How a Consumer Founder Used Metal to Raise $10m
$12.7M
Total raised
Smitten is building a gamified dating app for Generation Z, centered on getting customers into better conversations through an exciting product experience. Founder/CEO David Simonarson had already built several consumer businesses and closed over $15M+ across prior rounds, including a large Series A, and came to Metal to raise the company's next round with investors who genuinely understood the space.
Problem Statement
From the outset, David knew that he needed more than a list of Series A consumer investors — he needed structured intelligence on what investors actually had a track record of understanding and investing in dating startups. In parallel, he also wanted to engage with investors that understood consumer social, and had made prior bets in the space.
Without the right signals, he knew that investor research would become manual and imprecise, slowing down his fundraising process by weeks.
Introducing the Investor Memory Layer
With Metal, David was able to run through the onboarding flow, train the platform on his Company, and then immediately identify investors that had significant portfolio similarity, or had done prior work in the broader consumer social space.
Alongside that, David was able to identify and focus on investors that had a track record of leading Series A rounds, particularly in the Consumer space. While many investors like to participate in Consumer rounds, very few have the depth of expertise to lead.
With an AI-native workflow that relied primarily on user and investor memory layers, David was able to seamlessly research likely investors, and focus his efforts on the right list of people. Smitten’s experience reinforces the view that the era of manually searching for investors and applying filters on VC databases is squarely behind us.
Outcome
David cut Smitten’s fundraising timeline by over 50%, closing a $10M+ Series A in under three months. Alongside that, the platform gave him the confidence he needed to know that he was pursuing the right mix of investors.
“I wish this had existed when I was doing back-to-back venture rounds earlier in my career.”
David Simonarson
CEO & Co-Founder at Smitten
