Thought their initial pitch was an ad free social network?
That orientation allowed them to make additional pledges, including ad-free and no tracking, and yes, they did pledge that. But the SNpivot came after the initial interest boom in September, 2014.
From Crunchbase: "Ello was originally built as a private social network. Over time, so many people wanted to join Ello that we built a public version of Ello for everyone to use."
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc#section-ove...
An early interview with Paul Budnitz (founder):
https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-...
I've cooled on the site myself, though think it might work, in its niche.
Note that that was written when they had taken $435,000 in VC, and now they're up to $11M: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc