I've heard that the "top tier" investors typically limit themselves to meeting with startup entrepreneurs that have warm introductions. My impression is that they don't work contests as judges because their investment isn't really a prize, it's a straight up business transaction based on what they believe might succeed not so much the best out of six finalists.

They have established relationships that produce their deal flows. The business is optimized for making money, not for high reality TV ratings.

Good luck.

I don't think investors would do it, but you can aggregate it from conferences/events.

how about the community contributing as well? for example if you know Dave McClure will be at FailCon on august 16th, you can post the link to the event with investor name and date. We verify and post to the investor profile. Not scalable. But could generate the initial data.