Finances
To fund Ignite!, Neil Bush and others raised $23 million from U.S. investors, including his parents, Barbara Bush and George H.W. Bush, as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of 2006, at least $2 million had come from Taiwanese interests that had given Neil Bush a job consulting for a semiconductor manufacturer, and at least $3 million came from Saudi interests. A foundation linked to Reverend Sun Myung Moon donated $1 million for a research project by the company in Washington, D.C.-area schools.
In 2002, Ignite! entered into a partnership with a Mexican company, Grupo Carso to outsource many software and product development functions. Regarding the deal, Ignite! President (then CFO) Ken Leonard stated, "That's turned out to be great." Ignite! laid off 42% of its in-house workforce (21 individuals) in preparation for the partnership. Leonard said that outsourcing production will give it the resources to develop additional course software more quickly, and that the company wants to develop an entire middle school curriculum featuring the basics of language arts, math and science.
Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky has been an investor in Bush's Ignite! program since at least 2003.
In December 2003, a Washington Post Style article said that Ignite! was paying Neil Bush a salary of $180,000 per year.
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