PARTNERSHIP
x
New York City
2011
375+ startups funded
375+ startups funded
Metal is listed among ERA's official cohort benefits, alongside partners like HubSpot, Carta, and Linear. As of July, 2026, 50+ ERA-backed founders have onboarded to the platform since joining the program.
The Challenge
What ERA founders were struggling with
ERA has built one of the most hands-on accelerator programs in the country — a four-month cohort model built around mentorship, curriculum, and a high-stakes Demo Day, backed by a deep NYC network of 500+ mentors and 375+ alumni companies. ERA's Fundraising Sessions give founders a strong foundation in the mechanics of raising: cap tables, deck structure, valuation basics, and how to track a raise. But ERA's role is to prepare founders for the process, not to run the day-to-day machinery of a live raise — that's not what an accelerator curriculum is built to do.
As a result, ERA founders coming out of Demo Day face the same problem every early-stage founder faces the moment mentorship ends and outreach begins: they don't have the empirical intelligence they need on individual investors.
Missing Investor Intelligence
What stages does this investor specialize in?
What valuations do they invest at?
Which investors are investing in the same direction as a given Company’s business model?
Which investors have invested in direct competitors?
What are the “most likely” lead investors for specific types of rounds?
First-Time Founder Gap
Many ERA cohorts are made up of first-time founders raising their first institutional round. Without a repeatable system, these founders relearn — cohort after cohort — the same lessons about which investors are worth pursuing and how to manage a pipeline of dozens of names at once.
Network Mapping Challenge
ERA's mentor and alumni network is one of its biggest advantages, but founders have no structured way to know who in that network has raised from, or has a relationship with, a specific investor on their list. Without that visibility, founders spend hours manually rebuilding access their own network already has.
Introducing Metal
The fundraising operating system for founders
Investor Discovery, Research & Qualification
With AI-driven search, granular filters, and thesis mapping, Metal helps ERA founders discover investors that are the "most likely" partners for their raise, turning what ERA's curriculum teaches in theory into a live, working shortlist. Each investor profile includes data on stage concentration, sector focus, lead behaviour, follow-on patterns, and similar investments, so founders spend Demo Day season focused on the right conversations instead of guesswork.
Relationship Intelligence
Founders coming out of ERA's mentor network often underestimate how much reach that network actually has. Metal surfaces which of a founder's connections , including ERA mentors and alumni, can make an introduction to, or offer intelligence on, a given investor.
Pipeline Management & Round Coach
Metal centralizes every investor interaction into a single structured, visual pipeline, so founders can track progress from "Identified" to "Seeking Intro" across the exact investors ERA helped them shortlist, without losing that structure the moment the program ends.
AI Round Analyst
Metal's in-app agent, Richard AI, acts as a round analyst, answering questions on valuations, investor fit, and call transcripts with the kind of empirical precision that extends ERA's fundraising coaching well past Demo Day.
The ERA Outcome
50+ founders, one growing habit
With more than 50 ERA-backed founders as users, Metal has become an official cohort benefit within the ERA community.
Founders use Metal during the program, find value in the intelligence and workflow it brings to their raise, and continue using it into their next round. Today, Metal is listed among ERA's official cohort benefits, with founders onboarding to the platform during the program.
