When developing your investor pipeline, for most founders, the general process starts with importing your existing investor pipeline and/or discussions.

1

Import Existing Pipeline

Most founders have raised some capital before and/or have had at least some investor calls in prior months or years. To get started with your pipeline, users can start by going to the “Actions” elliptical menu on the “Pipeline” section, clicking on “Import data”, and selecting Gmail as the preferred source.

Metal is able to run through your email and identify which investors you may have engaged with in the past. From the new box that opens up, users can then select the investors that they’d like to import into their pipeline. The whole process takes less than a few minutes and comprehensively shows all investors that the user may have engaged with before.

2

Add Data Columns

Metal allows users can add data columns within their pipeline. The below list of data columns are recommended to support the downstream process of qualifying investors:

  • % Investments in Selected Stage(s)

  • 12mo Deal Count

  • % Investments in Selected Continent(s)

  • # of Investments in Selected Sector(s)

The above data columns can be added using the Add/Edit Columns button to the right-side of the pipeline. Additionally, via the Add/Edit Columns widget, users can also add “custom” columns in which they can write anything, bringing complete flexibility.

3

Qualify Investors

Once the import activity is complete, and once data columns have been added, users can start qualifying investors based on their defined criteria. Investors that do not meet the required criteria can be moved to a different stage and/or a placeholder pipeline.

4

Expand the Pipeline via Investor Additions

In most cases, founders are able to use Metal to identify numerous investors that are a particularly strong fit for their raise and that they haven’t engaged with before. Most users, therefore, need to spend significant time to identify, qualify and add a set of “most likely” investors to the pipeline.

For guidelines on how to identify the “most likely” investors, refer to this section.

Typically, founders should aim to develop a pipeline of at least 50-100 investors, prioritising ones that are the strongest fit.

5

Using "Access" Tools to Build Access

By clicking on a given investor and navigating to the investor profile, users can click on the “Access” parent tab to view the following:

  • Intro Pathways: A list of people in their network that can introduce them to the investor

  • Portfolio Founders: A list of portfolio founders that the user knows, or that have raised capital from the same investors as the user. This is particularly helpful in enabling founders to identify additional access points

  • Intro Requests: Provides users with the ability to request intros with specific individuals based on the insight provided in the above sections. All intro requests are routed via the user’s email address

By design, the above tools provide founders with visibility and insight on who within their network(s) can introduce them to a given investor.

For guidelines on creating access, refer to this section.

Ultimately, Metal’s pipeline capabilities are designed to enable founders to run raise proess that are efficiency, targeted and high-velocity.

Via Existing InvestorsProcess & Velocity