Investments

Crowdfund: Rocket Dollar

James

• 1 min read

A new startup named Rocket Dollar was opened on Republic.  This company allows a "self directed" retirement account, which means you can invest in non-traditional assets such as Angel Investments, Crypto, and others.

Deal Stats

  • REG CF
  • SAFE at $20m cap with 10% discount
  • Max raise is $1m (per CF)
  • $80m Assets under management
  • Revenue $50k (2018)
  • 4 months of runway

Risks

In my opinion the biggest risks are regulatory.  I know there are some weird rules about things you can or can't do, and I am wondering if the company would be liable if an end user broke the rules?  I will leave a comment about it and see what they say.

Another risk is that the company raises through the Reg CF raise on Republic but then can't close an A Round in the next 6 months.  They claim to have 4 months of runway now, plus an additional 5 months of runway ($1m / $180k burn) gives them 9 months which is an OK amount of time to get business up.

Other

How many more customers at $15/month to break even? At $180k per month burn this would take an additional 12k users.  They claim to have 800 users now and are predicting an additional 200 (total 1k users) by the end of Jan 2020.  This may seem high, but 40m+ US households have IRAs.

Another interesting things that was in the comments section... you can use your Rocket Dollar account to invest through Republic into Rocket Dollar.   It's like startup investment Inception.

My final thought is that I have been wanting a solution to hold long term investments under a tax favorable vehicle but they are all a bit cumbersome (like moving to Puerto Rico?).  I personally know it is a real problem they are solving and it could hit the gas if the crypto space jumps in or if Reg A/CF platforms continue to grow and people want to put the super high risk and long term assets into them.

Go/No-Go

This one is a go for $5k.