Phaze Ventures is pleased to announce our investment in Metal, the AI-driven operating system for founders raising venture rounds.
Metal is building for one of the most important and inefficient workflows in startup building: capital formation. Even the strongest founders often spend months navigating fragmented investor data, unclear fit, weak warm-intro paths, and manual pipeline management. Metal brings investor discovery, relationship intelligence, outreach, pipeline management, meeting preparation, and fundraising strategy into one AI-native platform.
We invested in Metal earlier this year because it sits directly at the intersection of two themes we care deeply about: AI-native workflow software and the infrastructure layer around private markets. Fundraising remains one of the highest-stakes moments in a founder’s journey, yet much of the process is still driven by spreadsheets, scattered research, and uneven access to networks. Metal is turning that process into a more informed, repeatable, and data-driven system.
Metal is already trusted across some of the world’s strongest startup networks. The company is backed by Y Combinator and a16z speedrun, with other investors and partners including Indus Valley Capital, Rebel Fund, and Techstars. More than 100 YC founders have signed on as paying customers, and Techstars has partnered with Metal to support founders across its portfolio.
As part of our relationship with Metal, Phaze Ventures portfolio founders will receive 25% off Metal plans, giving them access to a best-in-class fundraising tool as they plan, manage, and execute future rounds.
Metal is building infrastructure for one of the most important and inefficient workflows in venture-backed company building. Usman has lived this problem deeply as a founder and is building the product founders wish they had before starting a raise. We’re excited to support the Metal team alongside a strong group of global backers.
Abdullah Al Shaksy, Co-founder and CEO of Phaze Ventures
Founded by Usman Gul, Metal reflects a deeply founder-led view of the fundraising process. Prior to Metal, Usman raised over $120M for his first startup across multiple venture rounds and was part of the early teams at DoorDash and Marqeta.
Our view is that founders will increasingly expect AI to act as an embedded operating layer across the most complex and judgment-heavy parts of building a company. For capital formation, that means moving beyond static databases and generic CRMs toward systems that understand a company’s stage, sector, traction, investor fit, and network paths.
Metal is building that infrastructure.
We’re excited to back Usman and the Metal team as they help founders raise with more precision, speed, and confidence.
About Metal
Metal is an AI-driven operating system for founders raising venture rounds. The platform helps founders discover the right investors, build fundraising pipelines, map warm introductions, automate outreach, refine fundraising strategy, and manage the raise end to end.
Visit metal.so to learn more.