The fact I've never heard of it and it's raised that much money (but I'm using nostr and there's no marketing team) just proves fiat VC is no longer a good signal for the best product / solution.

Nostr was funded by grants, not equity. This is the future. People don't want to be enslaved by equity owned by investors who can access printed money in exchange for real hard work. I hope people can build apps and clients based on user revenue from lightning rather than having to go down the VC route.