I'll take another position; since it might be keen to understand a little more from a different perspective. I am a person who is a non-founder startup CTO; my

I'll take another position; since it might be keen to understand a little more from a different perspective. I am a person who is a non-founder startup CTO; my company does not have any venture capital funding and we have enough capital to go to market. However, certain institutions (especially US ones) give great discounts, insider incentives (such as early access to features or access to people) and so on to venture backed startups. I have even been explicitly told this by AWS and Google; I am basically invisible to them except for the fact I have previously worked with a small handful of people coming from a large organisation. I have to use personal contacts which wouldn't be necessary if I was venture backed. VC's also seem to open doors into other companies that they are invested in, which can be hugely beneficial. Even companies that invest egregiously in everything, like Tencent, can't command such door-openings. So, if you absolutely need some doors to open, VCs can be a good way to go, but it's very much a "selling your soul to the devil" type deal.