The biggest problem most people have with traditional VC and thus prefer to "bootstrap" is the pressure to grow too fast. TinySeed has none of that pressure. Boostrapping vs VC is a spectrum and Scrapping Bee is clearly on the bootstrapped side of that spectrum.
No. They got money in exchange for equity. If the company fails, they don't have to pay that money back. There is no personal guarantee from the founders. Bootstrapping means that you either used your own money or you got loans for which you are personally liable (credit card/bank loan/SBA etc).
I'm not OP, and maybe my understanding is wrong, but I always understood "bootstrapped" to mean they only put in their own money and didn't get any outside investments. Is there a better set of terms to differentiate between self funded, accelerator funded, and VC funded?
The biggest problem most people have with traditional VC and thus prefer to "bootstrap" is the pressure to grow too fast. TinySeed has none of that pressure. Boostrapping vs VC is a spectrum and Scrapping Bee is clearly on the bootstrapped side of that spectrum.