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The Challenge
Kidsy, an eCommerce startup based in Chicago, offers discounted baby and kids products sourced from large brands, retailers and liquidation companies. The team at Kidsy has been stretched thin – they launched in beta in September ‘23, surpassed $1m in annualized revenue in January ‘24, and closed an oversubscribed $1m pre-seed round in March ‘24.
As a fast-moving high-growth company, Kidsy receives significant investor inbound. Given the interest, it can be challenging for the team to efficiently distinguish between high-signal investors that are likely candidates for the next round, and others just looking to do calls to settle their curiosity.
Deal Intelligence via Metal
With Metal, Shraysi (Founder, Kidsy) is able to gain customized intelligence on each investor that they cross paths with. Prior to investor calls, and when evaluating unsolicited inbound from investors, she is able to use Metal to identify the following –
• Similar Investments: Metal shows a list of investments by a given investor that are “most similar” to her company (Kidsy). This immediately shows her if the investor has had prior experience and/or success with similar business models.
• Recent Deals by Sector: Metal also provides a list of recent deals with useful sectors. Specifically, for Kidsy, viewing all deals that the investor has made in “B2B Software > Supply Chain & Logistics” is particularly useful.
Additionally, Shraysi is able to view other important details for a given investor, including the pace at which they are deploying capital, the spread of their investments across stages and sectors, the inclination to lead or follow (broken out by each stage), and the most relevant partners that have prior experience in the relevant sector.
Impact on the Fundraising Process
For a given investor, by seeing prior participation in the Supply Chain & Logistics sector, and by viewing prior investments in this space, Kidsy’s team is able to prioritize and direct conversations in optimal directions. Oftentimes, this helps them pin down where the investor currently stands in their learning journey around a given sector.
Additionally, in many cases, they are able to identify specific investments that are strikingly similar to Kidsy. This information is of crucial importance, especially when this reveals that the investor has done extremely well on a very similar investment.
Executive Summary
• Understanding a given investor’s prior work in the relevant sector drives fundraising strategy
• Knowing the “most similar investments” for a given investor helps draw the right parallels
