1,800 Million, right? Stop me when the math goes wrong.
Divided into bundles of 200k: 9000x.
Let's say each member of a team costs 200k/yr. High for some, low for others, whatever.
1.8B dollars is enough money for a team of OVER NINE THOUSAND people.
What... exactly is taking that much effort, here? What is this money fueling? I honestly boggle to imagine.
More realistically, the money is probably for tech overhead. Server space, software licensing, money for keeping all their servers working for a while (support, replacement servers/drives) etc.
So a combination of them not having their own infra like FB does, and just the nature of the data they are responsible for is very heavy.
> paying off initial investors
In reality it is just everyone trying to get their foot in the door so that they can get a piece of that sweet "unicorn" pie.