SiFive haven't completed development of their Linux-capable platform (and we haven't completed ours). We both make use of the Rocket codebase. Key differences include our support for tagged memory and minion cores.
Funding so far has been via private donation and a grant from Google. I expect we will be funded by a mix of corporate and academic funding going forwards. I believe we are in a position to secure enough funding to produce our open source SoC and low-cost development board. Our goals are completely different to SiFive so it doesn't really make sense to compare 'ability to scale'. Our targets are much more modest - we don't need to generate huge returns for a VC. The investment that SiFive and others are making into the RISC-V ecosystem is fantastic. The great thing about open source is obviously that we all make and benefit from a shared investment.
Funding so far has been via private donation and a grant from Google. I expect we will be funded by a mix of corporate and academic funding going forwards. I believe we are in a position to secure enough funding to produce our open source SoC and low-cost development board. Our goals are completely different to SiFive so it doesn't really make sense to compare 'ability to scale'. Our targets are much more modest - we don't need to generate huge returns for a VC. The investment that SiFive and others are making into the RISC-V ecosystem is fantastic. The great thing about open source is obviously that we all make and benefit from a shared investment.