Alex and I had the pleasure of chatting with Jason Shellen a couple of months ago on the phone--Smart guy and pretty funny, too. He slipped us some info on what Plinky was about and I think it's very cool. I can't wait to see it.
Interesting that Polaris funded the seed round.
With a guy like Jason, there's little risk of execution or that the technology won't work. Plus, getting adoption is part of an iterative process--the crowd rarely loves you on your first pass--so why not fund this early? If you like the entrepreneur and their vision, I don't think a couple of months of traction with bootstrapped or angel resources really proves much of anything.
Good luck Jason! Send an alpha invite our way!