[nrser]

I'm sorry if my wording was confusing; the company in these both situations is convincing people (investors) that they can become those things in the future, not that they are at the current time when they're not (which would likely involve some sort of deception).

It's like:

Case 1: "We are spending like mad to capture what we believe is a valuable market as fast as possible. This means we are losing money like crazy right now, but it is working and we are growing fantastically. Once are in a large dominant position, we believe we will be able to retain that market, so we won't have to spend as much on growth, and we can focus our energy on maximizing revenue and being capital efficient and start making a lot of profit."

Case 2: "We have validated our product market fit and business model, and are profitable. Our market share, growth and revenue numbers are small but stable and positive. We believe we will be able to rapidly accelerate our growth and market share in the future while maintaining our margin and start making a lot of profit."

Both are good, neither are fraud, but (1) currently tends to be the favored approach for venture financing, and one way or another it tends to be venture financed companies that end up dominating the important tech markets (though that doesn't necessarily means it's casual).