Martin Jetpack. Maybe an IPO in the offing

[CJ]

Superyachts, an easy way of getting to shore and exploring interesting areas and would basically cost bugger all on a superyacht budget. Adventure sports, for skydiving and those type of companies are 2 markets. Easy to set up a business in Rotorua and Queenstown.

re adventure tourism.These aren't like quad bikes. I assume you would need a pilots license and special training on the specific device.

Re super yachts: there is civil aviation - would you be allowed to land on the beach at Nice? and what do you do with it when you do land (parking meter as suggested?). Also all your guess would still need to use the tender.

As I said above, I think the market is just to niche, and that is once the work out the safety issues (I assume getting the contraption of the ground is the easy part, making it safe and controllable will be the difficult part).

[Rocketman]

Markets: 1. Recreational aviation - for people who just want to fly - currently more than 1m people with pilots licences 2. Aeroclubs, who want interesting aircraft in the fleet, and want to train people to fly 3800 flight shcools in US 3. Governments for border patrol, emergency response, search and rescue, policing - where a jetpack is much cheaper than a helicopter, much easier to fly, and can operated in more confined spaces. 4. Tourism - electronically constrained flights for people who just want to fly a jetpack once in their life. 5. Military - in particular in unmanned form for forward resupply, air mobile communications and survelience towers, convoy leading ground perntrating radar for IED detection etc. 6. Civilian - building instection, aerial photography, remote site access, farm inspection. And there will be others as time goes on.

[Rocketman]

Oh and I forgot - film appearence, events and openings, displays and promotions, aerial sports yet to be invented (but likely to be sponsored by an enegry drink company), air shows, flying tours down the grand canyon, ship to ship, ship to shore, urban anti-terrorism rapid response, assured paramedic arrival in congested urban environments, and how about ultimately urban commute - though this would not be legal right now.

[STRAT]

I suspect safety will be an issue and a drawback.

Running costs?

[CJ]

Markets:
1. Recreational aviation - for people who just want to fly - currently more than 1m people with pilots licences
2. Aeroclubs, who want interesting aircraft in the fleet, and want to train people to fly 3800 flight shcools in US
3. Governments for border patrol, emergency response, search and rescue, policing - where a jetpack is much cheaper than a helicopter, much easier to fly, and can operated in more confined spaces.
4. Tourism - electronically constrained flights for people who just want to fly a jetpack once in their life.
5. Military - in particular in unmanned form for forward resupply, air mobile communications and survelience towers, convoy leading ground perntrating radar for IED detection etc.
6. Civilian - building instection, aerial photography, remote site access, farm inspection. And there will be others as time goes on.

1. Where is that 1m figure from. Globally I thought it would be more? However, I would expect you would need a special license for this or training at least, reducing the number substantially.
2. Targetting the same market as 1.
3. Unmanned drones are more suited. There may be a market for unmanned drone helicopter type devices but this isn't where they are currently heading. I would be more comfortable if they started in this area and expanded into manned versions.
4. limited but agree
5. Again a shift in focus would be required which would make me more comfortable.
6. again, drones could do most of this.

Oh and I forgot - film appearence, events and openings, displays and promotions, aerial sports yet to be invented (but likely to be sponsored by an enegry drink company), air shows, flying tours down the grand canyon, ship to ship, ship to shore, urban anti-terrorism rapid response, assured paramedic arrival in congested urban environments, and how about ultimately urban commute - though this would not be legal right now.

These are limited markets.

I am not saying there isn't potential, I just think it is a high risk investment more suited to angel/VC (where risks are higher) rather than IPO (where product is expected to be established).

Edit: The article says they are looking for $20m. What it does not say is what % of the business that is. There is a big difference in valuation between a 5% interest for $20m and a 80% interest.

[Rocketman]

CJ - you assume public markets should only be low risk, and anything high risk is for private markets. Why should this be the case? Surely the public should demand opportunities to diversify investment according to risk as they see fit. No body is being forced to invest - but wouldn't it be nice to have the choice.

[Nevl]

CJ - you assume public markets should only be low risk, and anything high risk is for private markets. Why should this be the case? Surely the public should demand opportunities to diversify investment according to risk as they see fit. No body is being forced to invest - but wouldn't it be nice to have the choice.

Yeah I agree with you. I see you have put some good time into researching markets. I have shown the videos to some friends overseas in the superyacht industry and they loved it. I am guessing like Sealegs that the Search and Rescue market would be a good initial target point and quick response units in the military. Getting someone to the scene quickly with emergency supplies and first aid would be great and the fact that you can buy 4 of them for the same price as a Helicopter would also go down well.

As for some of the naysayers on this forum you will find that they are extremely conservative investors in general. Unless you offer most posters here a guaranteed 15% per year with no risk they will likely write off your company for the next 30 years until it has " a reasonable track record", However they are very good for finding roadblocks and issues that you may not have thought of which is actually very helpful in the long run.

Anyway if you are involved with Martin then best of luck and please keep us posted. The people on this forum will also generally change their mind as long as more information becomes available.

[CJ]

CJ - you assume public markets should only be low risk, and anything high risk is for private markets.

Fair comment.

I guess I was thinking from a NZ perspective which doesn't have many speculative companies. Compare that to the Australian market where there are many speculative mining co's. NZ isn't the right market to do an IPO like this. See my comparison above to the Hulme IPO which was much closer to commercialisation but still didn't succeed.

[Rocketman]

One of the sad realities of the NZ capital markets is that the VC market (which was just developing 6-8 years ago) is now extremely limited - there might be 2 funds right now but no more - and if you want anything more than say $3m you are outside their league. So early stage companies with needs for $10m plus either have to sell out to foreign interests, with usual conditions attached - like moving most of the company to that investors location - or they have to chance their arm with a public listing to remain local. If we had more IPO's we would all get used to it - the brokers and the investors. Maybe it takes a Jetpack to tip the balance.

[Xerof]

Wearing a Dragons Den hat - I'm out