Talk with a patent lawyer, generally the first consultation is free and is protected under attorney/client privilege.

Once you know roughly how much it will cost and what you would need, you can file for provisional patents (at least here in AUS, IANAL), which are much cheaper and don't end up in the public domain but do establish a priority date.

Then you can easily get any monies required to secure your patents/start work, without having to worry about disclosing too much/etc.