There are a lot of assets that you can bring to raising a seed round, and "elite connections" is only one of many. Others include: a great dream, a great team,

There are a lot of assets that you can bring to raising a seed round, and "elite connections" is only one of many. Others include: a great dream, a great team, a working proof of concept, a working MVP, customer validation, and customer traction. I've been a founder at two companies that raised unusually large A rounds. In both cases, it was because we had an experienced founding team. One was stuffed with folks with "elite connections", one was not. In both cases, seed was no problem even though we didn't have even a proof of concept.