Fat-grilling punch-master George Foreman is getting into the crowdfunding game, serving as the public face of a new platform to bring inventors and the investment-hungry internet hordes together. Described as a combination of Shark Tank and Kickstarter—and tragically not named SharkKicker—the new service, FundanIdea, will allow inventors to connect with private investors to get their ideas off the ground. (Suggestion for an initial project: an invention that creates titles for crowdfunding platforms that don’t sound like joke names from Mr. Show sketches.)
Developed by patent-assistance firm InventHelp—whose managers have been weirdly insistent that this is their idea, not Foreman’s, possibly because they’re worried that the retired boxer will change the service’s name to George—FundanIdea will distinguish itself from Kickstarter by allowing investors to purchase equity in the companies they send money to, as opposed to the usual Kickstarter rewards of keychains and warm regards. The platform is expected to launch next year, sliding into the crowdfunding economy like the fat sluicing away from a dry and tasteless slab of chicken breast, cooking between two pieces of cheap plastic on a dirty kitchen counter.