This is mostly false, except perhaps for the suggestion of my co-founder being a stud.
The company survived by becoming commercially focused and profitable, which happened after we recruited a leader with experience/connections in the airline industry, not to investors. The products the company pivoted to were not more "VC-legible" than what we started out doing; they were just products that could generate enough short-term revenue to enable survival. The company hasn't raised funds from VCs; its funding has been from angels, airline/travel tech companies and family offices.
It has unquestionably taken a ton of resilience to get the company to where it was before the pandemic, then to survive the pandemic, and to find a way to thrive on the other side of it.