Many people have already discussed the technology side of this saga, so I thought I should bring a different angle. Aki Pyysing isn’t a battery expert, but he seems to know about investing and scams. In this video, he looks at this saga from an investor’s point of view, and I think he has some interesting things to say.

The video is basically a podcast episode, so I don’t expect you to actually listen to all of that. Also, the YT subtitle translation didn’t work, so this video will be inaccessible to pretty much everyone. The link is there so that you don’t have to take my word for it, but be prepared to play this game in hard mode. If you have the time, energy and skills, you can do your own research with the material.

However, I used https://wayin.ai/ to translate and summarize the video, and here are some relevant parts of the summary. To me, the most interesting parts are about the way Donut Lab is being funded.

00:03:21-00:04:51

Donut Lab’s claims of revolutionary battery tech, promising to make lithium mines obsolete and be easily mass-produced, raise serious doubts. The speaker argues that an invention of this magnitude would attract investment from major entities like Morgan Stanley or Elon Musk, rather than relying on cold calls to individual investors.

00:04:51-00:07:05

The speaker explains Donut Lab’s approach of offering convertible bonds to private investors with promises of 5x returns. This tactic, he argues, is typical of fraudulent schemes. Genuine billion-dollar innovations attract funding from established banks or venture capital firms, not through unsolicited calls to individual investors.

00:41:16-00:46:42

A true, groundbreaking invention wouldn’t require cold calls to investors or rushing fundraising. Legitimate innovations are typically kept confidential until ready for presentation to relevant, established investors, unlike this company’s approach.

In this video, Aki Pyysing claims that Donut Lab is contacting small investors instead of large investment firms or banks. If you can find another source to verify this claim, don’t hesitate to share it. Regardless, this sounds like an unusual funding strategy to me. Consider that a red flag.