So what's with all of the hype around Nexus? What was the ICO price? How much was raised? If it's already gone 10x or overfunded I might pass on this. Also it's been 2 years. Why so long for a price rise?
The hype has been building for some time. As you noted the project is several years old now and this is causing people to rightly ask questions as to "why now?". The answer is that most coins/projects these days are mass marketed, launched with ICO's, launch with vaporware, and often just disappear. This is just what people have come to expect now, so when a long-standing and little-known project suddenly gains popularity, people are suspicious.
The truth is that the Nexus project has been under development for over 2 years and in that time has actively shunned marketing and promotion. The reason... the tech was (and is) still being worked on and the fundamental values of the team behind Nexus are about making change, building value, and delivering game-changing technology. Not about money making. So for 2 years it has been flying under the radar.
There are several unique aspects of the Nexus project that are getting people excited (I won't go into them all, they are covered in the ANN), but the one that is pricking up the most ears is clearly the plans to work with Vector Space Systems / Galactic Sky. This will see blockchain technology used in a completely new and uncharted way, both with the blockchain being broadcast from space via cubesats and with Nexus tech (template based protocols, databases, etc) being used in the Galactic Sky virtualized satellites. This part of the Nexus roadmap has only recently been made public knowledge, which perhaps goes some way to explaining the current buzz.
In case people missed the Vector Space Systems connection, it was founded by Jim Cantrell who also previously co-founded Space-X with Elon Musk, before starting his own venture. Jim Cantrell is the father of the Nexus Lead developer Colin Cantrell, hence the industry ties. Contracts are currently being drawn up between Vector and Nexus, which will see Vector obtain a vested interest in the project through ownership of some of the Ambassador funds (% of mining rewards), which will of course lead to mass exposure and promotion for Nexus. So when people see the current price of ~$0.14c and market cap of just $6.5m, they should realise how laughably low this price is.
If When this project comes to fruition, you would be crazy to think that we are not going to see a top-ten market cap of $40-$100m or more.