“we did not raise a traditional type of VC round we went the crowdfunding route um using reg CF which sort of allows anyone to invest and not have to be accredited we have around 1,300 investors as little as like $20 of people are involved”

Reg CF crowdfunding is a real middle path between bootstrapping and VC

Maybe raised $1.4M from ~1,300 non-accredited investors (some as small as $20) using Reg CF, sidestepping the single-dominant-VC growth-at-all-costs pressure. After the shutdown, the open-source revival raised another $1.1M+ in 10 days from investors who specifically fund commercial open source. Different capital sources enable different operating tempos.