I have a fairly promising startup in the digital media space which has spent quite a while building its core product offering - we did not follow the current MVP trend. It'd actually be most accurate to say we built a couple solid products, pivoted/reengineered, and finally have some good traction in our new target market.

I covered the seed round myself based on previous startup success, we raised a couple million in series A from a variety of angels (mostly well-to-do real estate folks, who mostly are not-so-well-to-do these days). I now have a terms sheet for $5M from a high net worth individual who I respect for his sales skills and past business success, but who honestly hasn't a clue about the technology market and is definitely an aggressive personality type.

I am seriously considering going and shopping this deal to traditional VCs. I'm not in the Bay Area so my choices are probably limited since my understanding is that Bay Area VCs won't invest outside Silicon Valley. What's the community wisdom as regards "smart money" - am I going to get more value out of the connections VCs have as compared to the bird-in-the-hand value of let's take the growth capital and immediately start executing?

(New throwaway account for probably obvious reasons)