HP has already made it clear that they won't put in another dime.
The problem with hardware is that the enterprise won't buy without a big name backing it as it makes it alot less likely that the brand will be around.
I'd like to think that your idea will work.
What is your "secret sauce" that will make this work that didn't with Palm, HP, the crunch pad, newton, Go tablet, etc?
That's a pretty big assumption but lets say that's true. I don't doubt that they coudl raise some money, I'm just not sure that a WebOS company could raise enough to fund a complete hardware and software product through to finish.
The biggest reason I think this wouldn't happen is that I can't see HP wanting to assign any patents to this company as patents have significant value, as we've seen of late.
Who would support a company that doesn't own any sort of patent portfolio to defend itself?