Current posture: primary soft-raise deck is not in active outreach. The active capital path is the bridge track — program-sized first checks / residencies / warm introductions — while pending applications and evidence triggers play out. Bridge raise deck is the current ask surface. The $1.0M / 12 mo pre-seed pack below remains the institutional target and milestone plan, but cold outbound on it is paused until an evidence trigger lands.
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Soft raise: Open — pitch with $1.0M pack
- Evidence pack Ready — Met. Cited markets, reproducible pillar results, claim boundaries — Company Overview + Evidence + Financials pack.
- Technical distribution live — Met. Public article + Lab + methodology + eval CTA; Reddit r/ML + r/robotics + LinkedIn published.
- Gate A — sole-founder equity + IP signed — Met. Signed 2026-07-17 (90/10, prior-invention none, side letter vaulted).
Ask / allocation: Financials → Use of funds ($1.0M / 12 mo). Demand signal accumulates in parallel — update the pipeline when replies land; do not stall pitches on inbox silence.
Rule: no cold capital outreach until an evidence trigger lands (live partner report, grant award, substantive reply, or multi-model held-out). Warm inbound / program inboxes always get same-day replies.
The ask — layered
| Layer | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bridge now | Active | Micro-check / residency / first believer tranche. Closeable now; preserves later $1.0M. |
| Institutional later | Locked target | $1.0M pre-seed — 2 partner reports ≤4 mo · world-model n≥30 ≤6 mo · continuous-scoring design ≤6 mo · first hire/co-founder ≤9 mo. |
| Public headline | Investor room / meetings only | Raising $1.0M to earn the right to raise a Series A — Pitch deck |
| Instrument | Post-Atlas | Pre-seed SAFE into Delaware C-Corp after Atlas + entity doc unlock. |
| Operating horizon | ~12 months from wire | Outcomes-first, never founder-runway-first. |
Bridge ask structure:
- Size: program-specific (typically $25k–$250k tranche; residencies vary).
- Use: entity + short runway + compute for live partner reports + held-out Pillar 2 expansion.
- Close path: soft commit → Atlas Delaware → SAFE / wire → unlock paid compute, travel, salary, company invoices.
Paid invoices and scaled engagements wait on entity + bank; interest and scoped pilots do not.
Allocation ($1.0M · milestone plan, not current ask)
This is the institutional post-Atlas plan, kept for diligence and milestone modeling.
| Bucket | Share | ~USD | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team capacity | 40% | $400k | Founder full-time + first ML/eval hire/co-founder offer — unlocks M1 + M4 |
| Compute / infra | 25% | $250k | World-model batch scale / n≥30 + republished depth — unlocks M2 |
| Product | 12% | $120k | Intake → branded report → continuous-scoring design — unlocks M1 + M3 |
| GTM / travel | 12% | $120k | Partner and investor meetings only after reply heat — unlocks live evals |
| Entity / legal | 5% | $50k | Atlas + counsel + confirmatory IP + compliance |
| Operating buffer | 6% | $60k | Diligence spikes, compute overruns |
Rebalance after first LOIs and actual counsel / GPU quotes — retention stays in milestone categories, not vanity line items.
What funds unlock (post-close)
| Capital applied to… | Unlocks |
|---|---|
| 2 design-partner reports delivered | Product proof + pricing signal |
| World-model cohort n≥30 | Held-out depth beyond CogVideoX v1 |
| Continuous-scoring design doc | Phase 5 API/integration spec |
| First ML/eval hire or co-founder | Delivery capacity beyond founder-led services |
| Credible external invites + entity docs | Investor dataroom sharing unlock |
Bridge tranche intends to fund the first two unlocks only; remainder waits on institutional close.
What we will not pretend
- No GAAP historicals, 409A, insurance, or board minutes yet — Seed+/Series A backlog tracked in document status
- No fake revenue runway; pre-wire burn is founder time + commodity compute (Burn)
- No invented LOIs, ARR, or customer counts — Design-partner pipeline
- No cold capital outreach until evidence triggers — warm replies / program inboxes only until then