COLD START / catalog / c/metalretrieved 2026-05-14T19:34 UTC · 6 sources read

Metal

Metal sells an AI-powered deal intelligence platform to private equity firms, organizing a firm's deal history, expert calls, and relationship data into a knowledge graph so deal teams can build sharper conviction across the full deal lifecycle.

metal.ai · New York

CALL NO.CS·METAL·26

StageSeedOctober 2025 · led by Base10 Partners[1]

Raised$7.5Mdisclosed rounds[1]

Headcount22as of Apr 2026[1]

Valuationnot publicly disclosedno source in ledger

Founded2023[1][3][4]

Money

Raised $7.5M across disclosed rounds.[1]

Seed closed October 2025, led by Base10 Partners.[1]

post-money valuation is not publicly disclosed.

Named investors include Base10 Partners, Swift Ventures.[1]

People

James O'Dwyer, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer[2][3][4]

Sergio Prada, Co-Founder & CTO[2][3][4]

Vitalii Shevelev, Co-Founder & CFO[2][3][4]

James O'Dwyer, Chief Product Officer[2][3][4]

Vitalii Shevelev, CFO[2][3][4]

Signals

Apr 22 2026hiringMetal headcount at 22, up 76% year-over-year, with monthly growth of 7.3% as of April 2026[1]

Mar 10 2026otherMetal's CTO Sergio Prada publishes technical case study on building agent-driven retrieval on Vespa.ai, same infrastructure used by Perplexity[3]

Feb 23 2026launchMetal launches Expert Call Library, centralizing and scoring expert call transcripts across deal history[1]

Jan 26 2026launchMetal integrates Salesforce and Affinity into its deal intelligence platform, joining existing Intapp DealCloud integration[1]

Jan 7 2026launchMetal launches Metal Projects, team intelligence workspaces for PE deal teams covering active deals, portfolio monitoring, and IC prep[1]

Oct 9 2025fundingMetal closes Seed round of $5M led by Base10 Partners; $7.5M total raised to date[1]

Comps

Affinity · affinity.co · Both target PE deal teams and integrate into deal workflows; Metal positions its knowledge graph and AI agents as architecturally deeper than CRM-layer tools like Affinity, which Metal integrates with rather than directly replaces.[1]

Ontra · ontra.ai · Same buyer (PE/private markets firms), same AI-workflow-for-private-markets positioning; Ontra targets legal and compliance workflows while Metal targets deal intelligence and conviction-building. Metal's BD hire Alex Bulmer came from Ontra.[1][5]

Intapp DealCloud · intapp.com · Directly cited as an integration partner by Metal, meaning DealCloud is the incumbent system of record that Metal layers on top of; DealCloud owns data storage while Metal claims to provide the intelligence and AI reasoning layer on top.[1]

Hebbia · hebbia.ai · Competes in the AI-for-financial-due-diligence space with PE and financial services buyers; Hebbia is more document-centric while Metal emphasizes the compounding knowledge graph across a firm's full deal history.[1][3]

Next question

Ask who funds the company and on what terms.

Thin file, not a verdict.

Sourcestracings · 6

[1]Metal — Exa enrichment profile

May 2026 · metal.ai

vendor

[2]Vitalii Shevelev — LinkedIn

May 2026 · linkedin.com

vendor

[3]James O'Dwyer — LinkedIn

May 2026 · linkedin.com