You can count me as one of the skeptics. Although I am not one who claims it is not possible; with enough money and dedication it should be possible to get it done in a clean room that is already running a working process. Only I do think the amount of work and money needed is heavily underestimated and not with percentages but with real multiples to even an order of magnitude. And afterwards the process will still need a lot more development to get somewhere in the neighborhood in performance and cost of a current mature foundry node.

Also, on what is the statement on the go fund me campaign that the 555 timer is only a few weeks of based on ?

Currently I only have seen a schematic posted and did not even see a diode characteristic of any junction in the process under development. I may be indoctrinated by too long being involved with clean room work. But to me such a statement seems to be totally unrealistic and i guess to anyone with micro-electronics clean room experience.