I also find it strange that a chip company is out on Kickstarter. From their website, though, apparently they started on an initial $2 million, which is peanuts for this industry. On some level I think it's an opportunistic marketing move, but it's possible that it was driven by necessity.

It's an interesting concept. If it's cheap enough, it's definitely useful as a DSP. But the custom instruction set is going to keep it away from general usage. They seem to be hoping to get their IP into a cellphone, but that's a seriously uphill battle.