A: Hya,

Yes, your understanding is indeed correct. I also understand your setup.

I’m afraid there’s no way to import contacts into Covve unless they’re being synced with your phone.

One workaround that may work for you is to bring the linkedin contacts into your phone (by exporting from LinkedIn and importing into, say Google Contacts) so that they can sync with Covve and then tell your phone to simply not show them.
On iphone this is quite easy, just go to iPhone’s contacts, tap on Groups at the top right (this only appears if you have >1 group/account) and de-select the group you don’t want to see. On Android there are a couple of ways to do this but it does require a bit of work on your side (instructions here: https://www.wikihow.com/Hide-Contacts-on-Android).

All the best,
Alex