How Metal's Relationship Intelligence helped Kliq raise a Seed
$2M+
Total raised
KLIQ is building AI-driven business software for entrepreneurs whose product is their content, helping creators monetize directly from their audiences. Ben Camara, Founder and CEO, came to Metal while raising the company’s Seed round.
Problem Statement
Ben already had what most founders spend years building: a strong network of founders, operators, and institutional investors. The problem was that the network was deep but illegible; he had no structured way to see how those relationships connected to the investors he wanted to reach.
As a result, valuable warm paths often remained hidden. Identifying who could credibly introduce him to a target investor meant manually reconstructing relationships investor by investor, slowing down outreach and limiting the value of a network he had already built.
Introducing Intro Pathways
Metal turned Ben’s existing network into a searchable relationship graph. By integrating Gmail and LinkedIn, adding existing investors, and layering in founders he knew personally, Metal built a richer view of the people and relationships already surrounding KLIQ.
Metal’s proprietary person and network intelligence then mapped direct, second-hop, and third-hop pathways to target investors; understanding which of Ben’s connections were VC-backed founders or investors, who they had raised from, invested alongside, or otherwise built defined relationships with.
Instead of simply showing mutual connections, Metal surfaced the most credible intro pathways and the context behind them. Ben could immediately see who in his network could open the right door, turning hours of manual relationship research into a repeatable workflow for generating warm introductions across the round.
Outcome
With Metal making previously hidden relationships actionable, Ben could spend less time researching pathways and more time actually securing introductions, creating a repeatable process for expanding investor access and building momentum throughout the raise.
Within 90 days, Ben closed a $3m+ Seed round.
"Metal provides powerful functionalities to identify who within your network can introduce you to a given investor. The platform ingests my network data from Gmail and LinkedIn. And then identifies which of my connections are VC-backed founders or investors, and who they know based on their prior work in raising capital or investing in companies."
— Ben Camara
Founder & CEO, KLIQ
