VC is only an indicator that a project has sufficient funding to start, not a guarantee that the technology will run well and be used for a long time. VCs are also looking for profit, they will be attracted by the promised whitepaper, then considering the team that will develop, they may not be interested in buying back the project, if there will be no development or too much change from the first mission from prject team.
VC is not a guarantee that every project will run smoothly. It is just an investor who seeks profit (perhaps just like we do if we have large funds) by entering early. This kind of thing happens a lot, and some of them exit early to get more money and then throw it back into new projects.
VC actually influence so much on the success of the project. If you got a good VC the exchange will most likely try to have an offer and prepare for your project's listing.
From the recent trend I noticed most of project that doesn't get VC funding always stuck in decentralized exchange while the one that got big funding got listed easily.
It's at the end of the day also a business. Moreover, Just because VC invested in a project doesn't mean they are allowed to take profit at TGE, there's always vesting period and usually it took years for their allocation to unlock.
VC funding matters a lot both to help finance of the project and to boost popularity.