What this is. The planning model for the $20 million seed. Every revenue cell is a plan. There are no named customers, no awarded government contracts, and no cash already raised.
What this is not. A CRM export. A share of the $58.5 billion defense AI request. A developer self-serve funnel.
How to read it. Enterprise clients back the launch by sitting a proof, signing, and expanding. Traction is logos and booked annual contract value — not waitlists, press, or inbound curiosity.
Source of the arithmetic: institutional enterprise-contract model (S2). Same numbers as the investor business plan, spelled out for diligence.
The traction path
The product launch is not a website. It is the first CIO who lets us install the archive on their hardware.
- Seed builds the factory. $20 million funds a repeatable 6–16 week proof, Fortune 100 hygiene, an air-gap path, and $2 million in customer-side credits.
- A named committee sits the proof. NDA, then CORE / DIVISION / ENTERPRISE on their floor. The credit means they are not funding a science experiment.
- They sign. They own the memory. That logo is traction. Three logos or $15 million booked is the gate that says the market will pay.
- They expand. More divisions, more seats, more of the archive. Planning net revenue retention is 140 percent — Palantir printed 157 percent; we have not run this cohort yet.
- Those logos back Series A. The trigger is $80 million recognized run-rate, or fifteen logos plus one government task order of $15 million or more. Public brand spend waits until then.
If step 3 misses, the company bridges. It does not pivot into awareness.
What we sell
Proposed price book. Not live.
| SKU | Annual contract | Proof | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSI-CORE | $2 million | 6 weeks; $150k creditable | First land, one division |
| SSI-DIVISION | $8 million | 10 weeks; $400k creditable | A line of business |
| SSI-ENTERPRISE | $25 million | 16 weeks; $1.0M creditable | Flagship or sovereign install |
Planning bands as logos accumulate: commercial $4–12 million, sovereign $15–40 million. Those bands are Year-2 and Year-3 expanded value at the comparables. We are not underwriting two $40 million flags in Year 1.
Year-1 mix — how eight customers become $48 million
Assumptions. Funding closes. Eight-week hire and proof sprint. First signatures in month 5. Year 1 is the twelve months after close. Deals signed after month 6 recognize 50 percent of booked annual value; deals signed by month 6 recognize 75 percent. Base mix is six commercial and two government. Blended recognition in the base is 50 percent.
Base — $96 million booked / $48 million recognized
| Logo type | Count | Annual value | Booked | Recognized in Year 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial DIVISION-class | 4 | $8M | $32M | $16M |
| Commercial upper band | 2 | $12M | $24M | $12M |
| Government vehicle (OTA / task order) | 1 | $15M | $15M | $8M |
| Sovereign / flagship | 1 | $25M | $25M | $12M |
| Total | 8 | $96M | $48M |
The $15 million and $25 million cells are a stretch inside base. They assume a government vehicle and a flagship land in the same year as the first commercial installs.
Downside — $20 million booked / $10 million recognized
Three $4 million commercial lands plus one $8 million government vehicle. Four logos. Phase 0 barely clears the gate — or misses it.
Upside — $176 million booked / $80 million recognized
Eight $12 million commercial tickets plus two $40 million sovereign tickets. Ten logos. Sensitivity only. Not the underwriting case.
Year-1 recognized headline: $10 million / $48 million / $80 million (downside / base / upside).
Conversion analog used to get into the room: 40 percent on CORE, 40 percent on DIVISION, 35 percent on ENTERPRISE. That band is from early Palantir-style pilots. Trinity has not run these proofs as a measured cohort.
Five-year plan
Growth after Year 1 assumes 140 percent net revenue retention, eight / twelve / sixteen / twelve net-new logos in Years 2–5, and a mix shift toward $12 million and $25 million tickets as references exist. Years 4–5 are base only.
Dollars in millions. A positive cash number is cash consumed. A number in parentheses is cash generated.
| Metric | Y1 down | Y1 base | Y1 up | Y2 base | Y3 base | Y4 base | Y5 base |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logos (year end) | 4 | 8 | 10 | 18 | 32 | 48 | 62 |
| Booked ACV | 20 | 96 | 176 | 180 | 380 | 620 | 980 |
| Recognized revenue | 10 | 48 | 80 | 140 | 320 | 580 | 1,000 |
| Gross margin | 58% | 62% | 65% | 68% | 72% | 74% | 76% |
| Gross profit | 5.8 | 29.8 | 52.0 | 95.2 | 230 | 429 | 760 |
| R&D | 8 | 12 | 16 | 22 | 40 | 55 | 70 |
| Sales and marketing | 6 | 10 | 14 | 28 | 45 | 60 | 75 |
| G&A | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 16 | 20 | 24 |
| EBITDA | (11.2) | 2.8 | 15.0 | 35.2 | 129 | 294 | 591 |
| EBITDA margin | — | 6% | 19% | 25% | 40% | 51% | 59% |
| Cash consume / (generate) | 14 | 8 | (5) | (20) | (100) | (250) | (520) |
| Heads | 28 | 42 | 55 | 95 | 160 | 210 | 260 |
How to read Year 1 base. $48 million recognized × 62 percent gross margin = $29.8 million gross profit. Subtract R&D $12 million, sales $10 million, G&A $5 million = EBITDA $2.8 million (6 percent). Sales expense is named-account work and proofs — not a brand campaign.
How to read Years 2–5. Booked annual value leads recognized revenue because multi-year enterprise contracts recognize over the service period. Year 5 booked $980 million versus recognized $1.0 billion as prior-year backlog converts.
Base Year 3 ($320 million, 32 logos) sits inside a $250–400 million planning band. Base Year 5 ($1.0 billion, 62 logos) sits inside $800 million–$1.2 billion.
Year-1 base consumes $8 million of the $20 million ask. Downside consumes $14 million. The ask is sized so a miss is a bridge, not a media pivot.
What must be true at the same time
| Scenario | What has to be true together |
|---|---|
| Downside | 4 logos. CORE-class $4 million tickets. One $8 million government vehicle. Expansion muted. Federal path may stall at SBIR Phase I ($323,090). Public brand stays off. Series A does not trip. |
| Base | Funding closes. 8-week sprint. 8 logos (6 commercial + 2 government). $96 million booked / $48 million recognized. 140% NRR. Phase 0 gate clears in months 0–9. |
| Upside | 10 Year-1 logos. Eight $12 million commercial tickets. Two $40 million sovereign tickets. Cash generative in Year 1. |
Unit economics (base plan)
| Commercial first customer | Sovereign / flagship | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual value (blended) | $8 million | $20 million |
| Cost to win | $0.9 million (two AEs + proof + legal) | $2.4 million (sales + facility + counsel) |
| Five-year LTV (140% NRR, 8% churn) | $28 million | $72 million |
| LTV : CAC | 31× | 30× |
| Payback | 5–8 months | 8–12 months |
Those ratios collapse if $10 million-class conversations do not convert. C3.ai FY2026 revenue was down 36 percent versus FY2025 — that is the failure mode: many large conversations, zero signatures.
The invoice we take, not the market we invent
Trinity takes budget the CIO already defends.
| View | Figure | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Typical 10,000-employee AI stack | $4–8 million / year | Seats, tokens, integrator retainers |
| Typical 100,000-employee estate | $30–55 million / year | Multi-division production |
| Fortune 1–50 displaceable slice | $4.5 billion (range $2.0–8.0B) | A pool. Not our revenue. |
| Modeled Fortune 50 three-year takeaway | $90.9 million | What they pay the rented stack minus what they would pay to own the memory |
Palantir closed 73 deals of $10 million or more in Q2 2026. That print is existence of a buyer who writes this check. It is not our pipeline.
The Department of War’s $58.5 billion AI request is a policy line. It is not our serviceable market. First federal cash, if any, is SBIR Phase I at a $323,090 cap, or a live prototype other-transaction. Allied 2026–28 SSI opportunity ($90–140 million) is not a fourth revenue column.
What would break the base case
- No logo in nine months. Public brand stays off. The raise becomes a bridge.
- Federal path stuck at SBIR Phase I. Government Year-1 recognized cash collapses below $1 million.
- An incumbent ships owned persistent memory into the air-gap. The takeaway story weakens.
- C3-style non-conversion. Many $10 million conversations, zero signatures.
Series A — what the first customers unlock
| Round | Amount | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | $20 million ask | This document |
| Series A | $250 million ($200–300 million band) | $80 million recognized run-rate or 15 logos plus one government task order of $15 million or more |
Use of funds for this seed: ../02-capital/COMPANY-UOF-20M.md. Contract gates stay in the private data room.
The first enterprise clients do not just buy a product. They install the archive, expand it, and become the proof that the next raise is a scale raise — not another seed.