Life After Pre-Seed: Preparing for Your Seed Round

Life After Pre-Seed: Preparing for Your Seed Round

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As part of Metal's event series, this session focuses on what it takes to prepare for the next round after Pre-Seed. This event is co-hosted by Metal and Fidelity Private Shares.

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At Pre-Seed, investors primarily underwrite vision, team, and early conviction. As companies move beyond Pre-Seed, expectations shift — toward traction, clarity of market, early repeatability, and evidence of real pull. The bar rises quickly, and founders are expected to show meaningful progress in a short period of time.

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In this session, we unpack how investors think about companies between Pre-Seed and Seed:

• Signals that Matter — What has to change between Pre-Seed and the next round? For a given sector (I.e. B2B SaaS or Consumer), which early metrics start to matter more? How do investors evaluate early revenue, retention, engagement and growth? More broadly, what signals indicate readiness for the next raise?
• Milestones & Positioning — What does “Seed-ready” actually look like? How should founders think about milestones, narrative, and momentum in the 12–18 months after a Pre-Seed round? How can founders position progress in a way that resonates with the right investors?

The session will leave time for a brief Q&A at the end to make the discussion interactive. The event is most useful for founders who have raised a Pre-Seed round and are preparing for their next fundraise.

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Speakers

• Haley Bryant (Partner @ Hustle Fund) — Hustle Fund is a pre-seed and seed venture firm that has backed 500+ startups globally. The firm is known for writing first checks, moving quickly, and supporting founders through its Angel Squad network of 1,000+ angels and operator resources like Redwood School.
• Renny McPherson (GP @ First In) — First In is a venture capital firm that invests in security technology companies. Founded in 2020, First In has been fortunate to invest in many of today's leading security technology companies. First In is led by military veterans with deep domain expertise as operators and investors in the security tech ecosystem. The firm is investing out of its third fund. First In leads seed stage financings.