DFJ invested $500k at the seed stage, and did not take a board seat (which is customary for seed). That is <i>nothing</i> in the venture world, from both a financial and a commitment perspective; their lack of control&#x2F;involvement reflects that (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2015-10-19&#x2F;early-theranos-investor-remains-supportive-even-without-answers-ifydlf03" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2015-10-19&#x2F;early-ther...</a>).<p>In fact, VC firms often make those kinds of investments solely as footholds for potential future investment. To illustrate again that that is a relatively low amount of money from a committment perspective, most VCs have an explicit policy of not investing in companies that compete with portfolio companies, <i>except</i> for companies they funded for seed (e.g. seed is enough of a crapshoot that they won&#x27;t always hold themselves to not investing in competitors).<p>If not now, as recently as 1-4 years ago, you could seriously have gotten three times that kind of seed funding by just being a team of two ex-FB&#x2F;Google&#x2F;etc employees with a semi-plausible idea and prototype.