[daxorid]

This isn't even remotely true. Years ago I signed up for AL, and the situation was exactly as the OP described in "real life": you had to be connected to get connected. Revenue does not matter.

Or rather, did. I don't know if it's any better now, but I doubt it.

[zupreme]

Same here. If you don't already have a well-connected lead investor or a well-connected board member/advisor then AL will be a ghost town for you.

[hpcjoe]

This +10. AL has not been worth any of the time I'd put into it, attempting to locate potential investors.

Wasn't in a "hot" space. High performance unified (file, block, object) scale out storage and compute hardware. Most of the VCs and angels we spoke with were saying "hardware? Why? Everyone just runs everything on Amazon". Which isn't correct, or even nearly correct. One VC who saw us compare ourselves to Nutanix (way back in 2013), decided to then speak to Nutanix and help them. Nice of them to do so.

Early in my processes I learned that things like "growth capital" meetings, where you get to pay to present to VCs/investors are a complete waste of time and capital. AL is sort of like that, though you don't have to pay money, just time.

Raising capital is all about who you know, and who knows you. There's a mixture of pedigree and other intangibles, and relatively uncorrelated with actual results things in there. Which dominate the "hey, we pulled in $3.3M in revenue at 50%+ gross margin with no external investment, how about some love" discussions. Even funnier to hear them say "but we want to see more traction". Yes, really.

Sorry about letting the bitter leak into this.

Learn from my many failures. Try not to make them yourself.