The Bitcoin ASIC business is currently away too risky for bigger venture capitalists. And the other problem is that those guys probably would not be happy with some ASIC miners. I guess, in case they would invest, they want at least 51% of your company. 
$3.5mill is what KNCminer said they needed for the wafer run, that's petty cash for a venture capitalist, in a sellers market too, would have been even easier. The problem is that engineers and technical people have little idea how to raise funds for a new venture, so they resort to the pre-order path and put up with truckloads of impatient buyers as a result.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...