If I’m not mistaken, paying for links is still very much against Google’s policies. Whatever weight that should carry... in my opinion you should always try to be as independent from Google as possible. It’s such a huge liability.
And, buying or otherwise, I am not sure what the mechanism is for bringing this to Googles attention.
I doubt there is another acquisition channel for a project like this that would compare to SEO (and not just Google).
quite a strange think to say about a company whose bussiness is based on selling links (to ads)