New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Question

A friend of mine has a wonderful business plan for a new break-through design for aircraft.  According to his plan he needs to raise $18 million.  What recommendations do you have for him?

Answer

Although the idea may be a real aviation break-through, it also sounds risky because of the amount of the capital.  I would suspect that the best investors would be strategic investors such as existing large military helicopter and aircraft contractors that already have tremendous in-place infrastructure and ready markets.  I will guess that much of the funds required will be used on developing production infrastructure and sales and marketing.  These are two items that existing manufacturers have in spades.

I would tend to start with them and work from there.  If nothing else, the founders could sell their design in exchange for a royalty, which could have a very good outcome.

At this stage, gaining strong partnerships could be key to getting this design to market.  Of course, they need to protect their design with the proper confidentiality agreements and patents prior to revealing too much information.