Sounds a lot like calling dibs on prototype production that may or may not yield functional units. The money paid would be financing a later, safer regular prod

Sounds a lot like calling dibs on prototype production that may or may not yield functional units. The money paid would be financing a later, safer regular production start date. If they are lucky, the risk buyer can make a lot of money from the temporary exclusivity and despite talking all the risk they can still rely on the producer trying their best because they wouldn't want to risk succeeding too close to the regular production start date because contracts after that surely define fines for being late.