Founders once needed an agent, a mutual friend or a slot at an investor conference to put an idea in front of a private investor. Alejandro Betancourt López now sees opportunities pitched at him “every single day from all kind of platforms,” he said during a February 2022 interview.

“Today in social media, you can get to anyone in the world within one click,” he said. That reach cuts both ways for entrepreneurs, and his answers suggest three practical points for anyone hoping to raise money from him or from investors like him.

Why Cold Messages Rarely Land With Alejandro Betancourt López

Volume comes first. DataReportal counted 5.66 billion social media user identities in October 2025, equal to 68.7% of the world’s population, and the typical user spends about 18 hours and 36 minutes a week on the platforms. Any investor with a public profile sits at the end of that funnel. The number of people reaching him online “is incredible,” Alejandro Betancourt said, “looking for investments, pitching me ideas, trying to raise funds.”

Before social media, he recalled, a founder on a road show had to “go through an agent” to reach someone like him. Deal flow once arrived “through word of mouth or presentations on a corporate level,” he said. The flood that replaced that gatekeeper means investors “have to really actually understand how to manage your time and picking the right ones.”

Next, the channel itself earns no extra credit or penalty. “I don’t believe that I give more or less weight of the platform,” he said. His trouble with cold outreach is that “99% of these people, I have no idea or never seen. So I have to build the credibility line.”

What a Warm Introduction Changes

A referral shortens that process. “If somebody I know and I trust, I’ll put more weight,” he said. When a founder arrives through a recommendation, he added, “I don’t mind how they reach me.”

Even a trusted pitch then joins a narrow selection process, which is the third point. Alejandro Betancourt López has described the filter as a sequence: “They bring you 100 ideas and you analyze them,” he said in another interview, choosing 10 from that group, then two from the 10, and funding those two.

Ideas alone rarely decide the outcome. “There are 10,000 good ideas out there,” he noted during a 2023 call, and he prefers “to invest where I get to meet the key people.” For founders hoping to reach Alejandro Betancourt López, a warm introduction is the shortest route into the final two.