Well there are probably several category of ICO
1- Mostly technology plays like Bancor and Tezos and like you say, they need funding to finance the development of their protocols
2- companies issuing tokens to allow community members to share in a future value of the ecosystem they are developing
3- dreamers (and/or scammers) hoping to get a big quick, fast gain cashing in on a hot trend.

I'd be curious to see what you think about gold backed crypto currencies and some of the related ICOs and tokens being launched. We just published a review:
https://steemit.com/gold/@thehutchreport/cryptocurrencies-goldmember-loves-gold-would-he-love-gold-backed-cryptocurrencies-will-you