My understanding was that until the ICO, the coin isn't available for purchase by the public. Who is providing the exit liquidity in a pre-ICO exit?
Ava Labs is the company, Avalanche is the blockchain, Avax is the token.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ava-labs/
They launched a series A in 2019. The Series A was $6million and was joined by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Initialized Capital and Polychain Capital, in addition to angel investments from Balaji Srinivasan and Naval Ravikant.
Two private token sale in June and July 2020 for $12m and $42m. Are the VC’s and insiders getting a cut?
Then finally a public ICO in sept 2020 to raise $240 million.
They also had a funding round of $350million in April 22.
Ample time for early VC’s to make money. It’s valuation is $5billion. That’s the same as Coinbase which is a legit org with billions in revenue.
It's no less of a "legit org" than Uber. Comparing with Uber rather than Coinbase because they've been exposed to have engaged in similar anti-competitive practices which many deem unethical. There's a good chance Coinbase has too, they just haven't had a scandal blow open because of it.