Smart with a good pedigree is a nice start. He'll also need some other source of social proof: people who are respected saying that they respect him, ideally enough to trust him with money. If he does not have the social connections to pull that off yet, he'd have high ROI on making those connections. One way to bootstrap those is by going to an incubator whose founding team everyone knows and trusts (hint hint).
somewhat fearful of making the leap
That's a red flag. Rightly or wrongly, VCs expect people likely to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years act like they're intending to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years. Your friend is acting like he is intending to have a secure academic job in 3-4 years. There's nothing wrong with that but it is not maximally compelling in terms of convincing people to give him money. (H'd ironically be better off poor because you were hustling in SV than poor because he was an academic. Poor hustlers can fairly easily create the illusion of forward progress. Poor academics suggest that forward progress will be deeper into academia and probably mostly lateral with respect to poverty.)
750k and two years; the vast majority of that going to processor time.
YMMV depending on who you talk to, but a software company which doesn't budget for any engineers is likely to be a hard sell.
Also: the most common outcome for commercialization of academic research is that the research has wonderful ideas with no commercial potential whatsoever. Investors are very aware of this. One sales challenge is convincing them that your friend is, unlike the other 100 PhDs with no real world experience they have talked to, actually on to something that can create money.
somewhat fearful of making the leap
That's a red flag. Rightly or wrongly, VCs expect people likely to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years act like they're intending to create $100M businesses in the next 3-4 years. Your friend is acting like he is intending to have a secure academic job in 3-4 years. There's nothing wrong with that but it is not maximally compelling in terms of convincing people to give him money. (H'd ironically be better off poor because you were hustling in SV than poor because he was an academic. Poor hustlers can fairly easily create the illusion of forward progress. Poor academics suggest that forward progress will be deeper into academia and probably mostly lateral with respect to poverty.)
750k and two years; the vast majority of that going to processor time.
YMMV depending on who you talk to, but a software company which doesn't budget for any engineers is likely to be a hard sell.
Also: the most common outcome for commercialization of academic research is that the research has wonderful ideas with no commercial potential whatsoever. Investors are very aware of this. One sales challenge is convincing them that your friend is, unlike the other 100 PhDs with no real world experience they have talked to, actually on to something that can create money.