The Focus Fusion Society Forums Financing Fusion Set up a holding company

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  • #2492
    maihem
    Participant

    Its not about risks and profits from LPPs perspective, its about the credit purchasers. If I take the risk to help make the technology come through, I better be pretty sure I’m going to get the energy I need at that time cheaper than everybody else is doing. So the credits should be priced below what the energy would retail at were focus fusion working today. I’m not just going to pay to make everybody else proportionately more wealthy than myself by taking risks without getting an energy price bonus above that which everybody else does – It would be me making them rich so I should see a bit of that wealth.

    #2494
    maihem
    Participant

    ailabs wrote: … focus fusion will provide energy at $60/kW vs. $1,000/kW…

    That’s not the energy cost, it’s the plant cost. You have to add plant decommissioning and recycling costs and multiply by the amount of plant to keep a whole number of people employed and maximise the power-to-business-rates ratio, add the salaries and business rates for running the plant throughout its lifetime + service charges for recycling waste, etc. Finally divide that by the expected number of Joules that you will supply from that plant during its lifetime. That’s the generation cost

    Now add a profit margin and cover the transmission losses. That’s the wholesale price.

    Add the margin and costs of the grid power retailer including their marketing and what-have-you, then add the sales tax. That is the retail price per Joule.

    Estimate the risk from the perspective of the potential credit purchaser and deduct from the above retail energy cost accordingly – that gives you the coupon price, including sales tax – assuming that the labour to manage this is donated by FFS staffers. Estimating what value would have been transferred from LPP to FFS for tax returns and auditing is left as an exercise to the reader. I for one am glad that I would not have to do any of that part if this is even legal :o)

    #2495
    ailabs
    Participant

    I meant “pricing in risks and profits” into the credits. In this case the profit for the credit purchasers could also be lower energy price. What kind of legal and financial framework is there to make credits work?

    #2496
    gabster
    Participant

    Fundamentally there are a lot of us that want to see focus fusion’s technology developed from a humanitarian point of view. If we have stumbled on to focus fusion we probably have an inherent interest in new energy solutions to help save the planet and are thus for the most part altruistic individuals. I for one would be quite happy to donate money to Focus fusion’s research however I would be more inclined to do so if I felt my donation would help achieve progress ie. that $2 million will actually be raised and research progress instead of say eg. my $1000 adding with the donations of others to only eg $100,000 and the research stagnating and thus my $1000 achieving little. I Suspect there are quite a few people in my same predicament. Ie. they want to support focus fusion but do not have the funds to make a significant impact on their own and are reluctant to make significant contribution unless they feel it would make a difference. One suggestion is that a system be set up where by individuals can make a pledge of a donation, say $1000 and there is section of this website where individuals can see everyone’s pledges and the total. The individuals actually only make their donation when they see that the total pledged reaches a value eg. $2,000,000. I think this would encourage numbers of us to actually make donations. This would of course only work if my assumption that we are for the most part honest good intentioned individuals that check this website and thus would only pledge a donation ( say $1000) if we actually intended on making it should the “trigger” amount be reached. As a sweetener to encourage donations, individuals may be promised preferential rights to participate in any future IPO share placement eg in Lawrenceville plasma physics. For instance if one donates $1000 they may have the preferential right to apply for $10,000 in shares in a future IPO should Foucs fusion be successful in their proof of concept. There seam’s to be a number of people who would donate if they felt they could be rewarded should success be achieved. This may be one way of doing this without actually selling shares

    #2497
    ailabs
    Participant

    There is a web service / site that works the way you describe:

    http://fundable.org

    It’s all set up to handle pledges (actually pre-payments), which are returned if the goal is not met. However, we’d need to discuss this with John Pratt, one of the principals of the site, as the amount to be raised is way beyond of what they normally handle.

    #2498
    Lerner
    Participant

    I am not a lawyer, but there is a big difference between charity and investment. If you are not expecting any money back, then you can raise money this way, such as through the fundable website. But if you give any part of the company income in exchange, by any means, SEC views this as an investment and it can not be allowed for the general public without an IPO and prospectus.

    #2499
    Brian H
    Participant

    I think the charity route is a loser. Unless you hook up with a big donor like Allen to give a huge jumpstart.

    And not updating the donation site weekly with a running total or graphic “thermometer” or SLT is just foolish. People want to see progress, and you generate interest and anticipation and excitement that way. You are way too ivory tower and dreamy-idealistic about this. Get a decent promoter on board.

    #2500
    maihem
    Participant

    What’s makes a coupon sold as a loss-leader an investment? I see coupons in the newspapers all the time. Is it that there is no guarantee that they will be redeemable because they depend on successful completion of a research program?

    I saw it that LPP would license coupon sales to FFS, but for no per-coupon fee – as a charitable donation. And FFS sells them under the expected energy retail price in order to encourage charitable income.

    Combining this with a pledgebank system would be good – We’d be guaranteed our money back if not enough coupons are sold.

    #2506
    ailabs
    Participant

    There is a progress bar / information on fundable.org. Also, pledges are promptly refunded if the goal is not met. We could start using it for small projects, like that $2,000 equipment LPP needs (if it still needs it). I could set it up on fundable.org and seed it, with say $20, if I knew another 100 people from the membership would also step up.

    This no longer has anything to do with a holding company…should we start another thread?

    #2507
    Brian H
    Participant

    Just using Fundable.org seems far from a dynamic fundraising effort. The idea is to make it well known and well-thought of, not obscure, exclusive, and surrounded with barriers to involvement.

    :bug:

    #2508
    ailabs
    Participant

    I agree. Fundable.org is just one option, but it’s available and has a good reputation. It might be good for smaller “bottom up” fundraising projects, like the $2,000 equipment LPP needs.

    #2509
    maihem
    Participant

    Trying to get funding for small things is a good idea. Each person considering donating will feel that they would achieve more and so be more willing to cough up, and then you’re further on and future donations will seem more valuable to people.

    I think it would be really important, in any system, to document what’s happening much better.

    It would be good for confidence if we could hear more about the people involved, where work is being done, what equipment is being used, how it will be modified, what is being done and when, what meetings are held (vlogs of the non-confidential parts of meetings?). If the FFS people could start blogging in some detail (what is the nature of the theoretical work, what are the computer programs that implement the simulations, how are the chilian labs organised, how much lab time is spent on focus fusion, etc) and link that to what funding is needed I think it would make pledging much more popular.

    It would build an easily accessible media base to build up some buzz.

    #2518
    Charles Wilcox
    Participant

    Brian H wrote: Just using Fundable.org seems far from a dynamic fundraising effort. The idea is to make it well known and well-thought of, not obscure, exclusive, and surrounded with barriers to involvement.

    :bug:

    I’m curious to know what would be lacking in using a service like Fundable.org? To me this seems like a perfect donation system. Our goal is X dollars by date Y. If we fail, you all get your money back.

    How is it obscure, exclusive, or a barrier to involvement? (Not that I’ve used this service yet.) Yes, it’s online. Yes, it’s a third party system. But so is a donation Paypal account.

    #2519
    Brian H
    Participant

    Charles Wilcox wrote:

    Just using Fundable.org seems far from a dynamic fundraising effort. The idea is to make it well known and well-thought of, not obscure, exclusive, and surrounded with barriers to involvement.

    :bug:

    How is it obscure, exclusive, or a barrier to involvement? (Not that I’ve used this service yet.) Yes, it’s online. Yes, it’s a third party system. But so is a donation Paypal account.

    Have you looked at the users? The amounts they are looking for are trivial, as are most of the purposes for the money, and few get what they are looking for. Raising two million with that vehicle would be like using a little red wagon to move house. Cute, but very onerous and ultimately doomed.

    #2520
    Charles Wilcox
    Participant

    Brian H wrote:

    Just using Fundable.org seems far from a dynamic fundraising effort. The idea is to make it well known and well-thought of, not obscure, exclusive, and surrounded with barriers to involvement.

    :bug:

    How is it obscure, exclusive, or a barrier to involvement? (Not that I’ve used this service yet.) Yes, it’s online. Yes, it’s a third party system. But so is a donation Paypal account.

    Have you looked at the users? The amounts they are looking for are trivial, as are most of the purposes for the money, and few get what they are looking for. Raising two million with that vehicle would be like using a little red wagon to move house. Cute, but very onerous and ultimately doomed.

    You assume that current usage of Fundable.org dictate it’s future usage; I don’t see any limits on target collection limits, nor finish-date.

    That most people don’t get what their asking for means that they were naive about how much people would donate, or didn’t promote their fund-raising project.

    No matter the underlying method used to collect money, be it the current FocusFusion.org Donation system, or a Fundable.org managed collection, it will be “many hand make light work” approach.

    I assert simply that many who sympathize with the FocusFusion cause who don’t donate now would be much more likely to donate using the pledge-system used at Fundable.org. I know I would pledge money, and I think you’d easily get double the amount in money.

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