That is the capital the Dunedin-born inventor needs to start commercial production of the Martin Aircraft Company's Martin Jetpack - a unit that straps on to a pilot and allows sustained personal jet flight.
Mr Martin has tentative orders for 3500 of the $140,000 machines, and will use the $5 million equity he hopes to raise by the end of the year to produce for the commercial market an unmanned remote-control military version, plus another for adventure tourism. His plan is to build a production facility in Christchurch initially capable of building 500 units a year.
It has taken Mr Martin 28 years and an estimated $10 million of his and investors' money to reach this point, but he said the goal was now within sight.
"We're 98% there," he said.
An initial public offering (IPO) could follow next year to raise a further $15 million to fund the other three business opportunities the board of the Christchurch company has identified.
Mr Martin said if the IPO went ahead, he hoped it would be on the New Zealand market, but if there was insufficient liquidity, it could be forced offshore.
It has been a surreal past few years for Mr Martin, the company's founder and chief technical officer, since the July 2008 launch of the jetpack at an airshow in the United States.
The company had not marketed the jetpacks, these had sold themselves; but the challenge now was to have sufficient capital to take advantage of those commercial opportunities.
Mr Martin said he had international interest for 500 jetpacks for search and rescue roles, 400 for anti-terrorism, 1000 from the United States Government for border security and 1600 for private use.
But the company had now reached a pivotal point, he said.
Mr Martin was not seeking funding just yet, but was assessing investor appetite before the board decided whether to launch a full prospectus or look at other funding options, such as private placement.
Mr Martin said many New Zealand companies struggled to achieve this next step.
For the past 28 years he had developed the business out of family income and savings from his job in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector.
Pursuing his dream had meant forsaking luxuries and many of the norms of typical New Zealand life, such as doing up the family home or owing a new car.
Additional investment had come from friends and engineers drawn by the challenge, which provided initial funding for development to reach various milestones.
The business was then revalued and new shares sold to provide fresh capital to take it to the next stage.
"It was a classic start-up. We only ever sold the number of shares needed to get to the next value point."
About six years ago venture capitalist No 8 Ventures invested, allowing the tenth and eleventh prototypes to be built.
The firm had now built 13 altogether and sought to take a quantum leap from developer to serious aviation company.
"The story about the mad guy in the garage working on a jetpack is a fun story, but we have moved beyond that story. It's a high-tech business that has attracted some amazing people on to its board and some incredibly talented technical people."
The proposal was to use the equity for what Mr Martin called picking "the low-hanging fruit."
For $2 million he said the company could develop jetpacks for adventure tourism, starting with a venture in Christchurch, then franchising the concept locally and then internationally.
Jetpacks were surprisingly easy to handle, he said, with novice pilots able to hover after just a few seconds of flying.
The key to their simplicity is the computerised avionics, the same as used in United States military Predator drone aircraft and supplied by the multinational Rockwell Collins.
These replaced mechanical controls, which required a skilled touch for smooth flight.
Mr Martin said that in an adventure tourism setting the jetpacks could be programmed to limit distance, speed and height parameters, making them safe for novices to fly.
The second new business venture was to develop an unmanned version for the US and other un-named military forces.
With the ability to carry a 120kg payload, this model would be used to provision troops with supplies, which in a battle setting meant not putting aircrew and $70 million Black Hawk helicopters at risk.
Mr Martin said the Martin Aircraft Company business model could ultimately emulate that of Jade Software, which as part of software sale agreements retains research and development contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in New Zealand.
This could mean the company's head office remained in Christchurch along with research and development facilities and a pilot production site. Main manufacturing facilities would be offshore, closer to markets.
"This option would allow New Zealand to do what it does well, to be innovative and try new stuff, while using other parts of the world to do what they do well."
A joint venture recently signed with a company to develop jetpacks for civil defence use was a case in point, with the agreement requiring 20% of the production to be done in New Zealand.
The company had extensive patents on the technology developed, but to meet the specifications of the various markets, it required ongoing developments which had helped its bank account. A potential military client wanted a ballistic parachute addition and this and other research and development contracts had contributed $750,000.
Mr Martin said he could have set up his business anywhere in the world, and there had certainly been inducements. However, he wanted to stay in New Zealand. Plus, there was a very practical reason to do so - the world-class quality of engineers here.
"I still believe New Zealanders can do it five times as faster and for a fifth of the price than the best people in the world can. We have multi-tasking guys who can turn their hand to anything."
'Can't' not a word jetpack man uses
The word "can't" doesn't feature in Glenn Martin's vocabulary.
Through 28 years of development of the Martin Jetpack, he has been told what he can't do: it would never fly; it could not be controlled; there was no market; it would take too long for people to learn to fly ...
But in typical Kiwi fashion he took on each of those perceived barriers as a challenge and systematically knocked them over.
In 2008 when he launched the jetpack in the United States, he was told by a public relations and marketing firm he would need a $7 million launch budget - money he didn't have and which he said appeared excessive.
In typical Kiwi fashion he went ahead with his own plan and a $40,000 budget, in part because he realised the very concept and creation of the jetpack would sell the new aircraft.
"It's a jetpack. There is something about the jetpack which sells itself."
