Is a necessity to do a fund raiser in order to start up a project??
Did satoshi nakamoto and vitalik also started a fund raised??
The more popular the project, the more funds it can collect during ICO. Investors understand that their money will easily come back and make a profit, and therefore they are all trying to invest as much money as possible in the project.
As far as I know, Vitalik held ICO at the start of Ethereum, and if I am not mistaken, Ethereum then cost around 1 dollar.