or is there another way?
As it was mentioned. There are plenty of ways such as private funding. This is the most easiest way for a project to gain funds. Even the project havent started yet. There are somw who gain interest to offer some money in order to support a start up project provided they get the fund with a lower seed price. This is the most risky of all since werent sure whether the platform would go live and could return their investment or luckily earn some profit from it.
Private funding has the disadvantage of being a whale. It has an impact on the development of the project, casting pressure is a common problem.