Looking for More Investments — Make a Public Leaderboard

I love small and simple solutions that create a big impact.

Aptera, a solar vehicle company struggled with getting investments for their project — the first production-ready solar-powered vehicle. In fact, they already went under once because they ran out of money. The company has been around since 2005, and back then the Cleantech industry wasn’t as alluring (and relevant) as it is today.

In 2011, Aptera had to close its doors because they weren’t able to secure new funding. U.S. Department of Energy offered a $150 million loan but with one condition — they had to secure the $80 million in private investment needed to close that financing.

They failed to do so.

So they had to come up with a better and more sustainable solution for getting investors in.

Their idea — a public investment leaderboard where investors compete who has given the most funding for a neat little innovative project.

Of course, there’s no way to know how many investors were impacted but I’m betting my left kneecap that at least a couple of investors are showing this page to colleagues on a golf court and bragging about how they are crafting the future of vehicular transportation.

The leaderboard is embedded through Microsoft’s PowerBI — the business data visualization tool that adds credibility and signals that the data is collected in real time.