why did they decided to go with a traditional VC funding route as opposed to launching their own token...

Because VC firms investing in startups with the potential getting very high returns have a much more established track record than ICO’s. There is also better chance of the startups raising funds through VC ending up getting the money for which they are looking oppose to ICO’s since there is so many of them. With ICO all you need is a cryptocurrency wallet. This means anyone from anywhere across the world can create its own ICO. Most ICO’s require very minimal investment for begin with, as little as single token and their misuse has ended in many scams and projects that have already failed. Also ICO’s sales are mostly unregulated, generating an air of uncertainty for potential investors. Investors know this, and will likely think of any firm that has secured VC funding as having met a certain standard. In other words VC is more secure for traditional investors.