Investor questions, answered
Everything you need to know about the product, architecture, business model, and investment opportunity.
Product
Product
What exactly does Neural Commander do?
Neural Commander is a Go daemon that runs on your hardware and provides persistent AI intelligence. It remembers everything across every AI tool session, manages a four-layer memory vault, routes AI requests through a privacy-aware provider gateway, and coordinates seven domain-specific commanders (Health, Strategic, Finances, Projects, Relationships, Wealth, Knowledge). You control it from Telegram, CLI, or TUI dashboard — anywhere in the world.
How is this different from Claude Code or Cursor?
Those tools are brilliant in the moment but context is siloed — every session starts cold. NC adds the persistence layer — it remembers your project structure, decisions, relationships, and context so every AI session starts informed, not cold. It also works across ALL AI tools simultaneously, not just one.
Why local-first instead of cloud?
Privacy, speed, and cost. Your code and personal data never leave your machine. Processing is instant (no upload latency). BYOK means you use your own API keys — zero inference costs for us, zero vendor lock-in for you. Local-first architecture is also APP 8 / OAIC-aligned, positioning NC well as AI privacy regulation increases globally.
What are the seven commanders?
Each commander owns a domain question: Health Commander (energy + wellness, highest priority override), Strategic Commander (priorities + synthesis), Finances Commander (cash + obligations), Projects Commander (multi-project health), Relationships Commander (contacts + CRM), Wealth Commander (portfolio + wealth strategy), and Knowledge Commander (memory + attestation + learning). They share context through an event bus for cross-domain intelligence.
Architecture
Architecture
What are the four memory layers?
Layer 1: Agent Hot Memory (per-session context, ships at launch). Layer 2: Cold Memory (cross-session vault, Obsidian-compatible, ships at launch). Layer 3: Team Hot Memory (shared context, Pro feature). Layer 4: Federated Agent Memory (cross-instance intelligence, future). The schema was designed for Layer 1 with Layer 4 in mind.
What is the Provider Gateway?
A local AI routing layer that can send requests to Ollama (local models), or with Pro, to cloud providers via BYOK. It handles privacy classification — sensitive data stays local, general queries can use cloud models for speed. Zero telemetry, zero data collection.
What does "compile-time plugin security" mean?
In a post-ClawHavoc world (341 malicious runtime plugins in 3 months), we compile plugins into the binary rather than loading them at runtime. This eliminates the entire class of supply-chain attacks that affect plugin-based tools.
Company & Investment Entity
Company & Investment Entity
What entity am I investing in?
Neural Commander Pty Ltd — a single entity that owns all IP, code, brand, and customer relationships. Your SAFE converts to NC equity. There is no dual-entity structure or royalty arrangement.
Is Neural Commander ESIC-eligible?
Yes. Neural Commander qualifies as an Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC). Qualifying investors receive a 20% non-refundable tax offset on the amount invested, plus a 10-year capital gains tax exemption on shares acquired.
Is the Community Edition open source?
No. The Community Edition is proprietary freeware — free forever, but not open source. Sovereignty comes from architecture (local-first, zero telemetry, BYOK) rather than source code access. The codebase represents 200K+ lines and 9 months of development.
What protects against competitors?
200K+ lines of production Go, 9 months of architecture, and a proprietary seven-commander intelligence framework. The four-layer memory vault was designed with federation in mind from day one. Compile-time plugin security and privacy-compliant AI routing (APP 8 aligned) create additional defensibility.
Business & Pricing
Business & Pricing
What's the business model?
Freemium with PLG (product-led growth). Community Edition is free forever. Pro is $19/mo ($12/mo Founders' Rate for first 100 users). Team is $19/user/mo (5+ seats). BYOK means zero inference costs for us.
What is the Founders' Rate?
$12/mo locked for the first 100 Pro subscribers. It's a lifetime rate — it never increases for those users. This rewards early adopters and creates urgency for the waitlist.
Why BYOK (Bring Your Own Keys)?
It removes our biggest potential cost center and aligns incentives. We focus on intelligence value, not API arbitrage. Developers prefer it because they control costs, there's no vendor lock-in, and they can use any model they want.
What are the key metrics you're targeting?
Free → Pro conversion: 10%. Projected monthly churn: <5% (conservative for dev tools). Projected LTV:CAC: >25x. Organic CAC: ~$15. Pro LTV: $408 (24-month average). Projected break-even: ~Month 15-18 at ~350 paid users. All metrics are projections based on conservative modelling.
Investment
Investment
How much are you raising?
$250K via SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity). Valuation cap of $2.5M-$5M, negotiable. This is a pre-seed round designed to fund 12-15 months of development through to revenue validation.
What will the funds be used for?
60% Engineering (Go developer, Month 2 hire). 20% Go-to-Market (developer advocate, content marketing). 10% Infrastructure (hosting, CI/CD, monitoring). 10% Operations (legal, accounting, insurance).
How does non-dilutive leverage work?
ESIC provides investors with a 20% tax offset + 10-year CGT exemption. NSW MVP Ventures provides up to $50K in matching grants. The R&D Tax Incentive returns 43.5% on eligible R&D spend. Combined, a $250K raise supports approximately $335K in total funding.
What's the timeline to profitability?
Unit economics are profitable from day one (zero inference costs via BYOK). Company-level break-even is projected at Month 15-18 with ~350 paid users, assuming organic growth only. With paid marketing or enterprise pilots, this could accelerate.
What de-risks this investment?
Technical risk is substantially de-risked: 200K+ lines of production Go code, 1,500+ tests, 690+ files, 9 verified AI models. The product works today — this isn't a prototype. The remaining risk is market adoption, which the $250K funds.