Author Topic: Investor backing and financing options  (Read 2190 times)

Superhobo

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Investor backing and financing options
« on: September 06, 2012, 05:08:42 PM »
Hey everybody, Scheol on the forums. I have been a fan of Titan Network for a long time and was notified on the forums to bring some of this info over here. I've been investigating outside sources for funding options for the studio to go independent or fund them groundbreaking a new studio. I don't want to provide false hope, I'm looking into it and asking questions to insiders as to what options are available and what the market looks like right now for this type of venture. Let me paste the posts from the forums here so all of the info is in one place.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheol View Post
"If that's what they're looking to do, and that does make sense to try and branch out as a new studio, I'm meeting up with someone tomorrow who's a funds manager for a large venture capital firm and I'll get it in his ear. At the very least I can pick his brain on what the market looks like from the inside for that kind of venture in this market."

"Just got home now. We had a long talk and he said the venture capital market right now has been contracting, but after telling him about the situation with as many details as I have (which isn't a lot), he did say that investors either private or institutional should show signs of interest based on the fact that a lot of the infrastructure could potentially be maintained and a marketable product with a black track record acquired. He's going to try and get me a list of a few people and firms he knows of in the NorCal area but no promises. At the very least, some positive words from a big financial insider is good."

The person I know is looking into potential contacts in the Northern California region to contact. It may be a few days before I hear back from him, but I should hear something. It's a shot, but nothing is obviously certain. There are a lot of things going on in the market right now but he did say that if that were his industry and he was out there, he would at the very least want to hear the proposal and see some hard numbers. From a guy like this, that's a good thing.

My question is this: What's going on with any if at all coordination? Has anybody started a proposed plan? Do we know if anyone from Paragon Studios is also trying to work anything like this? If we're going to try and help them, we all need to be on the same page and know what we're going to be asking for from both NCSoft and investors. And I apologize if all of these questions are currently answered in other threads both here or somewhere else, I try and read as much as I can but my schedule doesn't allow me to read everything.

Several big questions are going to be physical infrastructure, servers, billing and accounts payable/receivable, admin, etc. One idea to sway investor interest to help the numbers is to potentially lease/contract support through NCSoft and hire them as a contractor to continue those operations and pay them to handle those aspects until this proposed new venture is established enough to take on those responsibilities outright. I've worked with companies before to setup those types of agreements. It both reduces initial startup capital requirements, and it provides a new revenue stream for NCSoft.

Just ideas.

Olantern

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Re: Investor backing and financing options
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2012, 05:40:46 PM »
This is interesting news.  You may find the "Legal Considerations" thread I started useful, too.

One of our major problems at this point is that Paragon Studios employees are contractually obligated not to talk to outsiders right now.  Those are the people who not only have the best idea of what's going on internally to keep CoH alive (if anything), but also have the experience and know-how to get some kind of post-NCSoft setup running if it comes to that.  Moreover, the lack of available information on things like how much assets have sold for in the past and what the contracts to operate the game say puts a serious cramp in any plans to save it.  I'm not really sure how to get around this problem, other than to acknowledge it exists.  Any thoughts on it would be helpful.

Scott Jackson

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Re: Investor backing and financing options
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2012, 08:41:03 PM »
I've not seen anything to indicate that the contractual obligations are quite that restrictive, or that the people most likely to start an independent studio are still considered NCSoft employees.  It appears that some "formerly known as Paragon Studios" members remain on NCSoft's payroll, but are all?  Obviously, NDAs are in place to prevent disclosure of internal NCSoft plans for CoH or how CoH was previously funded and operated, but it would seem quite odd to completely forbid non-employees or even outgoing employees from essentially conducting a job search (to form an independent studio)...unless NCSoft has somehow promised everyone a job via internal transfer.

Of course, at this stage we're not organized to work officially with a new studio, but if any tentative contact has been made, TonyV would probably know it.  I'd suggest a PM to him if you don't hear from him soon, to ensure that he is aware of your efforts and can also pass them along to individuals who may have made contact with him, confidentially.

Superhobo

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Re: Investor backing and financing options
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2012, 02:06:56 PM »
This is interesting news.  You may find the "Legal Considerations" thread I started useful, too.

One of our major problems at this point is that Paragon Studios employees are contractually obligated not to talk to outsiders right now.  Those are the people who not only have the best idea of what's going on internally to keep CoH alive (if anything), but also have the experience and know-how to get some kind of post-NCSoft setup running if it comes to that.  Moreover, the lack of available information on things like how much assets have sold for in the past and what the contracts to operate the game say puts a serious cramp in any plans to save it.  I'm not really sure how to get around this problem, other than to acknowledge it exists.  Any thoughts on it would be helpful.

Well, there is an option. I'm sure the severance agreement/NDA would cover not disclosing information about the closure to the public. However, I've never heard of a severance agreement/NDA imply that one cannot be solicited for a job. What I've seen done before is something that could work here. A group of people could form a corporation or similar. The founders would become the shareholders. Shareholders hire/appoint members of the Board of Directors. If the corporation was looking to inquire about hiring certain former employees of a company as an officer of the board, any attempt to block that by a third party would then open that third party up to legal action from both the employee and the employer. The only potential issue would be if a severance agreement had a No Compete Clause in it. But I have only really seen that done in big number contracting positions. Members of the board would earn a salary making them an employee which could be anything, including $1. A board meeting could be called and the members of the board and the shareholders could discuss options for generating a revenue stream for the company. If after the meeting, or any time later on, any or all of the members of the board could resign. The company would still exist as property of the shareholders.

This would be a large leap of faith on everyone's part, and a bit time consuming, but that's an option for opening up talks to get a new venture rolling.