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Atom
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Atom
A LinkedIn outbound engine built for higher ed and research administration. Get Atom in front of the AVPs of Research, Directors of Sponsored Programs, and Pre-Award teams who decide what tools their faculty actually use.
Prepared for Raphaël Bernier
Atom has the strongest grant discovery product on the market. NDSU, Memphis, USF, Auburn, Franklin & Marshall, Denver Health, RIT, Middlebury, UA Little Rock, the University of North Dakota, your customer wall already tells the story. The product wins demos. The product wins faculty. The bottleneck is reach.
There are roughly 4,000 institutions in the U.S. that fit Atom's ICP, and the people who decide which platform faculty get to use, AVPs of Research, Directors of Sponsored Programs, Pre-Award leads, and grant officers, are reachable but rarely reached at scale. Bottle Rocket Growth (BRG) builds and runs LinkedIn outbound systems that put Atom in front of those people every single day, with messaging tuned to the federal funding chaos they are living through right now.
The proposal that follows outlines three engagement packages built around how much of the work Atom wants BRG to own. The strongest fit for Atom is Lite, the lowest unit cost in the lineup, because Atom's bottleneck is reach, not strategy. More on that in Section Seven.
BRG operates a LinkedIn borrowed-sender model. We source, build, and manage real human LinkedIn profiles that represent Atom in the market. Each profile is hosted on a dedicated proxy, warmed for a minimum of six months, and equipped with 1,000+ connections before it ever touches a campaign. Your internal team profiles can be added to scale volume even further.
BRG provisions dedicated LinkedIn sender profiles. Each profile is updated to reflect a role at Atom: headline, about section, experience, and header image. Only one edit per day to stay compliant with LinkedIn. Profiles are ready in approximately one week.
We build specialized agents that go out on behalf of all of our clients to build lists of qualified decision makers, so Atom is reaching the right people in the right spots at the right times using signal data. Lists are layered with new role announcements, job changes into research leadership, R1/R2 designation changes, federal grant award activity, and tool stack indicators (Pivot, InfoEd SPIN, GrantForward).
Every connection request ships with a message under 300 characters. Follow-up sequences are three touches max. No AI slop. Copy is crafted around real data points, namedrop references to NDSU, Memphis, USF, and Auburn, and specific hooks relevant to each prospect's institution type.
Campaigns run daily. BRG monitors all acceptances and replies, manages the conversation through to a booked demo, and routes those meetings directly to the Atom team via a shared Slack channel.
Atom wins where the central research office is overwhelmed, faculty engagement with funding tools is low, and the federal funding landscape is making leadership rethink everything. The strongest fit cuts across institution types, the trigger is leadership pain, not Carnegie classification.
Institutions chasing or maintaining R1 status with central research offices supporting hundreds of faculty across dozens of disciplines. USF and Memphis are the case studies: more submissions, more engagement, less burden on the central office. Target VPRs, AVPs of Research, and Directors of Research Development.
Primarily Undergraduate Institutions and small research offices where one or two people are trying to support an entire faculty. Franklin & Marshall is the proof point. Atom is a labor-saving device for offices that cannot hire their way out of the problem. Target Directors of Sponsored Programs and OSP leads.
Hospital systems and academic health centers with significant research operations. Denver Health saw a 3x engagement uptick. These organizations have heavy NIH dependency and are feeling federal funding turbulence the hardest. Target Associate Chiefs of Research and Research Administration leads.
Vice President for Research, Associate VP for Research, Director of Sponsored Programs, Director of Research Development, Director of Pre-Award, Grant Preparation Officer, Research Administrator, Assistant Director of Research, and Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) leads.
A sample of the types of institutions and roles we would target. Final lists will be built using layered signal data (new leadership, federal funding activity, tool stack indicators) and validated before campaign launch.
| Institution Type | Example | Target Title | Why They Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aspiring R1 | Mid-size state research university | VP for Research | Climbing classification, needs faculty submission velocity |
| Established R1 | Large public research university | AVP Research Development | Central office overloaded, faculty want self-service |
| R2 / Emerging | Regional comprehensive university | Director of Sponsored Programs | Diversifying away from federal dependency |
| PUI | Liberal arts college with research office | Director, OSP | Small office, needs labor-saving tooling |
| Academic Health Center | Hospital-affiliated research institute | Associate Chief, Research | NIH-heavy, looking for funding diversification |
| Specialized Institute | STEM-focused institute | Grant Preparation Officer | Replacing Pivot, GrantForward, or InfoEd at renewal |
| Land-Grant University | State land-grant institution | Research Administrator | Distributed faculty, agriculture and STEM focus |
| HBCU / MSI | Minority-serving institution | Director of Research Development | High-leverage market, NSF and foundation focus |
The federal landscape is, to quote NDSU's AVP for Research, "incredibly demoralizing right now." This is the moment to talk to research leadership about diversifying funding sources. Lead with the reality that the go-to NIH and NSF programs faculty have always relied on are disappearing, and position Atom as the way to surface foundation, state, and corporate funding before competitors do.
All InstitutionsR2 and emerging research institutions are chasing R1 status, and submission volume is one of the levers that gets them there. Reference Memphis (newly designated R1) and USF (scaling toward $1B in research) as proof that faculty engagement with the right tooling moves the number that matters: total proposals submitted.
R2 / EmergingTarget Directors of Sponsored Programs at PUIs and small research offices where they are doing the work of five people. Lead with Franklin & Marshall and the "labor-saving device" framing. The pitch is simple: you cannot hire your way out of this, but you can tool your way out of it.
PUI / Small OfficeSignal-based outreach targeting newly hired VPRs, AVPs of Research, and Directors of Research Development in their first 90 to 120 days. New leadership re-evaluates the tool stack. Catch them before they renew the legacy contract with Pivot or InfoEd.
All InstitutionsResearch offices everywhere are reporting that faculty have stopped engaging with the central office's funding emails, spreadsheets, and Boolean keyword tools. Lead with Memphis ("10x engagement uptick") and Denver Health ("3x engagement uptick already"). The hook is engagement, not features.
All InstitutionsDirect-target users of Pivot, GrantForward, and InfoEd SPIN with messaging built around the limits of Boolean keyword search. The pitch: AI-powered personalization that actually understands faculty research interests, with implementation that takes a CSV and a week, not a six-month rollout.
All InstitutionsAll connection requests include a message. Every message is under 300 characters, written by hand, and tailored to the prospect's institution type and role. Below are samples of the types of openers we would deploy for Atom.
[First Name], with NIH and NSF in the shape they're in, a lot of research offices are scrambling to surface non-federal funding for faculty. NDSU's AVP for Research called the federal landscape "demoralizing" and turned to Atom for exactly that. Worth a look?
[First Name], small research offices wear every hat. Franklin & Marshall called Atom "a labor-saving device" because all it took was a CSV of faculty names. Curious if [Institution] could use the same lift?
[First Name], congrats on the new role at [Institution]. Most VPRs in their first 90 days re-evaluate the funding discovery stack. Worth a 15 min look at what Atom is doing with research offices like NDSU and Memphis?
[First Name], if your faculty have stopped opening the funding opportunity emails, you are not alone. Memphis saw 10x engagement after switching to Atom. Open to a quick look at how?
Three packages, built around how much of the work Atom wants BRG to own. All three include the same underlying machine: ICP research, signal-based list building, copywriting, sequence design, A/B testing, and a shared Slack channel for live reply and meeting routing.
End-to-end LinkedIn outbound. We handle everything: ICP research, signal identification, lead list building, messaging and copy, sender pod setup, sequencing, day-to-day reply management, and reporting. You get booked meetings on your calendar. Nothing is on your plate.
We build everything for you: ICP research, signal identification, lead list building, messaging and copy, sender pod setup, sequencing, and all the tooling. The only thing on your team is the day-to-day reply management and booking the meetings once prospects respond. Everything else is handled by Bottle Rocket Growth.
We provide the senders and the infrastructure. Each profile is fully branded to your company, running on proxy servers, and ready to send up to 200 connection requests per week. Your team handles lead lists, messaging, and nurture flows. Best for teams already experienced with outbound. Includes a simple metrics dashboard. The profiles can live inside our automation tool (HeyReach) or inside yours, whether you are running Dripify, HeyReach, Expandi, or any comparable platform, the choice is Atom's.
Most SaaS companies in Atom's stage of growth have the same bottleneck: reach. There are roughly 4,000 institutions in the U.S. that fit the ICP, and a single LinkedIn account can only send around 200 connection requests per week. One sender will not move the number Atom cares about. A bench of senders will.
Lite gives Atom the lowest unit cost in the lineup, which means the same monthly budget puts the most senders in market. For a team that has internal capacity to manage replies and book meetings (which most SaaS marketing or SDR teams already do), Lite is the highest-leverage way to flood the top of funnel without paying for work Atom can already do in-house.
If Atom would rather hand off the entire motion and just take meetings, DFY is the right call. IOY sits in between and is where most BRG clients land. For Atom specifically, Lite is the recommendation.