[jd]

Although I don't know the specifics for Braintree, it's not contradictory to accept VC money for bootstrapped companies. If a startup goes from 0 to 10M revenue without taking any outside investment then that puts them squarely in the bootstrapped camp. However, if they then realize they're in a winner-takes-all market and that they need a lot of money in order to scale up, then they can still accept VC money at that later stage.