VC funding for open source, depends on rapid growth of a community.

The bet is for the ecosystem to succeed, while you also manage to eek out the right financials.

If the financials aren’t met, you’re thinking hard how to milk the community.

And when all else fails, you rug the license.

All this can change beyond just VC funding of course; public listed companies, PE firms, etc.

The secret to success is to ensure a good percentage of customers actually pay, ie subsidize the community.