I can't speak for later stage investors, but a number of early-stage VCs, including myself, are happy to chat with founders w/o warm intros. Unfortunately, many people write terrible cold emails that don't get any replies, and then those people assume that VCs never reply to cold emails.
That said, there are some VCs that stopped accepting cold pitches because they initially researched and tracked leads from many channels, and eventually found that cold pitches had near-zero ROI.
I can vouch for this. I cold-emailed Leo. He responded thoughtfully, and after a few back and forths, I didn't follow up... signaling (correctly) that I wasn't ready at the time.
Here's the thing: we (founders) optimistically believe in our potential. Often we think we are further along than we really are. Multiply this times the widespread inability to communicate clearly and indeed, I can see why the ROI of cold-emails is miniscule.
On the flip-side, I believe VC's greatest limitation to scale is its reliance on warm-intros and who-you-know dealings. 'Uber for capital' will come along and turn the whole industry (...and banking?) on its head, by making capital accessible no matter who you know or don't know - perhaps a protocol on the blockchain?
Generally speaking, most bad cold pitches read like bad recruiter emails: "Dear Sir/Madam, I represent a huge firm that is looking for junior PHP Engineers in Topeka, Kansas. Are you or someone you know interested?" When I read something like that, I just ignore it because I don't know PHP, I'm not a junior dev, I'm not in Kansas, and I don't want to help the recruiter do their job.
I have two (related) criteria for good cold emails:
1) The sender should do a little bit of research on me/my fund (Susa Ventures). Susa is a seed stage fund, and our website lists some of the things we look for. For example: "We invest in founders and companies that are building competitive moats using data, network effects and/or economies of scale." A cold email that makes it clear why we might be a good fit -- e.g. because a company is building a unique dataset -- is much more likely to get attention than something generic that was clearly bcc'ed to dozens or hundreds of investors.
2) Building on the previous note, some effort to personalize the email goes a long way. I feel uncomfortable not replying to emails -- after all, I don't like it when people don't reply to my emails -- but replies do take time and I'm pretty busy. The rule of thumb I've settled on is that if it's clear that the sender didn't spend 5 minutes to write a targeted email, then I don't feel bad not spending 5 minutes to reply. If someone clearly put in effort, I'll try to reply even if it's not a fit for my fund.
Edit: Also, the email should give a decent sense of what a company does. It should not be too vague (e.g. this is not compelling: "I'm working on some amazing tech. Could you meet me on Thurs at 1pm or 3pm for coffee?") nor should it be too long (i.e. don't send rambling emails that are 3 or 5 or 10 pages long)
You need to provide enough information to convince the investor that it's worth her time to meet. There are startups that can do this in one sentence ("I sold my last startup $2b..."), but, for most, it's simply not possible.
The email should have a good subject and opening 1-2 sentences which piques her interest enough to keep reading. If you start by clearly and succinctly saying who you are, what you're doing (without any jargon or buzzwords), and why it's a fit for her firm, there's a good chance she'll continue reading a page long email.
Leo, we already raised (see my post elsewhere in this thread) so we aren't looking for money, but it seems like we missed you guys as someone we should have talked to, seeing you are in the database/developer tools space. Up for a chat? mark AT gunDB.io .
This may be a tangential question, but is there a single place you can go to find a list of all current, active VCs and investors along with detailed descriptions of their focus areas and contact information of key players so that you can adequately do research and then reach out to the best suited parties? I've found AngelList and Gust to be overly cluttered with non-active investors and the API is no longer accessible to general people even though I've been on the platform since 2009.
That said, there are some VCs that stopped accepting cold pitches because they initially researched and tracked leads from many channels, and eventually found that cold pitches had near-zero ROI.