If you trust the business sense of a guy who thought a rubber gorilla suit was a Bigfoot carcass, the Wall Street Journal may have uncovered an exciting investment opportunity for you. Tom Biscardi, the self-proclaimed "leading expert" on Bigfoot, has founded a firm called Bigfoot Project Investments and aims to raise $3 million by selling stock in an upcoming initial public offering. The company plans to make money through DVD sales, but its filings with regulators say it will also budget more than $100,000 a year to "capture the creature known as Bigfoot." As Benzinga notes, other "Bigfoot-themed businesses" have raised money from Bigfoot enthusiasts, but this is the first to try for such a substantial amount.
Biscardi claims he has had multiple "up close and personal" encounters with the mythical creature, but he admits he was fooled by the gorilla suit. Analysts warn that profits from the venture could be as elusive as its namesake. "This would be the kind of thing where if you believed in Bigfoot, or you thought there really was a Bigfoot and you actually had some money to burn and wanted to play with this, then go for it," the president of Chapin Hill Advisors tells the Journal, which notes that when the Securities and Exchange Commission vets IPOs, it's more interested in accounting rules than the merits of the company or the existence of Bigfoot. (Who may, a researcher says, be living in Russia.)