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Sometimes VCs fund things they want to exist independently of whether they'll make a profit. $4M is spare change for a fund. I'm not sure that's the case here,

• jstanley 9y ago
  An added bonus is that once the software is written, it can continue to work without the involvement of OB1, even if they run out of money and disappear, and even if they turn rogue and start trying to extract fees from every transaction. It's an open source, decentralised, peer-to-peer system. As long as the peers want to keep using it, they can keep using it.
  • hughw 9y ago
    Who's going to maintain the software? Open source projects abandoned by founding companies don't have a stellar track record.
    • jstanley 9y ago
      Open source projects abandoned by founding companies have a better track record than SaaS projects abandoned by founding companies. Anybody who is interested can maintain it. If it has a large number of people actively using it to conduct business on a daily basis, somebody will maintain it. If it's big enough that lack of maintenance would be a problem, it won't be a problem.
    • tylersmith 9y ago
      Most of us were working on OB for free before OB1. If OB1 were to fail I think many of us would continue to work on OB either at another OB-based company or just back on our own.