I don't see why the reason for the money really matters. If you have founders that don't need salaries, but do need to buy $400k worth of equipment (or whatever

I don't see why the reason for the money really matters. If you have founders that don't need salaries, but do need to buy $400k worth of equipment (or whatever) it's not much different than two guys who need $90k/year salaries for 2 years (because they're older and have mortgages/families/whatever). If you can get enough money from angels you should probably always do that first. If you can only get a sufficient amount from VCs then you don't have a choice.