
Common questions
Is Protege legit?
Yes. Protege is a venture-backed AI data platform founded in 2024 that has raised $65 million, including a $30 million round led by a16z in January 2026. It licenses partners' data to AI developers and pays them a revenue share.
What is Protege AI?
Protege is a platform that licenses real-world data, such as de-identified health records, medical imaging, video and audio, from organizations that hold it to companies building AI models, and shares the licensing revenue with the data holders.
How does Protege pay data partners?
Through a revenue share each time their data is used in a deal. Protege does not publish the percentage, and data that is not selected for a buyer's dataset earns nothing.
What data does Protege license?
Media content and video, audio and speech, de-identified health records, medical imaging, spatial and physical data, and other domains. Partners must own the content or control it under broad rights.
Do I keep ownership of data licensed through Protege?
Yes. Protege says partners always retain ownership; they license limited rights for defined AI training purposes and do not transfer the underlying data or intellectual property.
Who buys data through Protege?
AI companies of all sizes, including most of the "Magnificent Seven" according to Protege. It does not name its buyers.
Sources and further reading
Origin Data Partners is independent and not affiliated with any buyer named on this page.