At least for well-known Silicon Valley investors, I think that model is wrong, or at best incomplete. It's easy to imagine "oh, there are hundreds of investors

At least for well-known Silicon Valley investors, I think that model is wrong, or at best incomplete. It's easy to imagine "oh, there are hundreds of investors out there, all you need is one, just keep trying till you find somebody". However, these hundreds of people are so close socially that their opinions will be very strongly correlated. (See, eg., how everyone in VC-world got fascinated with chatbots at exactly the same time.) IME, a more accurate model is that VCs form an invisible private club, and to get investment you need a "club membership card". Otherwise, you'll find that when you (say) go to a conference, even if there are lots of VCs there, they won't take you seriously; they'll act polite and then forget to return your calls.