Don't forget: they're "almost always" not the lead investor. They specifically will only look at companies with an existing investor. When I asked, Khailee Ng

Don't forget: they're "almost always" not the lead investor. They specifically will only look at companies with an existing investor. When I asked, Khailee Ng told me they used that as a filter (presumably instead of "only warm intros" and/or associates binning thousands of cold pitches). I thought it was a neat idea, especially since the industry does this unofficially anyway (http://paulgraham.com/fr.html http://paulgraham.com/fr.html - "Avoid investors who don't lead" - obviously 500 Startups is an exception thanks to their brand and network).