Telling your investment story
Fundraising Pitch Deck
From Seed to Series B you'll need to share your company's story in a compelling and concise way in an investment pitch deck. Here is an overview of the perfect pitch deck with guidance notes, examples from successful pitch decks, and a free template to download.
Guidance Notes
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Create a top line narrative: reading the slide headlines alone should tell a story. Many investors will skim the deck on a first pass.
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Keep it short & simple: be concise. Ideally no more than 3 points on each slide. Use graphics and pictures.
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Length: the total deck should be around 10-12 slides. Perhaps a bit longer for Series A & B. But only add a couple more slides.
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Format: stick with pdf or ppt. Most pitches are received this way & it's perfectly acceptable.
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Be authentic: it is a story about you & your company. Fundraising is like dating , you want to find the right partner for your company, not just any partner.
1. Cover Page
2. Problem
What's the problem/opportunity. Include data & evidence if possible.
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Slide: Front's series A deck, raised $10M.
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3. Your Solution
How you will fix the problem. Include positive customer feedback, ideally from a high expectation customer. Use the FBI model to describe your solution: features > benefit > impact.
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Slide: Dropbox's first pitch deck.
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4. Traction
Users, downloads, revenue, conversion rates. Whatever metrics you use (be authentic) and highlight your growth.
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If you're pre-revenue, you can show your product road map here with milestones you've hit.
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Slide: LinkedIn, Series B deck.
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5. Revenue / Business Model
Include financial information on your business model - how will you make money, how will you grow (e.g. LTV vs CAC), etc. You may choose to show this in terms of the value proposition for your customers.
Seed companies may want to put this slide later in the deck (as much of it may be unknown); Series A and Series B companies should be very clear on their product-market-fit hypothesis.
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Consider including your revenue growth if you didn't show it on your traction slide.
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Slide: Buffer, Seed deck raised $500k.
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6. Product / Competition
What's is it and what's your secret sauce. Show why its impact is valuable for your customers.
Include your product road map, and what you plan to build. You may want to contrast to competitors offerings.
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Slide: Peleton's Series F, raised $550M. Their brand is their product.
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7. Market
What's your total addressable market size and how is it growing. You may have included a headline stat on your Problem slide, repeat it here.
Describe your target customers. Or your competitive positioning if you didn't include it on your product slide.
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Slide: [SEO]Moz's pitch deck from July 2011
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8. Growth
What are you planning to achieve in terms of traction, and how. Show headline numbers: users, revenue etc.
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Don't worry too much about profitability stats. As long as you're making money at the gross margin level, and you get big enough, you should make money at the bottom line in the future.
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Consider using metrics relevant for you; for example, later stage SAAS companies may refer to the Rule of 40, and show a LTV:CAC ratio above 4x.
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Slide: Shopify's 2015 Pitch Deck (IPO)
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9. Team
About you and your co-founders. Focus on the core team, with links to public bios e.g. LinkedIn. Logos work well to highlight experience.
Include key hires (if lined up subject to funding round) and advisers. Fractional executives can be important here: CFO, CMO, CTO etc.
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Seed companies may want to show the Team slide earlier on in the deck, as the investors will be backing the team primarily.
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10. Investment Round
How much you are seeking, the pre-money valuation, and what you intend to do with the proceeds.
Mention any cornerstone investors or notable investors from previous rounds, as well as the valuation or share price from previous rounds.
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Slide: TransferWise's 2012 Seed round, raised $1.3M.
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11. Closing Slide
Include your contact details and a strong image. Or you may decide to summarise your key messages.
I've included one of WeWork's opening slides from their Series D deck, which ran to 35 pages, and required an opening Summary Slide. For a Seed to Series B round this may be better as a closing slide for a shorter presentation.
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