The primary purpose of the platform is to identify and promote those ideas and proposals that have a solid grounding in R&D with assured IP and a solid implementation team. The number of hours of due diligence examination and subsequent development to address any shortfalls is substantial for every project that reaches the Independent Investment Committee (IIC) review stage. Given the opportunity for seasoned investors to participate in the IIC review process and the scope for investors to suggest refinements to the process such that it meets their own established standards, what is passed by the IIC should be acceptable as passing any of the potential investors own review processes. If not, speak up and get it changed, because if it is not good enough for you it needs doublechecking that it is good enough for everyone else.
As the standard of the materials produced for the IIC should have a consistent baseline, comparison between opportunities should be simplified allowing the investment decision to spend more time getting to know the proposal against checking that everything has been looked at.
Any investment coming up for issue will have completed the full QED process and have satisfied the Independent Investment Committee (IIC) that it is fit to proceed. As you may well have a seat on the IIC or have contributed to the standards, or been involved in the IIC review preparation for the project, the standard is partially up to you. If it falls short of your own internal requirements then speak out and get the standard changed.
As an investor within the system you have access to suggest alterations to the standards applied to the projects going through the QED process.
Where a requirement is identified that is either common to a type of project or common to all projects then the QED process has the flexibility to be able to simply incorporate the additional requirement as standard. If you have a requirement for an addition to the standard, call it out and make it known. If the requirement is not already covered elsewhere, makes sense, and contributes to the quality of the outputs of the system it will be eagerly adopted. We do not believe that the system is perfect. We know it has to be able to evolve, and this has been designed in, so if you spot a deficiency, call it out.
If the first thing you knew about an upcoming issue at the Independent Investment Committee (IIC) stage, you still have 30 days to state your preference for issue, during which time you are encouraged to dig into everything about the project and make up your own mind.
Given that the process that the project has gone through to even get to the IIC and the IIC qualification process itself, where you may well be involved, you should have had sight of the impending issue for a considerably longer time and may even have been involved in formulating the application to the IIC.
If the due diligence standards applied by the process are not up to yours then CALL IT OUT. We have no intention of passing anything through the IIC that does not meet the full requirements of a sensible investment decision. The QED process will have asked the appropriate questions and you should be able to make your decision on the basis of the answers given, if not, let us know.
An issue can only be distributed if it has been agreed by the Independent Investment Committee (IIC) and a funding schedule has been created. The funding scheduled will then be distributed after the 'cooling off' period of 30 days.
The IIC is composed of seasoned investors, possibly even yourself, who should have no bias other than is this a sound investment that meets the criteria.
Inclusion on the IIC will be open to any PAN member who is willing to contribute the time and effort needed to appropriately review the proposals made to the IIC. If you have an issue with the performance of the IIC then CALL IT OUT, get involved yourself and get onto the IIC. Investors can vote with their feet and decide not to back ANY project, even after the IIC has agreed, subject to a PGF vote.
If you tell us what they are, they are compatible with the QED processes, and add value to the outcomes, then we can not only meet them we can beat them.
1: because only those applications to become a Protégé Company that pass through the qualification processes of QED and make it past the IIC get onto the Exchange.
2: because the statistics show that projects with higher amounts of due diligence have significantly higher survival and ROI, and these projects will have had months of ongoing DD.
3: Most significantly because the statistics show that university based R&D/IP has a much higher survival rate than non-university based R&D/IP. This might be extended to say that where the R&D and IP generation process has been to a specific standard, usually associated with that of a university research project, then regardless of origin, the project has a much higher survival and ROI.
The statistics are skewed somewhat by the fact that the survival rate of 'general projects and investments' may include those originating in a university and therefore actually making the comparison between 'University Only' and 'General + some university ones' where the 'some university ones' contribution to the 'General' performance is quite marked.
We would encourage investors to look at their own track records and see what the impact would be of removing projects which had a significant academic R&D / IP contribution from their datasets. Whatever the outcome, average goes up (sounds like the project would not have passed IIC), or average goes down (as we suspected), would be of interest to all.
Because of the standards that the various opportunities are expected to meet as a part of the QED process, comparison should be simpler, but remember we may be trying to compare a Quantum physics, with a molecular biology, with a materials science, with an AI, so a lot of it will rely upon your own expertise and preferences.
At heart we would like to run and fund as many as reach the Independent Investment Committee (IIC) and pass. Realistically that will be restricted by funds available, (so deposit more). Given the volume of untouched projects already in existence, we want to process as many as possible that can be given a thorough review.