Key concepts

A quick, non-technical tour of the ideas you’ll see throughout Metal.

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Companies, deals, and people

• A company is an organization you track — a target, investor, advisor, or service provider. You can designate it as Target, Portfolio Company, or Exited, or mark an Add on by linking a Platform company (not by picking Add on in the status dropdown). See Work with portfolio companies.
• A deal is an opportunity, linked to a target company, that moves through your pipeline. An add-on deal also points at the platform portfolio company.
• A person is a contact or executive, often linked to a company.

When Investor Relations is enabled, Metal also tracks the capital side of the firm:

• A fund is an investment vehicle your firm manages.
• A limited partner is an investor or prospective investor in those funds.
• A fundraising process is an active raise — one limited partner you are raising from for a fund — and is what you move across stages on the Investor Pipeline.

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Files

Upload documents — CIMs, financials, memos — to companies and deals. Metal processes them so their contents turn up when you search. See Files & documents.

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Lists

Lists are grids that group companies, deals, people, or documents so you can work with them together — including AI-enriched and computed columns. See Working with lists.

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Enrichment and scoring

Enrichment fills in details about companies and people automatically. Scoring evaluates deals and companies against your firm’s frameworks. See Enrichment.

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Workflows

Workflows automate multi-step research and produce work product. Each execution is a run. See Using workflows.

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Skills

Skills encode repeatable playbooks for chat and agents — the process to follow, not just the prompt text. You can keep a skill private, share it, or make it firm-wide. See Skills.