No, they didnt.
Yes they did. Investors are: Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and Vast Ventures.
If anyone is having doubts about it just check ripplescam.org
Except that site has been debunked countless times. It is outdated and inaccurate. Here is the source code that the site claims does not exist, for example:
https://github.com/rippleripplescam.org was created by reputed scammer TradeFortress, who had a vested interesting in attacking Ripple. It conflicted with his centralized ventures. Just do a tiny bit of research:
https://www.google.com/search?q=tradefortressRipple is phenomenal. Almost all Next Gen currency systems validate Ripple in one way or another. It came to market before people understood all the ways centralization threatens crypto currencies. Alleged scammers like TradeFortress, ironically, have also validated the need for systems like Ripple.
Although Ripple cannot be mined, it can be earned in a similar manner. Check out this humanitarian computing project:
https://www.computingforgood.org/
