I'd consider taking your existing consulting stuff and adding a hosting/service component. "We'll run your PHP backed sites better and cheaper than you can."

I'd consider taking your existing consulting stuff and adding a hosting/service component. "We'll run your PHP backed sites better and cheaper than you can." Pick up a few customers (hopefully from your existing customer list) and get some revenue coming in (this would be annoying and a lot of work though). Grow things a bit and use the revenue to fund the development of the optimizer. At first it would be a bit of smoke and mirrors and a lot of work, but the knowledge gained from production operations would be invaluable to building a great optimized PHP runtime. Struggle like this for a while until things are really working well, then sell hosted, fast and reliable PHP IaaS at a way cheaper pricepoint because you're more efficient. Now you've got money coming in, a great piece of infrastructure built on real production experience, and a healthy customer list. Sell the company (or just enjoy the profits), keep the proceeds for yourselves (without sharing with some VC). Win!