Also can be a sneaky way to steal some money from the company, by acquiring something meaningless. I've heard about 2 such cases.
Or rather, they probably didn't raise those $4.7m to create automated Slack updates, but to solve a problem they think enough future customer are (or would be) having. You have to distinguish deliverable (software) from product (problem-solving offering).
No, couchsurfing (the site) had already proven the market for staying in other peoples homes and airbnb was similar but with payment.
> live stream's the life of a single person 24/7
IIRC justin.tv did not take in funding until they were already building a platform for others to livestream on. Their funding was not for just justins stream.