[EGreg]

From my experience, most of it is about connections. I have seen $41 MM thrown at startups like Color and them failing a month later! Why just recently, FileCoin raised tens of millions from VCs, before goong on to raise $200 MM from crypto holders around the world for a product that hasn't even been developed, in a space where MaidSafe and IPFS etc. already exist. How? Because it was touted by CoinList, started by among others AngelList founder Naval Ravikant who has all the connections.

[woah]

Filecoin is made by the people who made IPFS, and it is an incentivization system for IPFS. Maidsafe has been around for more than 10 years and has yet to launch, and it’s unclear what exactly it does and if it even competes with Filecoin at all.

[bactrian]

Connections matter mostly before. Once you have a rapidly growing business, everyone is your friend, and “connections” fly in.

[danielmorozoff]

Filecoin vc deal was the best imho executed vc play I have seen in a while. for 50m with a discount they were able to sell approx 200m to coin buyers. This not only offset their risk but literally gave the x4 in raw cash infusion in 2 weeks, growing the valuation without any time and this was done all on vc reputation/ name recognition/ and hype building. Very well done...