Because they will recieve the funds after delivering Mainnet
That is complete BS as a business-strategy. Let's say I'm building an electric car. I'm looking for investors, I get millions of funds BUT I can use these millions once my car is ready for selling? For what? FURTHER development AFTER the release of my car? And when I set a date, I have to postpone it and refer to the $20000 I invested in the car from my own pocket?
FOR REAL??C'mon!
I still like this project and don't get me wrong: I would happily wait another 6 months KNOWING that the ICO-funds were well spend during this time.
So the question remains:
Give us details on how the ICO-funds will be spend.
I agree it's a strange business model. Imagine having this project on Kickstarter. People invest, and the incentive is they get the product at a discounted price once it's ready. But the developers of the product use people's investment to finish the product. For the developers of Lisk to have no access to the ICO funds until Mainnet release makes no sense. It's a catch 22. You need the ICO funds to hire more developers to complete Mainnet launch, but you can't get ICO funds until Mainnet launches. Bizarre.