Metal is an AI-driven operating system for fundraising, selected for Y Combinator's Winter 2023 batch. Based in Los Angeles with a team of 21, Metal builds AI-native infrastructure for founders raising venture rounds. Its strongest signal of traction: more than 100 YC founders have since signed on as paying customers, making Metal a widely adopted fundraising tool inside the Y Combinator community.

Why Y Combinator Founders Choose Metal

YC founders already have access to one of the strongest networks in tech, yet 100+ still pay for Metal to run their raises. The reason is proprietary intelligence: Metal analyzes the venture ecosystem to surface each founder's "most likely" investors and map who in their network can make a warm introduction, an edge that relationships alone don't provide.

Who Built Metal?

Metal was founded by Usman Gul, who raised $120 million across six venture rounds for his first startup before building Metal, and earlier worked on the early teams at DoorDash and Marqeta. He describes the mission as building "super intelligence for fundraising," grounded in firsthand experience of how slow and inefficient raising capital can be.

"The biggest impact that Metal has had is  the investor qualification process.  Previously, I was wasting a fair amount of calls talking to investors who were never going to write a check. I just didn’t have the intelligence to do that before. Qualification of investors made a huge difference"

— Diwank Tomer, Co-Founder, Memory Store

Who Is Metal Built For?

Metal is built for early-stage B2B, enterprise software, and SaaS founders who want a data-driven raise instead of guesswork and cold outreach. Its adoption by 100+ YC founders signals a strong fit for the accelerator ecosystem and for any founder preparing to raise their next round.

Redeem Metal for YC Founders

Source: Y Combinator — Metal