I applaud the non-VC path. If you can do it without a VC, why would you go down that path? Also, the notion of "venture capital" is a very American concept - yes, there are VC's in UK and other parts of the world, but it's nascent compared to the United States and maybe even limited to just the major metropolitan cities (Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, etc). I doubt the time to market timeframe is conducive to raising a venture round for KNC. Then the trolls will start talking about how late to the game they are...
Nonsense, I have an IT company in the building that I am in, who got $40mill VC from Amsterdam and are doing great. Israel is also one of the VC IT hubs of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital_in_IsraelMost people don't know how to find and access VC offers, there is a lot of misinformation about.
Agreed about Israel. However, this IT company you're mentioning that got $40M didn't start with 0 revenue when they got their VC funding - unless the entrepreneur or founder has a track record. Nor do I believe that they are building a hardware product (correct me if I'm wrong). You need some degree of traction - maybe after their first successful launch of their products can KNC attract the right VCs. Before that, they're going to rely on angel investors or family, friends, and fools - and I think we belong to the "Fools" category. Crazy enough to bet that it'll all work out in the end.
KNC is in Sweden, I have no idea what the VC community looks like there - but they have a great home-grown tech ecosystem that seems to know what they're doing. Minecraft never touched venture capital even though "Knotch" came from King.com, and Spotify came from ex developers from StarDoll (already successful before he left to start Spotify) - you'll need those type of chops to even get VCs interested pre-revenue, pre-users, pre-traction.
I'm not saying venture capital is not a path they should take, it' just rarely make sense if you don't need it from the beginning. You guys read too much Techcrunch to think that venture capital flows freely - build something first, get users or customers, then talk to investors. Otherwise, keep your day job.