The existing customer base is an asset. If you can profit from taking a negative CF company, firing all the staff and collecting subscription fees from the existing customers until they all churn, then you have value that can be extracted from the company. These ”maintenance mode” acquisitions aren’t even that uncommon.

But that said, it’s not exactly obvious which funded companies will never be profitable. If it was then you’d expect it would be quite hard for them to secure funding. This is simply a conclusion that many HN commenters love to jump to when deriding a particular company, usually without a very good understanding of the company’s financials, or even of finance in general.