The platform itself is "legit" in the sense that it has real people well known in the tech community behind it. I personally would be very surprised if they are running a blatant scam in that they are lying about the SAFE investment.
However I wouldn't be at all surprised if the smallprint somewhere in a long chain of paperwork means that you will never get any financial return in your "investment". There are a few platforms and crowdfunding platforms that let retail investors put small amounts of money into startups and I have never heard of a single case, even from an anonymous netizen, of anyone getting money back from such a structure.
Actually I've had "money back" twice from AngelList. Once a startup got acquired (for like 3-4x), another one shut down and distributed the remaining funds.
But I did not withdraw it and just reinvested to other startups, so in that sense I've never received money from them.
Sure, but stock market investing is no different. Once you’ve saved “enough”, you need a place to store wealth that isn’t cash. If you cash out on a winning stock, that money is likely going into other stocks, or real estate, or some other financial vehicle.
As an aside, all the punditry around a former billionaire president who can’t raise 450M in 30 days are playing on the fact that many people do not realize this. No billionaire has a significant fraction of their wealth in cash unless it benefits a short term strategy or they are rebalancing. Those with money put their money to work through investment. Net worth is based on the estimate of those holdings.
However I wouldn't be at all surprised if the smallprint somewhere in a long chain of paperwork means that you will never get any financial return in your "investment". There are a few platforms and crowdfunding platforms that let retail investors put small amounts of money into startups and I have never heard of a single case, even from an anonymous netizen, of anyone getting money back from such a structure.