PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in every home

Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by gkoberger on Sunday November 01, 2020 @09:14PM (#24964300)

Hmm, I don't understand why they did a $3M round. If they've already sold a hundred at $60k, that's $6M in revenue. I feel like they'd want to raise a lot more, or try to remain profitable. The $3M seems like they're taking on dilution (and expectations) for an relatively low amount of money, when their product is $60k and has a fair amount of traction.

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by jtsiskin on Sunday November 01, 2020 @09:26PM (#24964347)

The $6M probably only comes after delivering the product.

$3M might be the what they need to get strong manufacturing going. And it looks like they money comes with a COO and some strong connections. It may be a smart move by the founder to get what they need while giving up as little equity as possible

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by gkoberger on Sunday November 01, 2020 @09:31PM (#24964366)

So why not do debt financing?

I do agree that it seems to be for the connections, and for all we know they gave up 5% for that $3M.

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by echelon on Sunday November 01, 2020 @10:41PM (#24964638)

> So why not do debt financing?

If you do debt financing, does that look unattractive to future VC rounds?

Have any successful startups done primarily debt financing?

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by pbadg3r on Sunday November 01, 2020 @10:50PM (#24964681)

Debt tends to be hard for super new companies, even with orders in hand. If you are developing a new product and don't have cash up front, there's a good chance you never deliver, and both lenders and potential customers know that. Also looks unattractive in future VC rounds, but in this case probably secondary to my first point.

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by webmaven on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:45AM (#24968041)

> Debt tends to be hard for super new companies, even with orders in hand. If you are developing a new product and don't have cash up front, there's a good chance you never deliver, and both lenders and potential customers know that. Also looks unattractive in future VC rounds, but in this case probably secondary to my first point.

There is always factoring (ie. sell the receivable for a large fraction — typically 90-95% — of the face value). It eats into your profit margin, but you get the money up front, the customer pays on net30 (or whatever) terms, and you don't have to deal with billing. It works best when you need the money to buy materials or build capacity in order to fulfill the order. The longer the lead time from spending money on materials to delivery and billing, the more attractive factoring becomes.

Factoring is common and essential to certain industries like clothing that have very long lead times & where the buyers have leverage to insist on net60 or net90 terms.

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by aqme28 on Monday November 02, 2020 @12:01AM (#24964952)

Do we know the terms of this deal? It could end up looking a lot like debt in the end.

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Re:PORTL Hologram raises $3M to put a hologram machine in ev... by thinkingkong on Sunday November 01, 2020 @10:11PM (#24964514)

3m is low enough to not be priced. They probably have a lot of flexibility and control at this point.

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