Investor profile
Harrison Metal
Micro-fund
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Harrison Metal is a seed-stage venture capital firm founded in 2008 by Michael Dearing, a former eBay SVP and Stanford consulting professor. The firm backs early-stage technology startups — particularly in enterprise software, consumer internet, small business services, and developer tools — with a highly selective, high-touch approach. Dearing invests with a deep focus on 'management craft,' providing not just capital but hands-on operational mentorship to help founders achieve product-market fit and build enduring businesses. The firm's core belief is that exceptional founders with 'comparative advantage' — operators who have developed rare expertise inside large companies and can now build products that serve many companies at once — create the most durable and valuable startups.
Notable quotes
“Bad management and leadership kills more startups than bad products. I look for people who have broken out of the bounds of normal for their peer group.”
“My investing wins have come from turning experts inside larger companies into founders of startups that serve many companies at once. I call it 'comparative advantage': like in global trade, in which some countries are just inherently better at producing a certain export, some founders are just better suited to build projects than what could be made inside a giant enterprise.”
“I realized I was having the most fun of my career… I realized that this was actually a portfolio. A friend of mine, Jim Goetz at Sequoia Capital, said, 'You realize that you could do this full time?' and he started telling me about the gap he saw in the seed market, the space between inception of a company and their A-round.”
Team
Erik Rannala
Partner
Recent investments
| Company | Round | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CoreStory | Series A | $32m | 2025-10-28 |
| Vital Interaction | Series A | $15m | 2024-01-01 |
| Jeli | Series A | $15m | 2022-09-28 |
| X1 Card | Series B | $25m | 2022-07-01 |
| CircleCI | Seed | $2m | 2013-02-01 |
| MasterClass | Series B | $15m | 2016-07-01 |
| PagerDuty | Seed | — | — |
| Guild Education | Seed | $2m | 2015-09-01 |
| Fleetsmith | Seed | $3m | 2016-11-01 |
| Birchbox | Seed | — | — |
Frequent co-investors
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