Where to raise funds before quitting a regular job and found a company?

I came across kickstarter webpage which offers an excellent opportunity to raise money needed to launch a product/service without prior personal financial investments.

We are a team of engineers and recenty we have developed a prototype of the product we want to launch. The current prototype can already serve to demostrate all the functionalities but is not robust enough to give it to end-users. We need funds to manufacture electronics, based on our design and then start the marketing campaign with products ready for demonstration to broader public.

Are there any VCs or other organisations which could be potentially interested in investment at this stage, before the company is founded and the product is ready for end-users? Currently we live and work in Europe so if possible we would prefer to start from here without making radical changes such as quitting jobs or rellocating before assuring the first-stage investment.

Thank you.

On one hand, if you are a team of engineers and have a concrete idea you should try participating in a program to empower startups such as YCombinator. Those programs give you limited funds to get started plus advice and connections. Their selection process is thought but if you have a great idea, know how to communicate it and have the right crew to make it happen you would probably be accepted.

On the other hand I would recommend against quit your job before you actually get some feedback on your product - market fit. If you could come out with some ideas and put any into practice without leaving your job you could experiment a lot with them and find a proper product. I like much more the approach of micropreneur which doesn't target vertiginous growth rate but a very subtle one.