The Challenge
Hummingbirds is building a business around hyperlocal creators. For creators and influencers, Hummingbirds provides a way to identify and join campaigns that are of interest. For brands, the Company offers a way to market to a local audience through local creators.
The creator economy is growing rapidly and is capturing the attention of venture investors. Hummingbirds is building the underlying infrastructure to bring efficiency and connectivity to this growing segment.
Owing to their unique positioning in a rapidly growing space, Hummingbirds have garnered significant interest from investors (even when they aren’t raising capital). However, in the absence of the right intelligence on these investors, it is difficult to “build” these discussions in the right direction.
Investor Intelligence via Metal
Prior to investor meetings, Charise, the founder of Hummingbirds, uses the Metal platform to develop a quick overview of their prior investing inclinations.
For Charise, using Metal is less about gathering data and information on a given investor, and more about figuring out where to take the conversation. If the investor frequently leads deals, then maybe the strategy for the discussion is different. Similarly, if the investor has invested in similar companies, or perhaps in direct competitors, then this is valuable intelligence that can shape the conversation in many different ways.

Impact on the Fundraising Process
On average, founders end up working with less than 5% of the investors that they speak with.
With Metal, Hummingbirds is able to fully understand the inclinations of a given investor. Building this understanding prior to investor meetings helps the Company fit various investors into their fundraising journey.
The meeting strategy is vastly different for investors that have just raised a new fund and are ramping up their pace of capital deployment (versus ones that are slowing down at the end of a given fund). Equipped with the right intelligence, Hummingbirds is able to bring a nuanced approach to every investor conversation.
Executive Summary
• Developing intelligence on investors helps build conversations in the right direction
• An investor’s “inclination” is evident via their prior investing patterns
• Fundraising meetings can convert into checks at better rates with the right preparation
