Ask HN: Kickstarter, Experiment.com or custom platform for a cure for EBOLA?
I am working with a group of scientists and practitioners who are pretty confident that they have found a non-toxic and orally administrable cure for EBOLA virus. The most successful current treatment for the virus is a mixture of 3 mono-clonal antibodies and RNAi. The delivery method is expensive and the treatment will NOT work once the virus mutate beyond the scope of those antibodies. Ours will!
The group already have an agreement from an independent and qualified laboratory to carry out a crucial in vivo (animal) experiment. This kind of experiment involving a pandemic virus is not cheap! The experimental facilities and labor costs along are quoted somewhere in the six figures (not including the cost of synthesizing the treatment agent).
We are NOT currently involved with any academic institutions or pharmaceutical companies. As some of you may know that is a blessing and curse when it comes intellectual properties and grant application in bio-chemistry. None of us have that kind of money, we are all working on this our our own money and time. A brief read on HN one can get the impression that EBLOA is a controversial virus and it is may NOT be immediately financially rewarding (unlike many other kickstarter projects that offer an immediate reward like a pre-order type of products)
We have looked into experiment.com, and it seems that they just use our already existing crowd funding network to raise the money. I've already done another project using stripe.com to accept credit card. Just wonder it would be better to roll out our own fund raising page using stripe.com?
Do you think using another platform or methods can attract other potential funders for projects in our situation. Any tips from anyone who has some experience and knowledge crowd funding that you can share will greatly appreciated.