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A deal represents an opportunity your firm is evaluating, linked to a target company. You create and manage deals from the Deals area, and track them visually on the Active Pipeline.

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Create a deal

1

Open Deals

In the left sidebar, expand the Records group and select Deals. Click New Deal in the top right. (You can also use the + on the Records group and choose Add Deal.)
2

Select the target company

A deal must be linked to a company. In the Create New Deal dialog, choose the target company under Company (required). If it doesn’t exist yet, create it first from Companies — see Working with companies.
3

Fill in the details and create

Give the deal a Deal Name (for example, Acme Corp – Platform). Optionally set Status, Stage, Deal Size, Owners, Assignees, and other fields. Click Create Deal.
New deals default to the Active status and the first stage. Your firm’s status and stage labels are configured by an admin — see Taxonomy.

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Set the acquisition type

Every deal has an Acquisition Type of either Platform or Add on. Use it to mark whether the target is a standalone platform investment or an add-on to an existing portfolio company. The field appears directly below the deal name in the Create New Deal and Edit Deal dialogs, and as Acquisition Type on the Deal Details widget where you can change it inline. Switching to Add on reveals a company picker — choose the portfolio company that the deal is an add-on to. Switching back to Platform clears the parent. The type itself is derived from whether a platform parent is set, so the API returns it as the read-only field acquisitionType on the deal.
When a deal is synced from your CRM with writeback enabled, Acquisition Type is locked everywhere it appears. The platform parent is managed by your CRM field mapping, and edits in Metal would be ignored. See CRM integration.

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Record where a deal came from

Use the source fields on Create New Deal, Edit Deal, and the Deal Details card to record origination and coverage: These fields stay on the deal so coverage and attribution travel with the opportunity, including on lists and the Active Pipeline when those columns are visible.
On CRM-synced deals, some source fields may be locked or written back according to your field mapping. See CRM integration.

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Assign or change a deal’s company

A deal’s target Company can be assigned or changed after creation, without leaving the view you’re in. Both entry points use the same company picker and save through the deal’s usual update flow.
1

From the Deal Details card

Open the deal and find the Company row in the Deal Details card. Click the inline company picker to select a different company, or to add one if the deal has no company linked yet.
2

From the deals grid

On the Deals page, hover the Company cell for a deal and click the pencil to change it. For deals with no company linked, the cell shows an Add company button — click it to pick one.
On add-on deals, the acquiring (platform) company is hidden from the picker — a deal’s target company can’t be the same as its platform company.

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Deals sourced from a CRM

For deals that sync from a connected CRM (writeback-enabled orgs), you can set or change the company inline from either place; the change is written back to your CRM when the CRM field is mapped. Clearing the company on a CRM-sourced deal is not supported and will be rejected.

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Track deals on the Active Pipeline

The Active Pipeline (in the sidebar) is where you see deals in motion.
1

Open Active Pipeline

Select Active Pipeline in the sidebar. The Overview tab shows pipeline dashboards; the Active Deals tab lists the deals themselves.
2

Switch to the board view

On the Active Deals tab, use the view toggle to switch to the Kanban board view. Each column is a deal stage.
3

Move a deal between stages

Drag a deal card from one stage column to another to advance it. A confirmation appears once the deal moves. (Drag requires edit permission on the deal.)
Turn on the My Deals toggle on the Active Deals tab to see deals you created, own, are assigned to, or that are directly shared with you.
The Active Deals list is backed by a Metal list. Saved views on that list are shared with everyone who has access, while your last selected view in the embedded Active Deals list is remembered for you only. See Save and use views.
Group the Active Pipeline by Portfolio Company to see add-on deals clustered under their platform parent. Platform deals and add-ons without a parent set fall into an Other bucket. The option appears in the board’s group-by selector once the Acquisition Type column is present.

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Customize the Kanban card display

Click Card Display in the board toolbar to choose what appears on each card:
  • Select the field used as the card title.
  • Add up to ten body fields.
  • Remove fields you do not need for the current workflow.
  • Collapse or expand individual cards to control how much detail you see.
Your choices are personal to you and do not change your teammates’ card layouts. The same card display controls are available on the Investor Pipeline.

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Stage vs. status

Metal tracks two separate things about every deal: Both use your firm’s own labels, configured by an admin in Taxonomy. The outcome (passed, dead, or closed) is a field on the deal. Why the firm passed is not a separate object in Metal. Store that rationale in deal Notes, in a custom attribute such as a CRM pass-reason field, or as part of the deal intelligence Metal extracts from memos and IC materials. See Deal Profiles.

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View similar deals

Open a deal and look for the Similar Deals table on the deal overview. Metal uses your firm’s deal history and structured deal data to show prior deals that look similar to the current one. The Similarities column explains why a deal matched. Each row can show chips such as Subsector, Sector, Revenue scale, EBITDA scale, Outcome, or Vintage. If there are several reasons, Metal shows the strongest reason first and collapses the rest behind a +N chip. Hover over +N to see the remaining reasons. Vintage means the two deals’ start or close dates fall within about two years of each other. It is an overlap explanation, not a recency ranking that makes newer decisions outweigh older ones. See Deal Profiles.
Similarity chips only appear on the Similar Deals table. They do not appear on every deal table or list view. If you do not see the table, the Similarities column, or any chips, your firm may not have enough matching deal data yet, or the similar-deals widget may not be configured for that deal view.

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Assign owners and assignees

Owners are the primary people or teams accountable for a deal. Use Owners when you mean “who owns this opportunity.” Assignees are people or teams assigned to help with the deal. They often represent the broader deal team synced from your CRM. Owners and assignees both appear as avatar chips, can be used as list columns and filters, and count toward My Deals.
Shared With is separate from owners and assignees. Use it when you need to grant access to a deal without marking someone as responsible for the deal.
1

Open the deal

Click the deal from the Deals table or the pipeline board.
2

Edit the deal

Open the deal’s actions menu and choose Edit to open the Edit Deal dialog.
3

Add owners and assignees

In the Owners and Assignees fields, add teammates (you can select individual Users or whole Teams). Save your changes.
Some firm-specific deal forms show a simplified team section. If you only see Owners, use that field for the responsible party on the deal.

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Attach documents

Documents live on a deal’s Documents tab and are shared with the deal’s linked company.
1

Open the deal's Documents tab

Open the deal and select the Documents tab. The deal must have a linked company; if it doesn’t, link one first.
2

Add files

Click Add File, or drag files onto the table (you’ll see a Drop files to upload overlay). Uploaded files are processed and become searchable.

Working with companies

Manage the target companies your deals link to.

Work in business development

Source, screen, and qualify deals on the pipeline and in CIM Library.

Taxonomy

How admins configure deal stages and statuses.