This is a great question; one, ultimately, that should be answered by the LeXpunK Army as it evolves, as well as by the representatives from each contributing community when considering adding new contributors to the LeXpunK DAO.
I don’t think it’s possible to define an a priori formula, but my own view is that VC money as such is not a problem and VC input as such is not only not an inherent problem, but could in many cases be helpful. The question is whether there are binding structures in place–such as discounts, NVCA-style veto rights, information rights, fiduciary obligations the dev team owes to VCs, a ‘board of directors’ operating in private, a business plan focused on driving value to equity that could redound to the detriment of other members of the community, etc.–that create a systematic bias that doesn’t jive with the ‘builder-first’ mentality.
I am sure every community could do some things better in terms of openness, preventing role entrenchment, avoiding or disclosing conflicts of interest, improving governance process, etc. In the case of yearn and curve, I personally feel confident that they are naturally synergistic, not rigidly hierarchical and not beholden to off-chain stakeholders in a systematically biasing way. Thus, it makes a lot of sense for them to collaborate on this. I think at this time this is almost certainly true of MakerDAO as well, especially given its massive push to decentralize into separate autonomous teams this year (I don’t know whether at earlier times VCs had concerning types of rights over the relevant entities/people, but seems irrelevant now in any case).