System and method for funding companies

Abstract

A system and method for funding investment seeking companies (ISCs), e.g., startup companies, by a funding company is disclosed. For each of the ISCs, in exchange for private equity therein, the funding company issues a corresponding publicly tradable class of its own stock substantially based on the performance of the ISC. The ISCs are categorized according to characteristics important to investors, e.g., type of technology, revenue, and products or services (to be) offered so that ISCs in a same category compete against one another for funding distributions from the funding company. In particular, income returns on the investments of proceeds from public sales of each class of stock are periodically distributed among competing ISCs according to, e.g., the share prices of their corresponding class of funding company stocks.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for managing investments, comprising:
 a separate enterprise;   a plurality of privately held enterprises;   a network interface accessible through specifically configured computational machinery for facilitating communication between potential and actual investors and one or more of the separate enterprise and the plurality of privately held enterprises;   computational machinery configured to execute logic instructions via a processor and execute the steps of:
 collecting, for at least one of the plurality of privately held enterprises, money and/or equity for the purpose of making investments or holding by the separate enterprise; 
 directing, for at least one of the plurality of privately held enterprises, proceeds from the collecting of money and/or equity as investments for at least one of the plurality of privately held enterprises by the separate enterprise; 
 evaluating, using specifically configured computational machinery, the at least one of the privately held enterprises for allocating a portion of the invested proceeds to the at least one privately held enterprise; and 
 either assigning the at least one privately held enterprise with their corresponding portions of the proceeds, or allocating to the at least one privately held enterprise at least a corresponding portion of the proceeds that have been held by the separate enterprise; 
   wherein the steps of collecting, directing, evaluating, and assigning or allocating are all performed using a computational machine specifically configured to assist in managing the proceeds invested or held by the separate enterprise   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1  further comprising a network site for communicating, via the network, with investors for buying or selling equity from the separate enterprise, the network comprising:
 machine instructions encoding an evaluator for determining a funding distribution to one or more of the plurality of privately held enterprises, wherein the evaluator uses either one or both of a share price and a percentage of equity in a first of the plurality of privately held enterprises to determine an allocation to at least a first privately held enterprise, and wherein the evaluator uses either one or both of a share price and a percentage of equity in at least a second privately held enterprise to determine an allocation to the second enterprise; 
 wherein the evaluator determines the allocation to the at least a first privately held enterprise according to a computational process that relates the allocation for the first privately held enterprise to the share price of the corresponding public shares based on the equity in the first privately held enterprise; 
 wherein the evaluator determines the allocation to the at least a second privately held enterprise in a manner that varies comparatively to the allocation to the first privately held enterprise; 
 wherein the evaluator is in operative communication with the network site or data storage accessible by the network site for presenting information indicative of the allocations to at least one of: (i) one or more of the investors, and (ii) one or more of the privately held enterprises. 
 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the investments comprise one or more of principal, interest, equity, privately traded shares of stock, publicly traded shares of stock, private contracts, option contracts, virtual currency, virtual equity and phantom stock. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein a first class of separate enterprise stock for the first privately held enterprise is acquired and tradeable by one or more investors separately from at least a second class of separate enterprise stock for at least one additional privately held enterprise, and wherein the at least a second class of separate enterprise stock for at least one additional privately held enterprise is acquired and tradeable by one or more investors separately from a purchase of the class of separate enterprise stock for the first privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 2 , further including a step of determining the corresponding portion to be provided to any one or multiple privately held enterprise(s) by modifying an initially determined allocation amount to conform to one or more predetermined funding criteria. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the equity obtained by the separate enterprise in each of the plurality of privately held enterprises is private equity. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the separate enterprise is a privately held company. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 2 , further including a step of combining the allocations to at least a first privately held enterprise with the allocations to at least a second privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 2 , further including a step of collecting a fee from one or more of the plurality of privately held enterprises by the separate enterprise. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the step of evaluating includes determining corresponding equity in the first privately held enterprise dependent upon one of a bid and an asked for value. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the step of evaluating includes considering the value of the equity held by the separate enterprise in the at least one privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 2 , further including:
 receiving a return on the invested proceeds for at least one first privately held enterprise;   evaluating, by the specifically configured computational machinery, at least one privately held enterprise for determining the allocation to be provided to the at least one privately held enterprise, wherein an evaluation of the at least one privately held enterprise in this second evaluating step is dependent upon a value of the equity held by the separate enterprise in the at least one privately held enterprise; and   providing at least one privately held enterprise with the corresponding portion.   
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 12 , wherein the second evaluating step is not dependent on the allocation to any other privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 2  further including repeating one or more of the steps of collecting, directing, evaluating, and assigning or allocating, wherein in each subsequent repetition, performance of the evaluating step considers the value of the equity held by the separate enterprise in each of the plurality of privately held enterprises at a later time than each previous step of evaluating. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 2  further including a step of issuing, by the separate enterprise, one or both of shares and a percentage of equity in at least one privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein one or both of the share price and percentage of equity is based in part on the equity held by the separate enterprise in the at least one privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 16  wherein the computational machinery is further configured to execute logic instructions for receiving a disbursement from the at least one first privately held enterprise, and distributing the disbursement to one or more investors owning the shares or percentage of equity based on the shares or equity held by the one or more investors in the at least one first privately held enterprise. 
     
     
         18 . A system for managing investments in a plurality of privately held enterprises, comprising:
 a network interface for communication between potential and actual investors and the plurality of privately held enterprises;   a non-transitory computer readable medium having machine instructions encoded therein for implementing at least the steps of:
 collecting or directing the collection of, for each of the plurality of privately held enterprises, money and/or equity for the purpose of making investments or holdings; 
 directing, for each of the plurality of privately held enterprises, proceeds from the collecting of money and/or equity as investments for each of the plurality of privately held enterprises; 
 evaluating, using specifically configured computational machinery, one or more of the plurality of private enterprises for determining a portion of the proceeds to provide to one or more of the plurality of private enterprises; and 
 directing the corresponding portion of the proceeds to one or more of the plurality of privately held enterprises; 
   wherein the system further comprises a network site for communicating, via the network, with investors for buying or selling equity, comprising:
 machine instructions encoding an evaluator for determining a funding distribution to one or more of the plurality of privately held enterprises, wherein the evaluator uses either one or both of a share price and a percentage of equity in a first of the plurality of privately held enterprises to determine a funding distribution to at least a first privately held enterprise, and evaluator uses either one or both of a share price and a percentage of equity in at least a second privately held enterprise to determine a funding distribution to the second enterprise; 
   wherein the step of evaluating determines the proceeds provided to the at least a first privately held enterprise according to a computational process that compares the proceeds for the first privately held enterprise to either one or both of the share price and percentage of equity in the first privately held enterprise;   wherein the step of evaluating further comprises operative communication via the network site for presenting information to at least one of: (i) one or more of the investors and (ii) one or more of the privately held enterprises.   
     
     
         19 . A system for managing investments made for a plurality of privately or publicly held enterprises, comprising:
 a network interface for communication between potential and actual investors and the separate entity and one or more of the plurality of privately or publicly held enterprises;   computational machinery configured to execute logic instructions via a processor and execute the steps of:
 collecting or directing the collection of, for each of the plurality of privately or publicly held enterprises, money and/or equity for the purpose of making investments or holdings; 
 directing, for each of the plurality of privately held enterprises, proceeds from the collecting of money and/or equity for each of the plurality of privately or publicly held enterprises; 
 evaluating, using specifically configured computational machinery, one or more of the at least one privately or publicly held enterprises for determining a portion of the proceeds to provide to one or more of the at least one privately or publicly held enterprises; 
 performing, using specifically configured computational machinery, at least the steps of: 
 determining, dependent upon a result from the evaluating step, a corresponding proceed to be provided to each of the privately or publicly held enterprises; and 
 providing each of the privately or publicly held enterprises with their corresponding proceeds.