[yinyinwu]

Lots comments are focused on the funding structure, and that misses the point. Pioneer takes the risk in funding early projects not companies. They explicitly call out that they will invest in researchers or artists who aren't sure whether they want to start a company.

If you can raise funding through traditional VC channels, go for it. If you're a researcher in Iowa with a new physics idea, Pioneer is a better than a government grant.

The average size of an NIH grant in 2015 was under $500k. And that amount is intended to support the project expenses, not just the researcher. A close friend of mine is a physician at Stanford. She received a prestigious NIH grant. The grant amount to fund herself was $50k...in the bay area. This is common in academia.

Congrats on launching! Hope you guys are successful.