@hangnon2jesus You seem to already know it's a bad idea. I've seen companies raise 30m like it's nothing that are significantly behind where we are.
We won't give up ANY equity to anyone without a serious buy in and value shown first. If this person is so interesting and they can back it up. Have them sign a contingent deal on equity after you secure funding. Should be a no brainer for them.
Valuation is the money that goes back into a company. It is no key indicator for success, I've seen companies go bankrupt after raising well over 10 million with the wrong team. The people that can raise that amount are normally the ones that don't have the first clue on product from my experience. Raising won't pay you anything, it's not an acquisition, it's maybe a way for you to get a salary as a founder but even then, you'll have to pay yourself less for being a founder.
Find people to make your company make profit and keep building. You'll have no problem raising and you'll be able to justify paying yourself fairly as well.
Now here's the kicker, this would be my advice if he PROVED to be successful and had all this backing and news coverage of selling companies. The fact he's a wannabe says it all, he 10x'd what he probably got and if he was a successful VC he'd give you some cash for that equity to scale you guys properly.
We have tons of these guys try this crap with us. Telling them no wasn't hard and we were better for it. I don't understand founders that give equity to advisors. I literally get offered equity to "advise" and I turn it down unless I can provide real value.
I could be wrong, but from my experience with VC's and securing our first VC round. I can't think that a single VC I've talked to would take you seriously if you brought someone like this on.