Built bottom-up; the total is an output. Year 1 proves the economy in one city of 5,000. Year 2 replicates it in three cities of 20,000 and ships the Starter Pack. Up $1.2M from the previous edition — every dollar of the increase is named below.
| Line | Year 1 | Year 2 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | $1,350k | $2,350k | 13 FTE → 24 FTE. Founder line held at $185k combined |
| City activation | $420k | $840k | Pilot city of 5,000; then three cities of 20,000 at ~$280k each — cheaper per member because stewards are community-employed |
| Indigenous co-design | — | $360k | Its own line: co-design research $120k · stewards & gatherings $160k · sovereignty & legal $80k |
| Starter Pack productization New | — | $320k | Node image, open agent code packaging, playbook, governance templates, steward curriculum, support tooling. The highest-leverage line in the round |
| Coherence Labs | $400k | $520k | Research firewall, simulation network, Friston-lab engagement, validation study |
| Technology & infrastructure | $280k | $320k | Interface, local nodes, hosting, VERSES engagement Review |
| Legal & governance | $140k | $260k | Four jurisdictions; Phase 2 counsel pulled forward |
| Movement & narrative | $130k | $270k | The Lineage, founding film, validation-study communications |
| Deployed | $2,720k | $5,240k | $7.96M + $0.44M reserve = $8.4M |
| Increase | Amount | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| City-scale activation | +$390k | 5,000 then 60,000 members instead of 2,000 then 10,000 |
| Starter Pack productization | +$320k | Self-serve onboarding a year early — the reason 100M lands in 2031 |
| Support & platform hardening | +$280k | Three support FTE and tooling for 65,000 members |
| Labs & legal depth | +$210k | Validation across four cities; Phase 2 counsel pulled forward |
| Total increase | +$1,200k | $7.2M → $8.4M |
| Quarter | Burn | Capital in | Cash at end | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 2026 | $520k | $2,400k — T1 | $1,880k | Founding act: team, Labs seed, simulation, city selection |
| Q1 2027 | $680k | — | $1,200k | Interface ships; the city pilot opens |
| Q2 2027 | $740k | $2,700k — T2 (gated) | $3,160k | Gate: pilot past 2,000 circulating members, interface shipped |
| Q3 2027 | $780k | — | $2,380k | Pilot toward 5,000; Starter Pack build begins |
| Q4 2027 | $1,020k | — | $1,360k | Framework v1 published; three city teams hired |
| Q1 2028 | $1,240k | $3,300k — T3 (gated) | $3,420k | Gate: Framework published, validation fielded, Trust incorporated, pilot at 5,000 |
| Q2 2028 | $1,380k | — | $2,040k | Three cities launch; Starter Pack ships public; indigenous CD live |
| Q3 2028 | $1,600k | — | $440k | Exit: ~65,000 members, 4 countries, reserve intact |
| Totals | $7,960k | $8,400k | $440k |
The squeeze sits where the three city teams are hired ahead of T3. Mitigations pre-agreed: stagger the three teams across the quarter boundary, or pull $400k of T3 forward as an unconditional bridge. If T3 slips a full quarter, the plan throttles to two cities — named in advance so it is a decision, not a scramble.
| Stage | Members | Community spend | Cost / member | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 · city pilot | 5,000 | $420k | $84 | Density: a city costs little more to activate than a village, and holds far more people |
| 2028 · three cities + indigenous | 65,000 | $1,200k | $18 | Community-employed stewards; playbook already written |
| 2029 · self-serve | 2M | ~$2M | $1.00 | The Starter Pack does the activation we used to do |
| 2031 · at scale | 100M | ~$9M | $0.09 | Communities run their own nodes and pay their own stewards |
A thousandfold fall in cost per member across four years is not an efficiency story — it is an architecture story. The previous edition reached ~$135/member at exit; city density and community-employed stewards get to $18 while serving six times as many people.
Beyond the round, the path off donor capital runs through the four ventures — recalculated in full on the Venture Economics page, where a $274M combined revenue scenario at 2031 funds a $22M commons at about 8% of venture revenue.