> Sounds like maybe you have some existing IP that could be utilized.

Yes, I co-founded a company a few years back that designed, built, and sold FPGA mining equipment. We are probably one of the very few hardware Bitcoin mining companies to ship hardware on-time with nothing but happy customers. I designed the FPGA firmware (which is open source), embedded firmware, and drivers. Others designed the boards, software, etc.

> What level of capital commitment would you need to build a proof of concept?

Depends on what kind of proof of concept. A small scale proof of concept, where you have a board in your hands that's mining Bitcoin, would cost ... nothing. I'd just lend my devkits to the company :P Or the existing FPGA miners that we built.

Sometimes it's required to simulate a significant percentage of the final ASIC design. That would require a much higher end FPGA devkit; ~$10k-$20k. Sometimes you can get FPGA vendors to loan you the kits, though.

If the goal of the company is merely to sell mining equipment, or if that's necessary to promote a crowd funding round, then the proof of concept should probably be closer to what that shippable product would be. I'd rough that out to maybe $100k to pay a board designer to do layout and fund a spin or two of small quantity prototypes based on FPGAs for simulation. That board design would then be re-used once the ASICs are ready. That's back of the napkin; could be more or less depending on scope but generally in that 6 figure ballpark.