LENR Cities is bankrupt!

Sorry to hear that. A talented and ideological group of forward thinkers. Unfortunately I think they may have anticipated commercial developments/advances in the tech that just have not happened yet. I always got the impression they were relying on Rossi to come through to ignite the field, followed by a rush of new entrants looking for their help. Maybe they are the first casualty?

All I know is that they were working on convincing big investors.
they had a team of researcher, some labs, but who were all expecting funding.
Last news were not positive. I'm afraid E-cat circus frightened the investors...

Idea is still good, but the cash was "love money" from courageous George de Montmollin, but he is less rich than Darden, from few order of magnitude. Running a company even small, cost much money.
This is what happen to a startup who does not meet it's market on-time.

I never understood the concept of LENR Cities.

We never have seen LENR results above error margin which would clearly prove LENR and attract financial investors.
LENR Cities never had own experiments or a team member or partner claiming to have a commercial viable LENR device to use as a base to attract potential investors.

Their whole concept was based on hearsay and the hope in Rossi.

@Timar: Interesting theory.
IH could use this "circus" to screw down prices for further LENR investments when potential investment competition is backtracking after all this bad news.

LENR-Invest is a totally independent business, with a strong leg in US, and another in Europe (Switzerland).

As says Dewey LENR-Cities was not proposing a technology but a way to organize research and development, to coordinate the efforts, to align interests of various actors.
It was mostly EU-centered, but not only. Given US market structure, attacking it from outside was suicidal. Not covering it may be risky.

For me the problems stay alive.

Brillouin is an investment of LENR-Invest

LENR-Cities have no investment in Brillouin, for formal link with LENR-Invest (they know each other). They had a portfolio of researchers, of labs, ready to work on research programs, if enough investors were ready to fund them.
The key idea was to ask for funding of research programs, not labs/researchers, and be paid back in access to produced IP.
It is complex, slow and risky for a small business to choose one lab/researcher. It is hard too for a lab to search for company wanting to fund their research.
LENR-Cities was among other idea, proposing a kind of platform "à la Uber/AirBnB/Blablacar" to match offers and demand, and some kind of SMB crowdfunding.
Another model was to sell "insurance against LENR revolution" with payback as IP access if LENR develop.
Another idea was to organize cross licensing in an ecosystem so that those who develop IP, allow access to "family", and thus allow innovation based on existing IP, that will be then accessible to "family" (ecosystem).

the problem was to bootstrap all. As I understand, there was scientists, labs, programs, but not enough funding. Another problem is that you cannot ask to a sponsor who is too big to need the others.
A company who have money, technology, competences, contractants, would kill the ecosystem.

It was like a Uber with drivers, cars, but no passengers.
And moreover you cannot ask to a dominant Cab company to provide drivers and cars, or it will kill all the ideas of the platform.

All entrepreneurs in LENR are interested in MFMP goal, this is beneficial for all to prove LENR works.
Problem is funding and thus IP of the results.

If you look at people sharing photography or participation in research groups, you could say HUG, or why not Jed, Dewey, and me, because we were at same conferences, same association...

LENR-Invest have a more classical VC model, like IH, and I wish them all the best possible. I wish them also to cooperate instead of battle. In an emerging market first player are helped by the success of their competitors.

One key to LC model is the autonomy of the members.
They can do business outside of the ecosystem, and their responsibilities, obligation to give access, is limited to what they have been funded for by LC.

Beside this specific case, I cannot say more than human around cold fusion go crazy because their is money and glory, and it is hard to secure IP and recognition by academics.

LENR domain have a problem, with ego, with greed, with pet theories, preventing people to collaborate, to hear each others.
LC model was proposing a non-communist way to share, restricted to people who concede enough sharing for other to improve and innovate, but it is not less easy to herd cats.

Edmund Storms with his strong temperament and his decades of experience have a similar opinion, from a more scientific point of view.
If all scientists were able to consider all serious results, the problem would already be solved.
There are many data in public domain, with key facts, closing crowded cul-de-sac, showing where we have to make experiments.

Le link with Nichenergy or CNP was real. It was member of the ecosystem.
This mean that when LC would have been funded by industrialists to do research programs, they would have been called to do work on the programs, and that all they developed would be accessible to the "sponsors" of the program and to the member of the ecosystems, against fair payment.

I don't know of any such link with LENR-Invest, and that is logical since they are a VC.

The labs who were interested in working for the ecosystem were really interesting.
With a good research program, there would be great advance. Labs experts in nanotechnologies, in various energy technologies, would have done a great job because they would be expert already.
The LENR Scientists would have bootstrapped and driven those mainstream experts into LENR.

The job to do is still there, and the people who can do it are still there.
What is missing is the wiring.

I forgot that link, and all I remember is discussions, and complaints when I mixed LENR-Invest with LENR-Venture (LENR-Cities finance arm) project.
Sure they worked both to develop LENR, and they would have collaborated if meaningful.
But they have no capital link.