Most people aren’t pointing out that one of this startup’s co-founders was the former President of Symantec and CTO of McAfee [1], two cybersecurity giants.
A resume like that coupled with VCs having too much money chasing few deals, it’s easy to see why this startup is emerging from stealth with hundreds of millions in funding. It’s not “fair”, just what it is…
1 - https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220201005253/en/Isl...
Sometimes those relationships are sound and the ambitions more honest, and other times they are flaky, dishonest or downright fraudulent. And very dimensional gradient between.
You’ll (almost) never get a leading role in a Hollywood blockbuster off the street after an audition. You will maybe get a smaller part. Why? Relationships.
It’s the same everywhere.
To expand on that, although being a limited partner is a great way to clean money there is no difference between a small round or a big round in that regard. There is just unlimited money for a limited amount of things.
Seriously, look at their website: https://www.island.io/ There is not even a SINGLE image of the browser itself, it's just 3D renders, there is no way to test it. At least BREX, Slack and the others are product you can see, it's something that you can know it exists. Even in the use cases for the browser they don't show anything about the browser itself.
This is REALLY disappointing for any entrepreneur working on a REAL product and receiving NO from every single investor they talk to.
I mean: i, a nobody, has a solid product, has paying clients. But because i am not friend of a VC or somebody else i need to listen that my product is not good enough, that it will never scale, that i don't have the right revenue to justify an investment. You can see my product, you can test it if you want. But then a guy comes with something that doesn't even have a proper website and is valuated a billion dollars out of the gate.
It's just sad to see what the startup ecosystem has become.