Investors certainly care about pedigree and having McKinsey on your resume (or Google or Facebook if you will), not to mention the experience and connections, a

Investors certainly care about pedigree and having McKinsey on your resume (or Google or Facebook if you will), not to mention the experience and connections, are going to help when you're trying to raise money for your startup. There's no escaping from signaling simply because of the impossibility of evaluating every single person on merit (as you can see from discussions on hiring here), so it doesn't hurt to play the game when the opportunity arises. And generally speaking, lack of pedigree is much less of an issue once you're in and once you have prestigious employers on your resume, where you went to college becomes a lot less important to prospective employers.