this sounds like an interesting product and the team clearly has impressive credentials.
I am very sceptical of crowd funding however, I think these are largely terrible investments for consumers while explicitly targeting people who are not accredited investors.
what made you go that route instead of pursuing VC funding?
It is a combination of things. We hesitated a lot to do a crowdfunding but :
- a corrosion issue nearly killed us and we had to "reboot"
- our team was in full lockdown in France for a while and we could not prototype as easily
- in 2021 we were still focused on seasonal energy storage, a very capital intensive endeavour, a market not ready and a very risky project.
- the rules for crowdfunding changed in 2021 and the use of SPV (special purpose vehicles) made it possible to raise big + have one line on the cap table.
We had to derisk the project further to be able to attract VC funding (patent, prototype, LOIs, financial model, etc.) and we ultimately followed the advice from another YC founder and friend who went the crowdfunding route with success.
A lot of crowdfunding projects look like outright scams and probably are... but I feel that the SEC did a good job protecting the public. You cannot invest more than a certain amount if you are not accredited for example. Things are certainly not perfect, and getting better year after year.
I am very sceptical of crowd funding however, I think these are largely terrible investments for consumers while explicitly targeting people who are not accredited investors.
what made you go that route instead of pursuing VC funding?