Many. Loans. Or a lot of infrastructure development has been funded through leases where the leaseholder under contract develops or funds development of the infrastructure in return for the right to extract value from it for a predefined time. E.g. a lot of hydro development in Norway happened by offering investors a multi-decades lease on the commercial exploitation of a given waterfall, on the condition that they covered the cost of developing a damn and power plant.
The problem is the level of risk. With something well understood like a waterfall, there was still plenty of risk (dry years etc.; fluctuations in demand and cost; natural disasters), but it is risk that is reasonably easy to quantify within sufficient levels to insurance against part of it, and cover the rest by asking for sufficiently beneficial leasing terms to make it attractive without a permanent share.
But with a startup with a new model, the risk is extremely hard to quantify other than assuming it is high. That'll make investors demand a lot more.
Plenty of companies are funded through bank loans or other forms or debts or leases or have the financial power to demand buy-back clauses, but they're usually "boring" companies where returns are stable-ish or at least very well understood.
(that said, I did once work at a company where we partnered with a German tech company that had been built on the back of bank loans; it took an extreme level of financial discipline - the bank paid out in monthly tranches on the basis evidence they'd stuck to their very detailed plans; basically they'd put in a massive effort to de-risk a business that would normally be too risky for most banks)
The problem is the level of risk. With something well understood like a waterfall, there was still plenty of risk (dry years etc.; fluctuations in demand and cost; natural disasters), but it is risk that is reasonably easy to quantify within sufficient levels to insurance against part of it, and cover the rest by asking for sufficiently beneficial leasing terms to make it attractive without a permanent share.
But with a startup with a new model, the risk is extremely hard to quantify other than assuming it is high. That'll make investors demand a lot more.
Plenty of companies are funded through bank loans or other forms or debts or leases or have the financial power to demand buy-back clauses, but they're usually "boring" companies where returns are stable-ish or at least very well understood.
(that said, I did once work at a company where we partnered with a German tech company that had been built on the back of bank loans; it took an extreme level of financial discipline - the bank paid out in monthly tranches on the basis evidence they'd stuck to their very detailed plans; basically they'd put in a massive effort to de-risk a business that would normally be too risky for most banks)