pre-seed
Steno AI Uses Metal to Build Relationship Intelligence
“At the seed stage, building calendar density is a critical requirement to close the round quickly and seamlessly. We used Metal for the relationship intelligence, enabling us to organize our network and identify who within our network was best positioned to introduce us with specific investors.”
Arman Assadi
Founder/CEO
Steno AI is building AI agents that can help companies with custom and specialized customer acquisition and conversion workflows.
The Challenge
What founders struggle with before Metal
As companies across the globe move toward building customer-centric agents, Steno AI’s capabilities provide a level of customization that may be hard to achieve with off-the-shelf solutions.
With significant early growth and customer love, Steno AI needed to move quickly on the seed financing. This was particularly important given the sheer pace of evolution within the broader industry that the Company operates in.
And to raise the round quickly, Steno AI needed to develop calendar density – a state whereby they had 15+ investor calls every week with qualified strong-fit investors.
Relationship Intelligence Via Metal
How Metal surfaces the right investors
Arman Assadi, the Founder/CEO at Steno AI, has deep networks within communities of VC-backed founders. He has also raised from Techstars, enabling him to access thousands of founders via the Techstars universe.
Arman has the depth in networks, but needed a mechanism that enabled him to identify who within his community could introduce him to specific investors.
To achieve this, he ran a three-part process. First, Arman was able to import and organize his connections data into and within Metal. Via simple Gmail and LinkedIn integrations, he imported his connections data with a few clicks. Subsequently, he archived contacts that he didn’t know well, and pinned ones that he did. With this approach, he knew exactly who within his network he could reach for support.
Second, via advanced network filtering and relationship paths built into Metal, Arman was able to identify who within his network had previously raised $2m+ in venture capital, and for each such founder, he was able to identify investors that that founder could broker introductions with.
Finally, for each investor within his investor pipeline on Metal, Arman could view detailed intro pathways (based on his connections that had either raised capital from the investor in question, or had co-invested with them).
Impact on the Fundraising Process
How targeting the right investors changes outcomes
With Metal, Arman was able to ramp up calendar density by turning the arduous process of landing introductions with investors into one that was systematic and replicable.
Additionally, instead of spending time on mostly unproductive LinkedIn research, he was able to focus his efforts on actually getting introductions. As outreach scaled, the workflow remained organized, repeatable, and significantly more efficient than traditional networking approaches.
By combining relationship intelligence with investor discovery, Metal enabled Steno AI to approach fundraising with greater confidence, ensuring every introduction request was backed by the strongest possible connection.
Executive Summary
Key takeaways from Steno AI's use of Metal
Steno AI used Metal to organize its existing network into a structured relationship intelligence system. By mapping investor relationships, prioritizing warm introduction pathways, and centralizing fundraising workflows, the team increased calendar density while spending less time on manual networking and research.
01
Spend time on actually getting introductions (versus on LinkedIn research)
02
Build calendar density, especially with a systematic mechanism to land introductions
03
Use software-driven relationship intelligence to make well-researched intro requests
