I fully appreciate the "reasonableness" of reducing the scope of what you're asking for, but (as I'm sure you're aware) the US Government is much more likely to grant 10,000 Startup Visas than to go through the process of granting 100 to 1 group. That's like, the opposite of how they work - it shows favoritism, it takes a lot of process for what seems like insignificant results (whether the USG produces significant results or not, their numbers are never in the hundreds of anything), etc.

I suggest continuing to pool resources and lobby for 10,000 - that is much more likely to yield results.