Several of the above investors have a well-known history of investing in extreme, improbable avenues of development; whether the idea is that "we've got vast hordes of money—in many cases, other people's money who don't demand much accountability—and if we get lucky one in ten thousand times, that's potentially enough to justify it", or "even if this fails, it might have some side benefits", or, "just by investing in this, we force our adversaries to try spend resources trying to figure if we know something critical that they don't", or some combination, is less clear. But I wouldn't take small investments from those players (and the scale we are talking is small for them) as a sign of probable success.