AI moves faster than your roadmap
Training compute for notable models doubles ~every 5 months — Stanford AI Index 2025.
Pre-seed · $750K · Delaware C-Corp
Spec in. Software out.
You describe what you want built. Our AI builds, tests, and ships it — hyperscale performance, bare-metal economics. Targeting a $420B+ cloud market where ~29% of spend is wasted.
Spec
Plan
Build
Test
Ship
02Problem
AI changes faster than teams can ship.
Cloud bills hide real costs
Surveyed orgs report ~29% of cloud spend wasted — Flexera State of the Cloud 2026.
Stack and integration debt
More vendors, more glue code, more meetings — not more velocity.
03Founder
Jonathon Fritz
20 years building infrastructure at scale. Built this solo.
Head of Infrastructure
13 engineers. 1B+ requests/day. 50+ network integrations.
Coinmiles
Senior Engineer → CTO
Promoted to CTO in 3 months.
Blocknative
Infrastructure Engineering
Real-time transaction monitoring at scale.
5D LabsNow
Founder & CEO
Solo built: platform, pilot customer, $240K pipeline, 17+ bare-metal deployments.
04Why now
The old startup model is structurally disadvantaged.
One bet, 18 months of runway, pivot when you learn too late. Agentic coding + owned infrastructure changes the math — run multiple ventures in parallel, fail fast, compound what works.
N×
Parallel ventures, not serial bets
Agentic coding collapsed the cost of parallel execution. Run multiple ventures simultaneously on shared infrastructure — fail fast instead of pivoting near the end of your runway.
Core thesis
280×
Inference cost collapse
API pricing fell >280× in 18 months. Open-weight models (Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek) run on your hardware — no vendor lock-in, owned economics.
Stanford AI Index 2025
59%
Bare-metal validation
37signals cut cloud from $3.2M to ~$1.3M/yr on bare metal. The economics are proven — now automation makes it accessible.
The Register, 2024
On-chain
Tokenized assets need infrastructure now
Tokenized securities, real-world assets, and new on-chain instrument classes are going live. The teams building them need infrastructure that isn't rented from the same cloud vendors they're trying to disintermediate.
SEC, EU MiCA — 2024–26
05Solution
One system: spec in, deployed software out.
You write a spec
Plain English
AI plans it
Breaks it into tasks
22 AI workers build it
Specialized roles
Automated QA
Tests + code review
Ships + monitors
Auto-fixes issues
Your bare metal
Bare-metal servers we provision through hardware partners (Cherry, Hetzner, Latitude). You control the economics.
Always current
AI tools change constantly. We absorb the updates — no context-switching for your team.
Self-healing
Issues fixed before your team wakes up.
06Product
Agentic private cloud — 20+ services on your bare metal.
Everything a team needs to build, ship, and run software — without renting it from AWS. Same capabilities. Your economics.
5D Deploy
GitOps-driven delivery pipeline
Replaces CI/CD SaaS
5D Observe
Unified monitoring, logs, and traces
Replaces Datadog, New Relic
5D Vault
Secrets management and dynamic credentials
Replaces AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp
5D Data
Managed PostgreSQL with HA failover
Replaces RDS, Cloud SQL, Aurora
5D Inference
Managed model runtime on your GPUs
Replaces SageMaker, Vertex AI
5D Store
S3-compatible distributed object storage
Replaces S3, GCS, Blob Storage
5D Sentinel
Continuous security scanning + AI remediation
Replaces Snyk, Wiz
5D Edge
Ingress, TLS, and DNS automation
Replaces CloudFront, Cloudflare
5D Stream
Messaging and event streaming
Replaces SQS, Pub/Sub, Kafka
5D Node
Validator and RPC node operations
Replaces Alchemy, QuickNode
5D Mesh
Service mesh, mTLS, and network policy
Replaces Istio, Linkerd
5D Auth
Identity, SSO, and role-based access
Replaces Auth0, Okta
5D Registry
Private container and artifact registry
Replaces ECR, GCR, Docker Hub
5D Cache
Managed Redis / Valkey with clustering
Replaces ElastiCache, Memorystore
5D Queue
Background job and task processing
Replaces SQS, Cloud Tasks
5D Backup
Automated snapshots and disaster recovery
Replaces AWS Backup
5D Network
VPN, WireGuard, and private networking
Replaces AWS VPC, Tailscale
5D Search
Full-text search and vector indexing
Replaces Elasticsearch, Algolia
5D GPU
GPU scheduling and fractional sharing
Replaces Lambda Cloud, CoreWeave
5D Catalog
Service catalog and developer portal
Replaces Backstage, Port
20 managed services across compute, data, security, networking, AI, and blockchain.
07Traction
Revenue before fundraising.
Paying customer
Sigma One — live in production
Pipeline
Annual contract value in discussions
Server deployments
Across multiple regions
AI workers
Intake, code gen, testing, deploy, security, self-healing — shipping 24/7
Outside capital
Self-funded via proprietary trading — zero dilution
08Market
$420B+ spent on cloud every year.
We start where teams already feel the pain.
TAM$420B+
SAM$40-80B
Beachhead$3-5B
$420B+
Global cloud IaaS + PaaS
$40-80B
AI-native dev teams + startups
$3-5B
Teams replacing cloud with bare metal
Gartner public-cloud forecast, Nov 2024.
09Competition
No one else combines both.
AI code tools assume cloud. Infrastructure tools assume human engineers. We’re the only player combining AI-native development with bare-metal economics.
Cloud-managed + Human-built
AWS / GCP / Azure
Heroku / Render
Vercel / Netlify
Cloud-managed + AI-built
Devin (Cognition)
Replit / Bolt
GitHub Copilot Workspace
Vercel v0
Bare metal + Human-built
Coolify / CapRover
Hetzner + Terraform
Oxide Computer
Bare metal + AI-built
5D Labs
Spec in, software out — on your bare metal.
10Business + GTM
Four revenue streams. One stack.
How customers find us
Free tier
Developers try a lightweight version of CTO at no cost.
Paid plans
Teams upgrade for the full AI workforce and bare-metal infrastructure.
Recurring revenue
Monthly subscriptions with margins that improve over time.
Revenue streams
CTO subscriptionsRecurring
Monthly plans from Free to Enterprise. CodeRun-based usage.
Bare-metal rev-shareRecurring
Infrastructure margin on bare-metal servers we provision.
Proprietary tradingBootstrap
In-house capital engine. Funds experiments + provides market signal.
Advisory + implementationServices
Hands-on setup for early adopters and enterprise pilots.
11Use of funds
$750K. Two engineers. 18 months.
Scaling, not discovery.
1 senior backend/infra + 1 full-stack with AI systems experience. All costs loaded (benefits, payroll tax).
Engineering (2 hires, loaded)$360–420K
Founder salary (loaded)$120–140K
Legal / accounting / 409A$30–40K
AI model + inference$30–50K
GTM + sales$20–30K
Infrastructure (servers)$30–50K
Buffer / contingency$20–30K
12The ask
$750K
Product live. Customer paying. Pipeline in hand.
Post-money SAFE. Cap aligned to AI infrastructure comps.
3–5 customers at $5–8K/mo MRR = breakeven at month 15–18.
Live demo available in any meeting.
© 2026 5D Labs Inc. · Confidential