Did I say it was the end goal? It's merely a metric for a young company. What it means is that enough people have decided that there is a future that current revenue, growth, and expectations are being met or substantial. Raising $53 million dollars isn't easy. So I can say capital raised is a metric on which to base a judgement.

Your statement that it "absolutely will hurt adoption" is unqualified and nothing but opinion. And what exactly is "more successful?"

The handful of people who won't try this because of the name won't matter to their bottom line. If it's good enough then for even a large majority of those they'll end up using it anyway.