The investor must support the enterprise directly, including qualifying job creation under the standalone rules. Regional-centre economic modelling cannot simply be borrowed to count unrelated contractor or supplier employment in a standalone case.
Test the employing structure first
Identify which entity receives the capital and hires the workers. Have counsel review any holding-company or subsidiary arrangement before treating jobs as part of the qualifying enterprise. Then evaluate the credible business plan, lawful capital and investor involvement.
A good commercial idea or personal willingness to work hard cannot replace the required evidence of the investment and qualifying jobs. The distinctive feature is that the enterprise itself must generally produce the qualifying positions, which puts the employing structure at the centre of the analysis rather than at its edge. Test that structure first.
Which entity employs the workers, is it the enterprise in which the capital is invested, and does the relationship between them work for these purposes? Businesses are frequently arranged with an operating company, a holding company and sometimes a management company, and an arrangement that is ordinary commercially may place the employees somewhere other than where the investment sits. Establish this before the operating plan is built around it.
Alongside it, the ordinary requirements continue: capital placed at risk, the applicable job-creation requirement, and residence granted conditionally with conditions removed only on a later petition.