Local banks can provide the capital, often collateralized by your house. Also small business loans from the government and accelerator awards can provide 6 figure amounts. I know some "generic" business people who are fairly wealthy and they own things like food franchises and apartment complexes.

There are many paths to becoming rich that don't involve VCs and billion dollar exits. 99% of entrepreneurs don't talk to or know anything about the VC system. But if you are in tech and want to hire the best possible team to create something new, you need a lot of capital because those people are super expensive labor. And VCs don't want to give you $XX millions of dollars if the potential return is 2x. So that's the system we have in tech.