16 million is like nothing. Bancor claims to have raisen 250 million (by public records, though you don't know how much they recycled their own money through that ico)
Based on that response I have to assume you weren't in the tech industry in the 1990s. $16 million was considered a large sum of venture capital during the mid 1990s, just a few years prior to the story taking place. By 1998/1999 it was still considered a large amount of venture capital, despite the wave of capital that would make companies like Webvan infamous.
Bancors price floor they were propping up collapsed as well. Good example of a flawed project. Analysis of some of its flaws by Emin Gun below:
The price floor worked as intended. It meant that those who wanted to get their money out had ample time to do so, and the result was Bancor effectively returning a large chunk of the ETH sent to it.