Deal Abstract

Battery and charging company wants to be the one company to build charging stations for school buses.

Financials (VRB)

|Question|Notes|
|---|---|---|
|1. Fundraising Target? |$1070000|
|2. Fundraised So Far?|$1001096|
|3. Pre-Money Valuation?|$19200000|
|4. Previous Year's Annual Revenue |$847042|
|5. Previous Year's Annual Net Income (+ Profitable, - Burning Cash) |~$-129299|

Source

The 6 Calacanis Characteristics ("Sow Passion, Not easy mediocrity", or S2 P6 N18)

Criteria	Yes/No
1. A startup that is based in SV?	False: Santa Barbara, CA
2. Has at least 2 founders?	False: Two
3. Has product in the market?	True: Revenue generating
4. 6 months of continuous user growth or 6 months of revenue?	False: $813k to $847k from 2018 to 2019 which is essentially no growth
5. Notable investors?	False: Absence of confirmation in this case is as good as confirmation of absence
6. Post-funding, will have 18 months of runway?	True: At this point has a year of runway and then some.

Source

The 7 Thiel Questions (Every Time Man Profits, Don't Dismiss Serendipity)

Question	Score	Notes
1. Engineering?	3	Builds charging docs for electric vehicles, 'Our Unique Product: Our patented HYDRA-RX is the only charger controller on the market that can work with maximum output AC chargers for electric vans and buses at one-tenth of the cost of a typical DC Fast Charger.'
2. Timing?	2	Good time for electric vehicles but why is now a good time to install these?
3. Monopoly?	2	Small business like market penetration but no winner take all of micro market perceived
4. People?	2	Competent old professionals but mainly a bunch of nerds trying to make a product make money
5. Distribution?	1	Has to go B2B with very slow inertia orgs
6. Durability?	2	Not sure why someone would keep using LAT after install, they seem just like any other provider
7. Secret?	1	Applying mostly commodity technology to a unique vertical (school buses) is the way to get a billion dollars

What has to go right for the startup to return money on investment:

1. Consistently identify the champion who is going to lobby this technology inside their org; 2. Troubleshoot the stalling in growth; 3. Get really good at fast deployment and probably team up with vendor companies to do mass installations

What the Risks Are

1. This is a hardware technology business and follows a small business growth more than venture growth; 2. Revenue stalled from 2018 to 2019; 3. What happens when Tesla makes a self driving school bus

Bonus Muhan's Notes

Cool company, will be curious to ask questions and get clarity.

Updates

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