Some markets require outsized upfront investment in order to fund investments for the purposes of land grabs or standing out from the market. It tends to look like upfront R&D (pharma, biotech, but also SaaS companies like Snowflake) or upfront Sales & Marketing (C3.ai has >$200m ARR and less than 100 customers, you need a lot of sales and marketing to make that happen including stuff like their billboard on the 101 north of SFO).

VC is like steroids for your business. You might not need them, and once you take them you unfortunately can't really stop taking them. But in some cases, they really do help.

> wondering why I would need a VC at that point

You probably don't. Most companies don't need VC money. VC money is essential for certain sorts of startups (those needing a huge upfront monetary investment just to get on the starting blocks). If yours isn't like that, you're probably better off going with a more traditional financing route.

If you want to build a lifestyle business, go ahead and please do not take any VC money.

If you want to build a business that is large, globally impactful, and has the potential for great success or dramatic failure, VC money (or other debt/investment) is generally required for that, dependent on the market of course.

Its so you can try to build a business with > 1B valuation.