How Pickleheads Used Metal to Raise Seed
$3.25M
Total raised
Pickleheads is a pickleball platform helping players discover courts, games, and communities around the sport. Max Ade, Founder and CEO, started using Metal while raising the company’s Seed round.
Problem Statement
Max wasn’t short on investor interest. The challenge was figuring out which investors were actually worth prioritizing — those that were not only focused on Consumer and Seed, but had a genuine appetite for Pickleheads’ marketplace, sports, and community thesis.
Even after identifying a strong-fit investor, the next problem was access. Max had relationships spread across LinkedIn, email, existing investors, and previous work experiences, but no structured way to understand which of those relationships could actually lead to a credible warm introduction.
Introducing Investor Memory and Relationship Intelligence
With Metal’s proprietary investor intelligence, Max was able to shortlist investors within seconds that aligned not only with Consumer and Seed, but with the specific marketplace, sports, and community thesis behind Pickleheads.
He then integrated his network stack into Metal’s rich person and relationship graph. Metal mapped direct, second-hop, and third-hop relationships between people in Max’s network and his shortlisted investors, while adding context on the nature of each relationship; including portfolio founders, co-investors, previous colleagues, and existing investors.
This depth of relationship intelligence allowed Metal to surface the strongest intro paths first, including people Max already had close relationships with who could open doors to multiple investors across his pipeline.
Outcome
With Metal helping Max prioritize high-fit investors through already warm relationships, investor conversations moved faster and momentum built quickly across the round.
Within 90 days, Pickleheads closed a $3.2M Seed round.
"Prior to Metal, we relied on LinkedIn and spreadsheets to identify who can introduce us to our list of targeted investors. With Metal, we are now able to discover the right investors, and then seamlessly see where our existing investors are able to connect us."
— Max Ade
Founder & CEO, Pickleheads
