Munera Collective Intelligence Platform

Henry Wagner-Founder and CEO of Munera Inc.

His expertise stems from 10 years dedicated to municipal project funding, working as a trader and underwriter of municipal debt securities for one of the premiere Public Finance firms, Piper Jaffray. As one of a select group of industry leaders under the age of 30, he laid witness to a growing age gap and industry complacency, coupled with a lack of modern technology usage among project participants. His experience, leadership, and reputation within the sector led to his acknowledgement of the need for a more efficient and advanced marketplace; one that can provide true value throughout the life of infrastructure project development. He is passionate about the role infrastructure plays in bringing progress and societal benefit to the world. 

Public Agencies lack the modern technology that benefits the rest of society. This inefficiency is pronounced within their efforts towards building and maintaining public infrastructure projects, which require large sums of capital investment, convoluted procurement, and complex collaboration among project participants from the public and private sectors. The project being proposed is the development of a coordinated set of collaboration, financing, procurement, and productivity technologies designed to take an infrastructure project from inception to completion, in conjunction with a digital ecosystem of collective support from all stakeholders. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, open data, and digital workflow tool integrations can transform the way public agencies achieve success (gauged by efficient use of taxpayer dollars, speed of project delivery, and transparency in process). Infrastructure, whether it be educational institutions, roads, utility systems, hospitals, or energy solutions, effects society globally. To produce this efficiently can elevate the way we progress as a population. 

The problem is the lack of modern collaborative, data-driven, and productive technology utilized in and focused on the process of managing and funding the development of our public infrastructure. On a national level, as the primary owners and operators of our infrastructure, state and local governments utilize numerous "point solutions" (some modern, some legacy systems) for disparate functions related to government work. The various systems used by project vendors in combination furthers difficulties in interaction. This complex web of technologies used to piece together the underlying collaboration and productive functions of public sector infrastructure work creates major inefficiency and disconnect between project participants. The ~90,000 public agencies and their hundreds of thousands of project vendors require a universal standard of operating procedure to drive lasting value into the future modernization and build out of our countries infrastructure. According the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017, America's "report card" grading our nations infrastructure received a D+. According to their estimates, we require a $4.5 trillion investment to bring that grade up to a B. Infrastructure spending will be a major initiative moving forward, and our country needs the proper technology to manage and fund these efforts effectively. 

Munera is a “Collective Intelligence Platform” that coordinates the functions of infrastructure project procurement, management, and funding, and creates an ecosystem of data-driven and collaborative support centered around these initiatives. To expand, in order to discuss, plan and execute public sector projects, Munera will include a modern collaboration feature set, where each stakeholder can actively communicate and share information with one another. For projects that need funding, Munera will streamline municipal bond fundraising by automating tasks associated with issuance, building financing teams to complete the work, structuring and pricing loans according to prevailing market conditions, and developing a network of sophisticated bond investors. Once the funds are raised, Munera will then simplify the effort of procuring goods and services with step-by-step guides for quick procurement document creation, a collaboratively governed product and services catalog, a user-friendly portal for proposal submission and review, and a digital payments capability. Munera will then allow for task designation, progress tracking, and ongoing team collaboration among all project participants, while including transparent budget impact analysis to team members. “Collective Intelligence” is built up on the platform through application of machine learning and process optimization algorithms that improve underlying project transparency, collaboration, execution, and data delivery.

Our target market consists of the ~90,000 local government agencies located in the United States who serve our national population of 328 million individuals. Our state and local governments effectively own and manage 75% of our nations infrastructure and raise on average ~$400 billion annually (through the municipal bond market) to build and maintain these assets. These organizations are plagued with outdated technology, hindering their efforts to deliver these large scale initiatives on time and on budget. Additionally, the goods and services providers (aka project vendors) and investors that help support these public projects have a difficult time interacting with their local government counterparts. By developing a platform that brings all parties up to the same level technologically to share and access data, communicate, and transact, you have the ability to deliver great, collaborative socially beneficial work to the population at large. In order to get the technology into the hands of the governments themselves, one must be able to adapt to the extenuating circumstances surrounding government procurement frameworks. Therefore, we have structured a business model that enables us to circumvent the "competitive bidding" aspect of procurement, as to allow for wide and rapid adoption of beneficial technology. 

Our project and its impending usage looks to unify infrastructure project stakeholders towards societal progress. We view infrastructure as the backbone of society. These projects elevate our society to new heights through better education systems, modern transportation solutions, sustainable energy environments, and essential services delivered to the masses. In order to initiative, plan, and execute these impactful initiatives, awareness, transparency, and collaboration needs to be enhanced to deliver support of and success within these projects. The Munera Collective Intelligence Platform looks to be the agent allowing unification in process.

I worked in public finance for 10 years for one of the premier underwriters of municipal debt securities. I analyzed, tracked, and contributed to many large infrastructure initiatives. I saw major inefficiencies within process and a lack of commitment to modernize one of the most impact driven ecosystems affecting our global population. I witnessed a growing age gap, which helped fuel the complacency, and realized that introduction of modern collaborative technology could immediately benefit these projects on a large scale. I set out in June 2019, as a sole founder, to create a technology that encompasses the most essential components within project success. I engaged a technology development company, who helped me design the platform, and have been working with them ever since. Further, I approached two individuals, who have since become advisors, that are heavily involved in the government data and infrastructure sectors. They have assisted me in developing out a full technology architecture to be executed upon, as well as strategy for implementation, partnership, and growth. We decided to brand our technology as a "Collective Intelligence" platform following research we did on MIT's initiate to design "superminds" to solve important problems.  

Simply put, this work means something. Our global infrastructure has been deteriorating for several decades, yet provides support for our population at large on a daily basis. It's my belief that a lot of incredibly exciting and impactful initiatives don't get off the ground because of the lack of transparency in process and involvement from potential stakeholders. In my opinion, our governments are terrible marketers. Not only do they not have the resources to properly display a message, but things get politicized. However, if you can supply these agencies with modern technology that not only brings about transparency in process, but allows them to execute efficiently on these large scale projects, you have something that can be incredibly beneficial to society on a wide scale. While we are living in a very difficult period in our existence, as we emerge we need big dreamers and excellent executors to help rebuild successfully as a society. We need to do it well. We need to do it together. It's my goal with this project to achieve that. That's why I'm driven to achieve this. Thank you for asking. It's exciting to even write down. 

Spending 10 years on a trading desk, you learn how to deliver results on a minute by minute basis in an incredibly fast paced environment. As an underwriter of municipal debt securities, you act as the "quarterback", unifying the public issuing agency, their financing team, your sales force, and the investment community around one goal. Raise the money for the project and ensure all stakeholders are satisfied at the end. We dealt with a multitude of issuers, from school districts who raise money once every 20 years, to agencies who issue debt 5 times a year. I understand different projects, mindsets, and objectives. I understand different stakeholder groups and how they view the projects their local governments engage in. I understand the investor base and their motives for investing in projects throughout the U.S. As as underwriter, you are the link and the focal point to which all groups converge, as we hope our technology to be. Further, as one of a select group of industry leaders under the age of 30, I realized the benefits that modern technology can have on an industry that had yet to embrace it. All of these pieces enabled me to identify the problem and design a solution. It's time to execute now. 

As a first time founder, one needs to be resourceful. Additionally, developing technology for the first time requires a rapid education and adaption to a new environment. Finally, entering a sector involving government agencies necessitates desire, perseverance, and an innovative mindset. These are all things I had to learn over the past year. I set out in uncharted territories in developing technology, for a group whom I had interacted with, but never officially "sold" to, in a sector that is known for its dated and convoluted operational structure. If this isn't adversity, I'm not sure what is. It's been a never ending endeavor of trial and error, adaptation, design and redesign, fundraising to continue on, and pursuit of embrace. Just in the past three months, in spite of the ramifications of COVID, I have formally engaged with two leading individuals in the government and infrastructure design fields, extended agreements with 6 local governments around the US, and initiated development of the product we'll be entering the market with. It's been a challenge, but has been incredibly important in developing the proper foundation for the success of Munera. 

Starting at a young age, my leadership ability shined through by becoming a captain of my high school lacrosse team my junior season. This spot was normally reserved for senior leadership. Continuing into my professional career, I was the youngest trader managing a trading desk for a leading investment bank in our field. While these milestones demonstrate success and leadership, I can't say that they would capture the hearts and minds of others. I left my job in the investment field to create and lead a company that generates lasting value within public sector operations, and therefore benefiting their taxpaying constituents, by managing and funding their largest impact driven projects. While developing this technology and creating lasting value is the service we provide, it's the organization that I hope to build that will inspire others to contribute to societal progress. I hope to develop Munera into a company that drives the values of sustainability, diversity, and trust and serves those who build and achieve great things for our country. Leadership is a quality that is set by example. By embarking on this journey, I believe the best of my leadership is yet to come. 

Government procurement is a fairly challenging area to transform, therefore software focused on streamlining processes within this function exists to a certain extent, but is not uniformly adopted and doesn't provide much value to the process. Virtually no technology, with the exception of spreadsheets and modern communication tools, is used within the municipal loan underwriting function. This over-the-counter market still conducts the process of raising money manually. To manage projects, modern collaboration and productivity technology exists, yet is not adopted widely by governments. The true innovation lies in the coordination of these functions into a simple, intuitive, data-driven solution that allows public agencies and their project vendors to plan, fund, and manage their projects on one platform. It will also be the machine learning and artificial intelligence integrations that truly allow for innovation within project delivery improvement. Additionally, innovation in implementation is required within the government space. Selling into government organizations can be a lofty endeavor for technology companies. Few can weather the long sales cycle associated with government procurement. Therefore, innovation in business model is required to scale our product. We do this by giving our technology solution away for free, and utilizing a transaction based business model to sustain the growth of our business. This structure is rarely utilized in the government space and will allow us to be viewed as innovative and adaptive to our public agency customers.

Change comes about when things aren't working perfectly. When looking to the complexities involved within public infrastructure management, there are a mix of stakeholders, policies, procedures, and underlying inefficiencies that get in the way of producing great things for society. While government continues to lead our societies, they continue to be monitored, scrutinized, and hindered in the modernization of their own internal processes and organizational "infrastructure." 

Change happens when it's needed. Our society is enduring one of the most prolific series events in the history of our world. It's times like this that are pivotal in shaping the future of our world. One must look to the issues that have been talked about the most in the recent past (as to remain relevant), yet not executed upon. Infrastructure is that issue to us and one that can benefit the most amount of people. Infrastructure investment puts people to work, modernizes society, unifies the population in purpose, and achieves societal betterment. All of these ingredients are currently being looked for. 

Further, change management is a term often used by government organizations to describe the process of taking a long utilized system and overhauling its existence effectively. It doesn't happen effectively very often due to the word overhaul. Overhauling a system creates deterrence for our governments. Our technology introduction will begin by modernizing basic tasks within project interaction. Enhancing job visibility, coordinating project tasks, developing more efficient relationships, and enabling online transactions have the capability of making huge advancements in process, yet are seen by the private sector as "givens." As our customers continue to see the benefits technology creates within their operation, introduction of additional features will take place. We adapt to our local government customers instead of mandating change. That has been a losing proposition in the past. Once integrated into their systems, we can work to improve their operations from the outside in. That will enact change on a wide scale, saving taxpayer dollars and delivering great government work. 

While our platform is in prototype, we expect to have a beta release with the governments we have extended agreements to at the beginning of August. These governments build and manage infrastructure serving a collective population of ~200,000 people. While governments vary in population served, it is our goal to deliver our technology to infrastructure projects serving a collective population of north of one million people in one year of fully launching our platform. In five years, according to our expected growth, we will have one thousand local governments managing infrastructure projects on the Munera platform that serve a collective population in excess of 25 million. The wonderful thing about infrastructure is that it supports our population in a variety of ways. One school that is constructed can educate one thousand children and support a staff of two hundred. A utility system on the other hand may provide clean drinking water for five hundred thousand people daily. A freeway has the ability to allow for safe transportation for three million people every commute hour. As we build out our platform, and continue to support these individual projects through our technology, the scale of our population served will become substantial. 

Helping to address the large issues facing our nations infrastructure is a large task. Disrupting the government, building, and financial technology sectors will require rapid growth within our technology and organization. We will have to scale quickly, develop partnerships, and have the funds to support the growth. These are lofty, but achievable goals.  The primary goals we have for this next year will be to launch our initial platform into the marketplace which consists of the procurement, collaboration, and project management feature set. This "minimum viable product" will be the foundation of our technology to which we will build upon. We will launch this within the next five months, with our financing platform being launched within that one year target. This functionality will round out our product offering and will allow us to truly disrupt our target sectors. It's our goal to have thirty local governments signed up within our first full year of launch. Our five year goals are even more aspirational. The growth within our user base is the main target as to allow for maximum impact delivered to our population served. 

We also look to spearhead the rehabilitation of Fort Winfield Scott in the San Francisco Presidio, CA. The Presidio Trust is looking for a mission driven organization to lead this rehabilitation. It is our goal to mirror our mission at Munera and develop this campus into one that supports a collaborative effort towards societal betterment; Munera being the digital agent, Fort Scott the physical. 

Building a technology and organization designed to support such a vast ecosystem of participants requires top personnel, funding, and legal support to accomplish. While our technology that we will introduce to the market is fairly simple in terms of operation, it is the design, development, and coordination effort of the essential components of the platform in combination with machine learning and AI algorithms that will require top technology talent to perform. Sufficient funding will be necessary in attracting this talent to our organization to build, support, and scale our product. Additionally, government policy is a fairly complex web to navigate. Procurement law, municipal finance law, securities law, and contract law are all barriers to our progress. Developing rapidly adoptable terms and conditions and privacy policies for our technology is necessary. It is our desire to be able to design a policy that can be integrated seamlessly into public code, such as social media policies that have been almost universally adopted. It is our robust feature set from a technology and financing perspective that will allow us to stave off competitive forces for awhile, as it will be a truly disruptive technology to multiple sectors. However, it will be the "embrace" of the benefits of modern technology that will continue to be a hurdle in government adoption. 

Organizational support is a necessity in building a strong foundation for our business. In addressing the complex areas that we have chosen, embrace of the Munera vision is important. In looking for funding partners, we need organizations that have the capability to assist in finding talent, exploring partnerships, and truly helping to support the underlying goals of the business. In looking for technologists, we need individuals who want to develop technology that serves the greater good and has the ability to make an impact on a large scale. Addressing the policy complexities, we need to partner with governmental, philanthropic, or think tank organizations that are willing to utilize their own resources to commit to address that same concerns we are. We need open minds and progressive ideals to enact change within some key areas. Partnering with organizations like Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Ballmer Foundation, and MIT Solve has the ability to expand our reach and bring credibility to our cause. 

I consider the six local government organizations that have agreed to beta test our platform as partners. They will begin to test, implement, and provide feedback of our platform and allow us to improve the functionality per their operational needs. It is our goal to partner with large organizations from the private sector that provide goods and services to governmental projects regularly. Receiving their feedback to ensure both parties are properly served is vital to the growth and success of our initiative. 

Our business model is structured to allow for adoption of our technology on a wide scale. Government technology companies have issues scaling due to procurement frameworks. Most of these companies monetize their technology through SaaS or Enterprise contract models that create the need for governments to go out for "competitive bid" for technologies because of spending threshold limitations, elongating sales cycles. Our goal is to scale quickly. Therefore, we will allow our technology to be freely adopted. Where we make money is on a transaction fee charged to government vendors on invoicing that occurs over our platform. Additionally, as we get our project financing platform launched, we will charge an underwriting fee to local governments to raise the money for their projects. This fee however will be at substantial discounts to current underwriting standards, and will also be a set price according to size of bond issue. This transparency alone will be a major improvement to the industry. 

By giving the technology away for free to local governments and their vendors, you allow for immediate synergies to be developed between to the two groups, while providing efficiency into their interaction. 

Development, awareness, and delivery of our technology will require substantial capital commitment to achieve. It is also necessary to have the business support for our customers to properly grow the company and its product offering. To date, we have raised money from family/friend/angel investors to get our initial product built. It is our desire to sufficiently fund the further development of the product and hire additional staff to spur our growth and penetrate our markets rapidly and effectively. We continue to reach out to venture capital and philanthropic grantors to achieve this. It is our projections that lead us to believe that our growth can be sustained through revenue reinvestment. Our product needs to be at full capacity before that is achieved however. 

Munera has received capital investment (in the form of convertible debt) in the amount of $250,000. This money is strictly going towards product development. As our product hasn't launched yet, we have not begun to generate revenue.

It is our goal to fundraise a total of $2,250,000. As we have raised $250,000, the remaining $2 million we hope to raise by the end of 2020 in the form of a convertible security. 

If there is one thing I learned from the first six months of my journey, it was that singular work gets singular results. It was my research on the power of "collective intelligence" that made me realize that, and it wasn't until I added an advisory team to help guide me through technology and business development that I began to see progress with my venture. Collaboration is an extremely powerful thing. As I continue down the path towards impact, surrounding myself with the proper individuals and organizations that can help unify in our mission towards societal betterment will only further our reach. MIT is an incredible organization, and the SOLVE program is designed to achieve impact. It has the ability to help me execute on my vision. 

Partnerships benefit when synergies exist among the two organizations entering the relationship. Our goal at Munera is to achieve societal betterment through successful infrastructure development and maintenance. SOLVE has a mission of solving world challenges. Munera will have the technology. MIT has the reach. We look to leverage that reach to create an ecosystem of collaborative support (just as Munera will) around furthering Munera as a technology and organization. 

In addition, relating to our response to our 5 year goals, our aim is to be the digital engine behind the rehabilitation of Fort Winfield Scott in the Presidio, SF. This rehabilitation, as we envision it, will create a campus towards achieving societal betterment. Apart of this campus will be a center for "collective intelligence" that brings together the brightest minds from research and think tank institutions to collaborate on social initiatives. We would like MIT to spearhead that effort. 

Philanthropic organizations that have funding initiatives geared towards social impact companies would be a start, such as the Ballmer Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Emerson Collective. Research and ThinkTank institutions, such as the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Brookings Institute, who have accumulated vast sums of data on state and local government, would be a great partnership opportunity. Finally any individuals in the MIT network that have state and local government affiliations would be useful to partner with in advancing the message.