Whether or not raising $4M is needed, I don't know. My first thought was, "OK, they need money for R&D that doesn't include preorders...cool...but then what the hell was the Angel Seed Funding used for, especially to warrant a 30% stake?"
Hi Korbman, we wanted to address this question specifically. The Angel's Seed funding has gotten the company to this point - a working, low-power, Scrypt mining chip. It takes significant time and R&D funds to get to this point.
The $3.6 Million will be used to manufacture the chips and manufacture/source the remainder of the Alchemist's necessary components. The $400,000 remaining (listed as R&D on the prospectus) will be used for rent, staff costs, accommodations for business partners, and any other incidental R&D costs or costs otherwise. Basically, operating funds needed to get everything prepared for shipping in July.
That's sort of what I figured (and freedomno1 pointed out my oversight before), but there wasn't any detail surrounding it in the prospectus. In any case, thank you for the clarification.
Quick question: How did you guys arrive at the $3.6M figure for mass manufacturing, and what happens if you only end up raising, say, 10% of the total $4M?
Congrats on the chip by the way!
Thanks very much! Sophia and Tom are Taiwan-based, so they're asleep at the moment. I'll check back in with as much information as I can get regarding a more detailed breakdown of manufacturing and sourcing costs from the $3.6M. I'm US-based in order to have a schedule that more closely matches the forums' North America / Europe population (the Securities subforum is most frequented during these continents' waking hours). I've been brought on to the team to help out with with investor communications so I won't always have the information on-hand, but I do have direct contact with the Taiwan-based team and Havelock as well.
Are you guys not worried about side-chains killing off the alt-chains?
At the moment, altcoins like Litecoin and Dogecoin are proven and side-chains are still mostly 'waiting in the wings', so to speak. In addition, there's no reason that altcoins and side-chains couldn't co-exist, much like Colored Coins / Decentralized Exchanges existing side-by-side with centralized exchanges.
So, while side-chains may become more prevalent in the future, Scrypt-based altcoins are here and in-demand and we plan to satisfy that demand.