Tax Consequences of Investors Funding a Search

I'm working on getting funding for my search and one of the big questions we have is with regards to how the funding works and the best way to do it for tax purposes. If I sell units in my LLC, will that income be taxed immediately, or will it only be taxed as the amount of salary that I take? Is it better to be fully funded upfront for the search or to be funded, say, every six months? Furthermore, is the seed money an investment or an expense for the investor? Is there a way to make it an expense, like setting up as employees if it's a single investor?