Pre-seed — The Deal
What we're raising
$600,000 on a SAFE, post-money valuation cap $4.5M (terms indicative — to be confirmed in definitive documents).
Why a SAFE, why this size
- Fast and clean — no priced round, low legal cost, rolling close (invest as you're ready).
- Right-sized — enough to deliver the four de-risking milestones in ~12–15 months; small enough to close quickly with angels, climate pre-seed funds and strategics, stretched further by non-dilutive grants and in-kind credits (NVIDIA Inception, AWS).
What your money does
Builds a lean ROOT proof-of-concept on the owned concession, signs the first paying data customer, stands up the conflict-free legal structure, and files grant/Article-6.2 applications. (See "Use of Funds".)
The staged path (and why early money wins)
| Round | Instrument | Amount | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | SAFE | $600k | $4.5M cap |
| Seed | Equity | ~$5–6M | priced up on milestones |
| Non-dilutive | Grant / MDB | ~$10.7M | ROOT science (no dilution) |
| Concessional debt | Debt | ~$10–12M | working capital (no dilution) |
| Series A | Equity | ~$20M | priced up again |
Because the pre-seed enters earliest and cheapest, it earns the highest return of any equity in the plan — on the conservative base-case exit, a pre-seed dollar is modeled at ~30×+, with materially more in the stretch case. (Full cap-table and returns: "Round structure & cap-table".)
Investor protections
1× non-participating liquidation preference, pro-rata rights, standard information rights. Founder-aligned; non-dilutive capital carries the heavy science capex so equity isn't diluted funding a flux tower.
Honest framing: this is a pre-seed risk (pre-product/revenue) at a pre-seed price — not a priced Series A. You are backing rare institutional access + a complete plan, and funding the milestones that prove it.