Protagonist

Protagonist is a venture capital firm focused on backing early-stage emerging technology businesses.

[Howard Lerman @howard]

May @roam !nvestor Update
+113% YoY ARR Growth
+4.2% MoM ARR Growth
+54 logos
+1 million meetings, 4.7 million chats
+114% NDR

[Tenstorrent @tenstorrent]

We created an agentic AI model pipeline utilizing a fleet of our new TT-QuietBoxes and Tenstorrent Galaxies to download random models from @huggingface to port to our hardware, compile, and test for accuracy.

After thousands and thousands of models, the model pass rate has been holding steady at 90%.

Run anything.

[Neel Popat @theneelpopat]

https://t.co/WHGJPckjCg

[xAI @xai]

SpaceXAI will provide @AnthropicAI with access to Colossus 1, one of the world’s largest and fastest-deployed AI supercomputers, to provide additional capacity for Claude → https://t.co/nfDR9S822L

[Howard Lerman @howard]

April @roam !nvestor Update
+ARR +123% YoY, $3.25m
+ARR +6.8% vs last month
+1,006 logos
+1,000,000 meetings, ~5,000,000 chats
-115% NDR

*The Office That Thinks* ... Where People & AI Agents Collaborate.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

A new membership program lets users rent bags from a collection of hundreds of Hermès bags for a not-so-small fee https://t.co/KVfIf53oKY

[Fashionista.com @Fashionista_com]

Hermès Birkin Bags Now Renting for $850/Month https://t.co/drcpmki82w

[David Altavilla @DaveAltavilla]

The team at @Tenstorrent announced its new Galaxy AI platform today, built on the company’s @risc_v–based Blackhole accelerator architecture, underscoring an important shift in AI infrastructure.

Success at scale may not be defined by the fastest chip alone, but by how well compute, memory and networking work together, and how efficiently those systems scale from a single node to clustered deployments.

Galaxy is clearly aimed at that model. The strategy aligns with current market dynamics, but sustained performance at scale, software maturity and customer adoption will ultimately determine the success of this next phase for Tenstorrent. My full analysis is here, on @ForbesTech... 👇
https://t.co/57fU4v5Bn0

[Exowatt @ExowattEnergy]

Thank you for the recognition, @SalesforceVC. Great to be featured among this group. ⚡️🌎

[Sally Ward-Foxton @sallywf]

.@tenstorrent will launch its new gen cluster-scale systems next week, but in the mean time, Jim Keller @jimkxa and Jasmina Vasiljevic @JasminaVas gave me a sneak preview of their video generation demo running on 256 BlackHole chips (spoiler - it's fast):
https://t.co/7oVYauf0VE

[Exowatt @ExowattEnergy]

Most announced data centers will never get built.

The ones that do are running on gas generators — and the US grid has no answer for what's coming.

Our CEO and Co-Founder, Hannan Happi, sat down with @MollySOShea of @sourceryy to talk about it.

Give it a listen. 👇

https://t.co/OxbwqvzXch

[Molly O’Shea @MollySOShea]

NEW: The AI Data Center "Boom" is Kinda Fake..

But the power bottleneck is still very real.

Inside the energy company using rocks & sunlight to fix AI’s power problem right now.. not in 10 years: @ExowattEnergy

Most "announced" data centers will never get built (ahem, Stargate). The ones that do? Running on gas generators. And the U.S. grid has no answer for what’s coming.

Hannan Happi, CEO & Co-Founder of @ExowattEnergy, joins Sourcery for a rare facility tour of their 40,000 sqft Miami HQ — walking us through the tech, the team, & why the AI power crisis is far worse than the headlines suggest.

Exowatt has raised $140M from a16z, Atomic, Felicis, Sam Altman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Starwood Capital, Thrive Capital, & more, all betting on a deceptively simple idea: concentrate sunlight with Fresnel lenses, store the heat in rocks at 1,000°C, and dispatch electricity on demand. 24 hours a day, no grid required.

Their P3 system is built from sand, dirt, and steel. Like a large magnified glass and a rock. No lithium. No cobalt. No China. Target cost: 1 cent per kilowatt hour.

In this episode:
→ Why most announced data centers are phantom projects
→ The real bottleneck that replaced GPUs: skilled labor
→ How a 200-year-old engine is at the heart of their stack
→ What hyperscalers actually say about sustainability (it's not pretty)
→ Lessons from Tesla on iteration, modularity & vertical integration
→ Why Miami — and why now

With a 90+ GWh demand backlog and commercial deployments live in 2025, this might be one of the most important energy companies emerging in the AI era.

Founded in 2023 by Hannan Happi & Atomic CEO @jackabraham, Exowatt's mission is to make sustainable renewable energy always available and almost free.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) What is Exowatt? The solar backbone for AI data centers
(01:30) Why the US grid simply cannot handle what's coming
(02:00) Tour begins: Welcome to Lighthouse Miami — 40,000 sq ft facility
(02:45) The P3 explained: three elements, one shipping container
(04:00) The founding story: Atomic venture studio and the modular hypothesis
(05:30) Why solar thermal hasn't followed solar PV's 99.6% cost decline — until now
(07:00) North star: 1 cent per kilowatt hour and where they are today
(11:00) Inside the world's largest solar simulator — the sun, indoors
(13:00) The Fresnel lens up close: a giant magnifying glass for the sun
(15:00) "It's rock science" — the 5-year-old explanation of how it works
(17:30) Domestic raw materials (sand, dirt, steel) as the real competitive moat
(24:30) The phantom data center problem: most announcements won't get built
(26:00) From 100 MW to 10 GW: how data center scale exploded in 3 years
(30:00) Funding breakdown: $140M, a16z, Felicis, Sam Altman, Leonardo DiCaprio
(37:00) Lessons from Tesla: remove parts, iterate fast, build better

[Nicolas Muller @Nic__Muller]

The cat's out of the bag: https://t.co/aUiupaHwKM

[Howard Lerman @howard]

March @roam Investor Update
+1.2% MoM ARR
+127% YoY ARR
+15% MoM Chats, +10.2% MoM Meetings
+116% ARR

[Traded: Venture Capital @TradedVC]

SpaceX, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, positioning the company for a potential June 2026 listing. The IPO could value the company at over $1.75 trillion following its acquisition of Musk’s AI startup xAI, and raise up to $75 billion, aiming to fund an accelerated Starship launch schedule, space-based AI data centers, and a lunar base. Major banks including Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are lined up for senior roles in the offering.

FOUNDER: Elon Musk

COMPANY: SpaceX
BOOKRUNNERS: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley

VALUATION: $1,750,000,000,000

HQ: Hawthorne, California

#VentureCapital #SpaceX #ElonMusk #TradedVC

[Ashkan Mizani @ashkanstweets]

https://t.co/zDYdyXBJCN

[Exowatt @ExowattEnergy]

Big news: Exowatt is officially in Texas! 🤠

We’re scaling up with a new 48,000-square-foot facility dedicated to powering the future of AI with clean energy.

Read more about how we’re solving the AI power constraint in @datacenter:

https://t.co/4JDosKc5FG

[Jim Keller @jimkxa]

72 is actually a small number
@tenstorrent is building big computers. 600 AI processors now, 1000-2000 soon. We program it as one computer. @satyanadella

https://t.co/Jl708sIWqX

[Levitate App @levitateai]

We have some big news to share! 👀

Levitate has secured $16 million in additional funding! The round was led by Harbert Growth Partners, with participation from @NMFuture and @bcvp, bringing our total capital raised to $71M.🚀

https://t.co/79tmThHJC8

[Howard Lerman @howard]

Feb @roam !nvestor Update
+14% ARR month over month
+149% ARR year over year
+116% NDR
-Plans to accelerate growth to hit $10m in a year, T2D3
-Launches 9th Virtual Office Platform product, On-Air Events

AI Productivity. Elite Culture. 93% Savings.