Yeah, I've been pushing a couple real estate startups for the past few years, and have been turned down repeatedly, despite a formitable reputation and bringing world-class teams to the my projects.

The scam is kept alive by inept VCs. I was brought up in a startup household (dad was early 3Com and Novell, among others), and yeah, most VCs nowadays went straight to VCing, either out of college or from a big investment firm. They never held jobs or got into actual operations of a company, and, accordingly, only understand revenue projections on a spreadsheet. It's absurd and infuriating when you just want enough startup funds to prove yourself--not a $40M A Round.