[patio11]

Smart with a good pedigree is a nice start. He'll also need some other source of social proof: people who are respected saying that they respect him, ideally enough to trust him with money. If he does not have the social connections to pull that off yet, he'd have high ROI on making those connections. One way to bootstrap those is by going to an incubator whose founding team everyone knows and trusts (hint hint).

somewhat fearful of making the leap

That's a red flag. Rightly or wrongly, VCs expect people likely to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years act like they're intending to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years. Your friend is acting like he is intending to have a secure academic job in 3-4 years. There's nothing wrong with that but it is not maximally compelling in terms of convincing people to give him money. (H'd ironically be better off poor because you were hustling in SV than poor because he was an academic. Poor hustlers can fairly easily create the illusion of forward progress. Poor academics suggest that forward progress will be deeper into academia and probably mostly lateral with respect to poverty.)

750k and two years; the vast majority of that going to processor time.

YMMV depending on who you talk to, but a software company which doesn't budget for any engineers is likely to be a hard sell.

Also: the most common outcome for commercialization of academic research is that the research has wonderful ideas with no commercial potential whatsoever. Investors are very aware of this. One sales challenge is convincing them that your friend is, unlike the other 100 PhDs with no real world experience they have talked to, actually on to something that can create money.

[moneyquestion]

He has no interest in continuing academia. His stated reasons for staying there rather than taking offered positions at google etc is that he can work on exactly what he wants and bill it out to the school.

I get what you are saying about VC's expecting people to act like they are intending to create businesses. I think someone smart will be able to see the difference here between something like what he wants to do and what something like facebook or kickstarter is doing. He is pushing the edge of knowledge and literally couldn't do it without the tools that he has gained in research. I honestly believe if someone talked to him they would see everything he has done for the last 10 years has been with this type of thinking in mind.

The social proof would not be a problem, top professors in compsci and mathematics know him; and he has code to back up his claims.

750k includes 70k a year for he and another engineer. I don't think he is confident he will find another engineer capable (other than the one he has in mind) that is capable of the work he is trying to do. Its too specific of a niche and literally cutting edge in the field.

The commercial value of the research would be the easiest sell of all; the first person/company to do it right will have immediate customers from everywhere.

He has interned at google (i fear if he sees this this line will be the proof of who I am and who I am talking about) and presumably has some connection there.

The main thing he needs is cash at this point; the number crunching is CPU intensive and he wants 20k/month for sending it out to amazon.

[tptacek]

Top professors in CS and math are not good social proof to investors unless they have a track record of involvement with successful companies and make specific representations about your friend. Some professors are good references. Most aren't. The ones that are good are unlikely to give the reference (& intro) your friend needs unless your friend has enough hustle to extract it from them.

Your friend really doesn't seem to need an investor so much as he needs a patron.