I never herd of any back doors, I would be interested in that if you got a link. I do know their security was almost non-existent, they didn't even use SSL. That's just something a no body like me noticed. All information is sent as plain text, tap into it it's perfectly readable.
Supposedly Avi programmed the entire thing himself. they are renting hosting, they could be paying less than 100 a year. It doesn't do much calculating besides any search functions from what I can see, just displays information, they wouldn't need some mega host, very cheap. I don't know how much they spent on snakes or advertising. There no reason to assume tens of thousands of dollars.... that's pretty outrageous claim I have to say. Assuming he programmed it himself, it could be easily be funded by them. I see no reason to assume investors.