Spreadpoint was into cracking (and, I assume, spreading). A part of that scene, if you will. But they also made demos. Which doesn't "prove" anything in isolation, but I'm claiming that this was actually very typical, even earlier, and in fact how the demo scene was born. While also growing organically from other corners of the computer universe - not that everyone was crackers, or "from that scene". It was just significant enough that the culture remained almost the same, which is why it shouldn't really be too debatable to make the rough generalization that the demo scene sprang from the cracking scene.
Quantity isn't everything, but of course it matters when you're claiming there was a whole parallel culture brewing.
As for Piccolo Mouso, i'm pretty sure that a few more demos existed in the early days, many of them lost. And i'm rather sure that an argument based on quantities rather than qualities almost inevitably leads to the old conclusion i'm doubting.
It was not some entirely different entity that is pure and just as much as Krill would like that to be the case.