OP seems to have no clue what he is talking about. ICO was announced in this board publicly, but back in the days ICOs weren't that hyped, hence not a lot of people took a risk in investing.
Here are some hard facts about its distribution.

https://altcoinspekulant.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/iota-an-update-on-token-distribution-and-exchange-launch%E2%80%A8/