You can start pretty much any business and be successful with a small group of founders and no VC money (from experience, this can be anything from a wholesale flower business to a WordPress plugin to a hosting provider). The problem is that VCs push you to grow too fast and too hard, then pull funding when it "fails" and you've got an entire staff to feed, pay, and manage. Thus, you go bankrupt.

If you choose to play a long game, you can have a nice stable-ish income for 2-3 people after 5-ish years.