How a Creator Economy Founder Used Metal to Raise Pre-Seed
$1M
Total raised
$5b specialized network
Creatorland is building the professional network for the creator economy, a platform where multi-hyphenate creators build portfolios, find collaborators, and connect with brands. Brian Freeman, Founder and CEO, came to Metal while raising the company's pre-seed round.
Problem Statement
Brian kept hitting the same wall in investor conversations: “too early for us.” Even investors that seemed to understand the Creatorland thesis wanted to engage only once the traction had reached meaningful scale.
The challenge wasn’t finding investors who believed in content and the creator economy; it was finding those with a proven appetite for backing that thesis early.
Introducing the Investor Memory Layer
With Metal, Brian was able to identify investors that allocated a significant percentage of their portfolio to super early-stage companies. In particular, stages tend to be broad in nature. Some pre-seed investors prefer to see traction while others are comfortable investing pre-revenue. Structured VC databases prove inadequate for the level of granularity that Brian needed.
Over a multi-year effort, Metal has built out a rich investor memory layer that captures the preferences of investors (down to the lowest levels of details). Equipped with this memory layer, the platform surfaces investors to Brian that routinely invest in companies at the earliest stages, and often at the pre-revenue stage.
Additionally, Brian used the investor memory layer to surface investors that had done some prior work in his specific operating space. For Creatorland, investors that understood the creator economy were a lot more likely to engage positively.
Outcome
Brian’s investor conversations gained momentum quickly, progressing from first meetings into more consequential second and third conversations. Within 60 days, Creatorland closed a $1M+ pre-seed round.
"It's not just the investor identification that draws me to Metal, the depth and richness of data in the platform is what really matters."
— Brian Freeman
Founder & CEO, Creatorland
