Every VC investment is a speculative bet on the future success of the company.

If Baremetrics sold for $800 million, they would have made 1000x their money.

If it was their only investment, then it would be a major fail but VC business model works by making 100 bets. Few bets deliver 1000x return but many of them are 100% loss.

The VC knew what they were doing and their $800k got them exactly what they paid for: an option to make a lot of money in case of a big future success.