It’s plain to see however that no-one recommends going the Public Money route.

Project financing is a staple of the film & TV business – many go into Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) that exist to own and exploit the rights connected with the project. NI Screen and Invest NI now have a lot of experience in this. (As do many producers).

In film/TV terms there are (at least) two types of return – % of revenues and/or % of remaining revenues after other funders paid off. The first is generally pro-rata to the agreed investment. The second is what’s left after all the rest of the funders have been paid their share – and it is often where the producer sees their return (or not!) This model is pretty easy to grasp, but with the weight of bureaucracy, entrenched thinking and inertia, it’ll find a job to gain traction in other areas unless it is led by private finance IMHO.

I think the reality is that it needs flexible, experienced and smart people to make something like that happen. Take Y-Combinator. It took a few rich savvy VCs to think differently about equity funding to make it a reality. Now it’s perceived to be a great success. Same with things like Grameen in other contexts – microfinance to those without access to traditional finance.

Is this kind of thing not what the whole point of NISIN is about? You’re contracting for a product – you don’t care about the process, as long as it delivers?

I’m a little hacked off tonight – tomorrow will be better.

Everything about iPhone moves far to fast
for public money or traditional VC. Let’s
discuss more fully tomorrow.

To me it makes more sense. Look at the pressures of proper VC schemes. I was told of a recent (3 years ago) example where $15 million was pumped in and the principals were buying Aeron chairs and everything because they had the money. Or look at Cambrian House – a large and expensive failure that burned through VC money buying pizza for Google and hosting massive mentos-diet coke fountains.

You have to ask yourself why Smule needs $3.8 million for their iPhone apps from the iFund and how much ngmoco got from it for development of their games. Mobile game assets are much smaller therefore needing less time and storage – they should be cheaper to assemble. But it’s a gold rush, a bubble of it’s own,

The parallel to movies is well made – funding is made to the SPV which contains the movie. And when done, everyone takes their share.

MicroVC, based on an individual app or
game, not a company Like investing in an individual movie, not the movie
Studio?

I’d be interested in exploring that concept