As an investor you provide the funds that are needed to grow the Protégé Companies out to their full potential, but you also have some problems that we recognise. To provide greater flexibility for investors we allow you to invest directly as a co-investor and/or invest via our PIPE General Fund DAO (tokenised fund). As a direct investor you will understand the long term commitment and involvement required, but as an investor in the DAO you can have much greater freedom and flexibility. The choice however is yours.
You have limited time.
There are only so many hours in a day and you have plenty of calls on your time, so projects that are hard to get your head around and understand, may take second place to those that are in an area that you are familiar with and recognise.
By their nature Advanced Science projects are a lot harder to understand than a Retail proposal.
We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.
We have to make the 'Deep Tech' as understandable or at least as 'investable' as a Retail proposal.
Projects must present their facts in a standard way so you do not waste time getting to grips with the format.
Projects should tell you what you want to know, cut out the noise and fluff.
You have limited funds
Sometimes it may seem that people think that you have an endless supply of funds, but in truth you put your funds to work and they may be committed for some time.
That is a part of being an angel, patience.
You may also be faced with the problem of deciding whether to plough in additional funds to protect an existing investment or call it a sunk cost and write it off.
Everyone wants amounts greater than you feel happy to part with.
They want to secure the funding and not have to go through the process forever.
You want to spread your risk, but not have to wade through countless small deals (see limited time).
You pass on what you know are possibly good deals because they are the wrong size at the moment or just appear too small to be worth the effort.
We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.
We have to help you balance your risk and time.
We need to help you hoover up the gold dust as well as pluck the nuggets.
We have to run a process that gives you, as an investor, the option to shift the focus of your funding commitments and move in and out of funded projects without having to wait for an 'exit', so you can feel safe to commit early knowing you can change your mind later.
We need to ensure that the projects being funded are up to standards, do not come up with nasty surprises, that they stick to the plans agreed, keep good books, and deliver on the promise.
We need to ensure that Investors with large amounts of funds available have opportunity to employ them, whilst at the same time ensuring that investors who may have comparatively tiny amounts are not squeezed out.
You do not want to be left "holding the baby", or have it "snatched"
The responsibility for funding a project is a lot easier if it is shared. As long as everyone does not think that someone else has their eye on the ball, shared responsibility feels more comfortable and is more robust for the project as well as the investors.
We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.
We must maintain open records, state the shared position within the funding we take and in the event of a project failing we should then burn our own investment to keep the residual value within the investor group.
We need to ensure that the Protégé Company is kept to task through our board observers and the funding schedule that ensures that such things as targets, audited accounts, product development, cost control etc. are achieved before funds are released to the Protégé Company
We need to ensure that from the outset of a token issue, the responsibility for providing funding of the project is distributed proportionately. Large or small, all investors have a proportionate share of the risk and reward.
We must ensure that Large investors cannot grab everything, small ones, are not burdened with too much.
You have preferences
Understandably, even if we have managed to put all of the projects on an equal basis of 'understandability' and 'investability' there will be some that you are more inclined to than others, not based on their ROI, projected market share and horn growing capability, but because you feel that sector is more important and needs support.
We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.
We need to support an environment where you can exercise your preferences, both at the initial stage of issuance of tokens and thereafter for the life of projects.
We must create and maintain a 'healthy environment', keeping our investor community healthy, and supporting the projects.
In summary
We need to take your problems seriously and help you to solve them, so you can operate with confidence and profit from funding the projects.
We have to make projects understandable and have a standard that can be easily understood for each project's status, prospects, timescales and track record so far.
We have to provide an environment where you can come and go with a project and not get locked into something that you want out from or be excluded from one you want into.
We have to ensure that the project keeps to its plan (that got it its funding), delivers on its promises, and spends it funding as planned.
We need to keep listening.
Fixing the System not just the Symptoms
To see what we are doing about these problems, our solution and its value to you, click
We take an idea/innovation along the Lab to IPO (or license ... ) pathway