I can think of many times where VC capital has improved a company, in two ways. The first is in allowing a company to scale far more quickly than it could have naturally. The second is in creating connections to other companies, essentially getting a foot in the door to convince those connections to use the company's product.

But rarely improved the product. At best you have a company that does keep it's soul, and continues to improve the product as they would have on their own. Far more often, the product and pricing structure is made worse in the long run through VC investment. It's not necessarily VC interference that is solely to blame, the change in size and scope that tends to come with such investment is a massive hurdle on its own.

Of course, taking VC capital is almost certainly necessary to continue to exist, given you are competing against others who will take that capital and quickly use it to out compete you if you do not. I just view this as unfortunate, when I find companies that grow at a more natural speed to generally create better products.