I've been wrong about these things before. But... I know what open-source projects look like, and I wouldn't touch a bitcoin API with a bargepole unless it was open-source... and this just has "wrong" written all over it.
The project is a database and specified format of requests to access the data over internet. From what i understand, it leaves to bitcoin client to do the actual payments, so what exactly should be an open source there? In general the idea is sound, but i dont know if they can pull it off and you might be right that they could be just fishing for investment money though.