A big part of my job at Kruze is to help our clients prepare to raise venture capital. So I’ve seen a lot of venture capital pitch decks recently. As a former VC who also has been an exec at a number of startups that have raised quite a few million in venture financing, I have some strong views on what information VCs want to see. And because Kruze clients raise over four billion dollars in venture funding annually, I get to see a lot of what works - and what doesn’t.
Since I’m regularly being asked for a template for a venture pitch deck, I thought that I’d compile the best templates available on the internet that I know about. Again, I’m strongly biased, as I’ve seen many companies successfully raise and some not. These are investor pitch deck examples that I think are working.
In addition to the example presentations below, I also lay out the standard slides that I’ve seen companies use to successfully raise venture funding. You can scroll down to also see a TechCrunch interview with a Kruze Client, DeepScribe, where the founder and their investor walk you through the deck they used to raise a $30M round. Finally, I’ve added in a dozen+ questions that VCs often ask founders during the pitch (I’ll probably create an entire article around VC questions and answers).
We’ve released our free startup pitch deck course! It includes 2 free Google Presentation startup pitch deck templates that are free to use, and one downloadable financial model template - plus over 8.5 hours describing what VCs look for on every slide in the deck.
Again, the pitch deck course has two free templates that are free to use. No email or registration or anything - just click the links, open the Google Slides and duplicate them into your own Google Drive. One of the free templates is a B2B example, the other is a B2C example. Haje Kamps, the well known TechCrunch writer who produces the pitch deck teardown series, helped me create those free templates - so get them!
At an A or B, you should be thinking about doubling your business. Obviously dependent on the base. So, if the base is $1 million bucks of ARR, it may be a little different if we're talking about $5 or $6 million of ARR. But I think generally, at least a double to at least get around done.
Top 10 12 venture capital pitch deck templates on the internet right now
- Guy Kawasaki’s pitch template - https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/ This is the OG demo pitch deck. Short and sweet. Starting to get a bit long in the tooth, but still the first one to check out because it will highlight how simple and short can be better (don’t make a 30 slide deck!!)
- Ycombinator’s slide template - https://blog.ycombinator.com/intro-to-the-yc-seed-deck/ The actual deck that YC links to (it’s a Google Slide file) has such poor design, I wouldn’t recommend using it. HOWEVER, the order of slides and the topics are 100% on, so it’s worth carefully reading the commentary in the actual post. I like the final slide, as it clearly outlines how much funding is needed and the use of the funds. A solid slide to end the conversation on.
- First Round Capital’s deck - https://www.beautiful.ai/blog/uber-vc-pitch-deck-presentation-template One of the top, East Coast VCs supposedly had a hand in creating this one, and the slide order/content is one of the best examples of what to put into your deck. I don’t know how you actually download this - it’s in some kind of a proprietary format, but if you are looking for a view on how to order and design a pitch deck, this is one you must check out.
- Orange seed deck - https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/pitch-deck-teardown-oranges-25m-seed-deck/255524952 Haje reviewed this deck on TC and said that this deck is “almost perfect.” Besides the fact that it’s visually appealing, each slide provides just the right amount of info. The cover slide says what they do. The problem slide lays out the problem in an easy to understand fashion, then the solutions slide uses facts and numbers to explain why what they do is best. The market sizing slide has a Venn diagram, which I love, but paints their positioning at the bullseye. I can go on and on - if you are raising a seed round, check out their deck, it’s great.
- Series A pitch deck used by Front to raise their A - https://medium.com/@collinmathilde/front-series-a-deck-f2e2775a419b This founder very kindly shared their slides and fund raising experience. Great example of a competition slide in an industry that has a lot of legit competitors.
- Airbnb’s seed deck - https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/airbnb-seed-pitch-deck/ This is a classic (although the visual design did not age well). If you are looking for a consumer deck or one that talks about how to launch into a new(ish) industry, this is worth looking at.
We’ve also put links to six other examples below, like the Uber deck and the Mattermark slides. Scroll down to see more real-life examples of some of the best decks on the internet, and dig into our commentary on slide order and content strategy.
I wish every founder knew that there's nothing that... A lot of founders will come and say, "Oh, we were just saying something that we thought VCs would want to hear." And ironically, I don't really know what that means. But in reality, what everybody really wants to hear is, what are you passionate about? And what do you know about the world that nobody else does?
Slides in an example Investor pitch deck
The professionals (like YC and Guy Kawasaki) are suggesting 10 slides in a standard pitch deck. I think the real point is that you should be able to deliver your pitch in 15 minutes or less - and if pressed, do a 5-minute pitch. That’s really short.
Why so short? Aren’t most VC meetings scheduled for 30 minutes? Well sure, but…
Assume that your VC is late to the meeting by 5 minutes (they will always say something like “something came up with a portfolio company’s acquisition, but the truth is probably that the barista messed up and gave them an almond milk latte instead of a oat milk one and they had to wait for the right beverage - kind of a joke.) The VC will probably then give you a few minute spiel around what makes their fund different. Then assume that you need to answer at least 5 minutes of questions if your pitch is not going well - and 10 minutes of questions or more if the investor is engaged. And you’ll need a 5-minute pitch, that isn’t rushed, if some important partner is running way late or misses the first 20 minutes of your 30-minute meeting. And if you do get cut short, your goal is to get them to like you enough to agree to the next meeting, not to close the deal - or to even make it through the entire presentation in that setting. Focus on the key areas and key topics, and get them excited about your company purpose, mission and market.
The standard table of contents in a good pitch deck is:
Based on the $1 billion our clients raised last year in VC funding, we think you will want:
1. Cover/title slide - including the company name and the founder’s contact info; a tagline on the company is a great idea as well “Uber for cats!”
2. The industry’s or customers’ problem - the pain that your startup is solving
3. Your startup’s solution or value proposition - how your startup fixes the issue / the benefits you provide
The templates start to diverge, so a few different next slides are:
4. EITHER:
- Traction - metrics that show adoption or market validation or
- Product magic/product demo - showing off the offering
5. EITHER:
- Market size
- Business model / how you make money
6. Go to market/growth - explain how you are going to grow
7. Competition and or competitive analysis/advantages - all startups have some sort of competition, or there is at least a way that customers are currently dealing with the pain your startup is solving
8. Team
9. Financial projections - include revenue growth, high-level spend, burn, and other KPIs like customer count (you can go deeper in an appendix or in a financial model). The goal is to make it clear that you are GOING BIG. And if you are looking for a free downloadable model template, visit our financial modeling page.
10. Summary:
- How much you are raising
- Traction if you haven’t already done so
- Use of proceeds (what you do with the money)
- Current investors participation level (if any - strong investors who have already invested in previous rounds and who are participating in this one are a very good signal)
I am slightly older school - I usually like an “executive summary” after the cover page that goes over the company and round. I think this is probably a page that went out of style in 2015 or so, but I still like it because it quickly helps the VC see what your key metrics/sales points are, and how much you are raising. I usually recommend only four or five bullets on this slide:
- Disrupting the $x billion industry
- 1,500 customers using product [or] Marquee customers include McDonalds and Marriott
- ARR of X, growing 20% month over month
- Team has deep domain experience from XYZ
- Raising $8 to $10 million Series A
Given that YC and Guy Kawasaki seem to no longer (or maybe never) had an exec summary at the front of their venture capital pitch deck templates, you are probably OK ignoring my advice and just getting straight from the cover page to the problem statement.
11. Q&A - Haje loves having the final slide say “Q&A” or “questions” (could have your contact info on it as well. The idea is that you’ll likely have this slide up on the screen for a while, so make it inviting for the VC to ask questions. And since the last slide can sometimes be one of the weaker ones, why leave it up? Finally, the slide that hangs out on the screen may influence the questions that the VC asks, so it’s a good idea to leave it open ended so they actually ask what they want to ask.
Tips for your slides
Here are some of the slides from the best decks mentioned above and some tips that founders we work with have found helpful:
- Problem Slide - Invite the investor into discussing / discovering the problem with you. Some problems are obvious - but that doesn’t mean that the VC has thought about them deeply before. Help the investor understand the issues from the eyes of the buyer/consumer. The best venture capital pitch decks have problem slides that are strong enough to make the investor really, really want to meet with you. If you can highlight a customer, and the pain point they had, super awesome! Use this to lead into the solutions slide, where you can explain how you helped them, and mention that client if you do a demo to explain what they use and love about your product.
- Go to Market / Growth Slide - For companies that are already generating revenue and growing, show that you know who your customers are and where you can find them. For pre-revenue startups, use this slide to prove that the founders have 1) thought about how to sell the product and 2) have a plan on what you will try to prove vis a vis your sales and marketing with the capital you are raising.
- Business Model - Somewhere you’ve got to say what your pricing model is going to be. Make sure that it aligns with your go to market strategy - you can’t have an inside sales team for a $5 per month product. And it’s very unlikely that a Fortune 500 company is going to purchase a $1M per year product w/o going through a solid sales process led by expensive AE’s that you have to hire.
Everybody says this, to focus on product market fit, but that probably is the single biggest thing, right? Because people have a great idea, and if you can't explain it in a way that, and I don't want to say simplifies it, but it's the easiest way for me to explain it, to simplify it so that people know how to take advantage of that technology.
Seed Pitch Deck Outline
Our COO, Scott Orn (also a former VC) has been assisting a number of seed and pre-seed companies during their fundraises, and has produced an outline/template for a seed pitch deck.
Pre-seed is sort of a new asset class. It’s essentially the first money in. That’s what seed used to be for everyone. So this is applicable to pre-seed and seed - basically, what to present when your company is more of an idea.
- Company’s slogan / 1 sentence elevator pitch - the first page or first slide should really just be the company’s name and slogan, or the one sentence, what you are doing. And just get the audience focused on that. Make sure to make an impression, deliver it with passion. You are in sell mode here. You’re pitching investors.
- Problem - what are your customers struggling with? A lot of investors like the problem-solution type of framework, so the next slide would be the problem. So talk about how your potential customers are suffering, what’s going on right now in the market, why it’s not working, and then the next page in the deck will be your solution.
- Solution - how are you going to make everyone’s life better? You can explain how you’re going to be better, how you’ll save your clients or customers a ton of time, a ton of money, etc. Better, faster, cheaper is a Silicon Valley slogan that people typically use when explaining their startup’s solution.
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The Product / Service
- Nothing is more powerful than a demo. That also shows that the company has actually built something and you can get a taste for it.
- Often you see a screenshot of the demo and often can click for video.
- Some people like more visual depictions of what you are doing. Regardless, in this section, something visual is pretty helpful. You want to get the conversation going, you want them to react to something, you want them to feel vested in what you’re doing. Get them to buy into the solution.
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Market Size
- This is kind of a “check the box” because it’s always hard to size the market.
- And many of the best companies look like they have a tiny market but turn it into something huge.
- But it’s a good exercise and tells investors where you are going. And, remember, venture capital is really just wanting to invest in big opportunities. VCs are okay with some losses, but when something works, they need it to be big. And so that’s why they really care about market size. This section helps prove to the seed investor that you are pointed at a big possible market, and that you are aiming to make a big company vs. a nice, small, lifestyle business.
- You would be surprised at how many small businesses, that never really anticipate getting bigger than a couple of million in revenue, try to raise seed financing. So the seed investors need to be able to weed out the entrepreneurs who are not focusing on big opportunities, and you do that in this part of your seed pitch deck.
- And if you’re willing to spend a bunch of your time, five, 10 years of your career on something, there better be some size to it!
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Competition
- You want to identify competitors. If you pretend you don’t have competitors or bad mouth them, you’ll lose credibility. investors typically like you to acknowledge your competition. And oftentimes there’s a little bit of education, because you know this market really well, but the seed investor doesn’t, so here is where you teach them about the competition.
- Seed investors know that competitors aren’t the end of the world. In fact, the best venture capitalists actually LIKE successful competitors, because it helps validate that there is a market for the solution.
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Go to Market Plan
- This is a super important slide. Are you using a sales team? Partnerships? Online marketing? Events?
- Creativity, different approaches and things that investors have seen work are great.
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Financials
- How much money do you need?
- How long will that get you?
- When do you think you’ll start to generate revenue.
- A visual is really good as part of this slide.
- It’s important to understand the seed investors mindset on this slide. They are doing the math, and they’re thinking, what does this company need to raise money from a series A venture capitalist? Because really, at every step of the venture capital game, people are putting money into your company and then hoping other people will step up down the road to fund the company. The seed investors that you are pitching only have so much capital. They are going to rely on your company doing well enough, and looking strong enough, to be able to get a VC to invest in your next round. And so, they’re doing that math and trying to figure out what is going to be that milestone that really brings other venture investors in the company?
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Exit Opportunities
- Some seed investors don’t want you to talk about a sale eventually. They are essentially saying “I don’t want to even hear that you’re thinking about selling the company in three years or four years, or how could you possibly know who’s gonna buy it?” Which is very fair. So you needed to kind of tread lightly on this. I think the way I typically like to do this is just point out the players in the market and make the point that if you get traction and you’re successful, these people or these companies are gonna have a real strong vested interest in acquiring you, so you are a great investment opportunity. And so that’s kind of enough.
- It’s enough to say that if we hit traction, there will be a lot of interested companies like X, Y Z.
- You don’t need to say like “I’m going to get bought for X number of dollars in year three” or something like that. Just talking about who could buy you or who would be interested is a delicate way of doing this.
- It’s always great when a founder says, “I’m taking this through IPO. I’m committed.”
- Note from Healy: While Scott may really like this slide, I don’t love it as much, because, as Scott mentions, it makes me afraid that the CEO is not in it for the long term. I usually prefer to discuss this on the competition slide, “here are other, very big companies, that don’t play in this solution but who have the same customer base as we want… they may get into our market. Who knows, they may acquire their way in once they realize the solution is being adopted.” I like that method better, as it doesn’t imply to the seed investors or the VCs that you are putting the cart before the horse, instead it says that you know who the heavy hitters are in the general market, and then the investor can do the mental math to think that they may want to buy their way in eventually. And using this one as a way to explain your competitive edge and maybe business concept, vis a vis what others are doing and the holes in the market, is a smart way to tackle it and turn it into a super positive part of the presentation. Please check out the pitch deck templates, we have a couple of great examples in there.
- Team - some people like to put this way up in the front, right after the slogan and what they’re doing, because they have a team that has accomplished a lot and the team is backable just because they’re just so successful and so technically strong and know what they’re doing. But you can have it here at the end of the presentation, either way is fine. It’s good to get some bios up there, get some pictures so that people can identify. Also the nice thing about bios and your founding team in the slide is that oftentimes you can play the name game with venture capitalists or seed investors - they’re professional networkers, they know a lot of people. And so oftentimes, you can get to a point where they know someone that’s on your team or that you know, and that’s a really great background diligence channel. If they want to invest in you, they may actually call their friend who knows someone on the founding team or knows you and just check and see what kind of person you are or your team is just for diligence sake. It also can be very impressive if it’s a super strong technical team or a marketing team that’s gone to market in a really unique way. But, wherever you put it in the pitch deck, definitely have a team slide.
- Any examples of progress - this is huge. If you can say you already have clients, revenue, etc, it is much more convincing. All these signs that what you are doing is working, and that it’s legit and it’s something the seed investors want to be a part of, it’s a social proof type of thing if you know that from influence. And so showing your traction is probably the best thing you can do to sell the company. So don’t hesitate to do that. If you have a commitment from a lead investor, that’s great, always put that in this slide in your investor pitch deck because it’s a lot easier to follow on than be the lead and set the evaluation, write the check, that’s a lot of responsibility and sometimes people don’t want to do that. But that’s what you can end up with.
And then there’s a tiny little tip which is, oftentimes you get to the end of the presentation and that slide just sits up there for the remainder of the pitch discussion. If it’s going to sit there, just make it like something showing how awesome you are or helping you close the sale, maybe it’s pictures, maybe it’s graphs or your traction. Instead of having that boring, “questions” slide, do something that spices it up. And every time they kind of subconsciously look at the slide deck on the wall, or the presentation, even though you’re just talking after the presentation has been done, it can kind of help convince them in a small way. So just a little tip to help your investor pitch deck be a bit stronger at the end.
At the seed stage, you’re still living the dream and you’re convincing investors that they should come along. So it’s a little less finance, a little less metrics and more vision. But really this framework should work for any type of venture capital presentation.
We are looking for founders who are literally obsessed with what they're doing. The founders we're biased towards, they haven't been thinking about this idea for days, or weeks, or months. They've been thinking about it for years or decades, and somehow a lot of pieces of their lives have brought them to this point.
How to write a pitch deck to raise funding
Ok, so you’ve now seen the VC and seed deck outlines above - but how so you actually start writing a presentation that will help you get funding? Here is how I have successfully written pitch decks when I was raising VC money:
- Understand WHY you’ll be able to raise funding - this could be your traction, the market, the team, the product strength. Find the one thing that will blow investors out of the water, and build your story around it.
- Now that you know what your biggest strength is, put together the outline of the deck.
- Decide what the one major takeaway is for each slide - this might be the slide title, or it might be a point driven by an image or chart. But you only have a handful of slides, so each one has to drive the vision forward; make each one count.
- Start from the strength slide; don’t get it perfect yet, just make sure it highlights the “wow.”
- Next, fill in the rest of the slides, remembering that you are selling your vision. Use data, market insights, customer quotes to support the conclusion that your company is going to be successful.
- Now, practice running through the deck. It sounds cheesy, but I recommend doing it out loud! Make improvements to the slides and flow based on how it sounds delivering it to yourself.
- You are ready to practice on some “friendlies” - either current investors, partners, mentors. Get their opinions, and then iterate the pitch deck until you feel confident that you’ve got the story down.
Tips for your fund raising presentation if time is running short
Ok, so as I outlined, it’s highly likely that your 30 minute conversation gets cut into a much shorter time frame. There are good ways to handle this and bad. The worst way that I’ve seen is when a CEO talks REALLY REALLY fast and blows through the preso. It’s hard for anyone to soak in the information, it can be hard to understand, and it usually doesn’t work. A better way is to have the 5 minute presentation ready to go, and then to just walk through that briskly. Hit the most exciting part of the pitch right away - traction, revenue growth, a big name client, your experience. Whatever it is, don’t hid the ball, you need to get it out in front right away. No demo, and try to answer the VC’s questions as quickly as possible. Your only goal in a super tight pitch window is to get the next meeting scheduled asap.
Guy Kawasaki talks about his 10/20/30 rule, where the deck should be 10 slides, you should be able to deliver it in 20 minutes, and the font should be 30 points or bigger. Again, I think you need to be ready to give it even faster.
Common mistakes founders make crafting their investor pitches
In the Kruze pitch deck course, I talked with renowned pitch deck consultant and author, Haje Kamps, about some of the most common mistakes we’ve seen founders make over and over when they present to potential investors. Here are some of those problems - and you can watch the entire video.
- Making the Team Slide Weak: We’ve noticed that many founders often inundate their team slide with unnecessary information, such as a full organizational chart, instead of focusing on key members and demonstrating their relevant skills for the specific startup. Don’t overload it; you don’t get points for lots of logos. Instead, figure out the most relevant or impressive items and
- Misunderstanding Market Size: The total addressable market and serviceable markets need to be sizeable enough to show potential for a venture-scale company. It’s fine to start in a niche, but you need to be able to create a company that’s worth at least a billion dollars, if not more. As you need to be attacking a big space.
- Unrealistic Projections: We’ve seen founders showcasing either slow, steady growth or overly aggressive, unrealistic growth - both extremes are unappealing to investors. Look at some of the templates we share on this slide - those projections are good! You aren’t going to go from founding to $100 million in revenue in a year. And if you are growing from $4 million to $4.5 million in revenue, congrats, you’ve got a great small business, but it’s not venture-scale.
- Failing to Accurately Represent Traction: A traction slide should provide substantial evidence of growth, often in the form of customers generating revenue or being in the sales funnel. Unfortunately, many founders include markers such as press coverage or vague “interest” that doesn’t translate into tangible growth.
- Lack of a Coherent Story: Haje really talks to this well. It’s essential for founders to weave a coherent story that sells not just the product, but the vision of the company and its future value. Many founders fail to communicate this effectively, resulting in a disconnected or confusing narrative. You want the partner who you just presented to to be able to walk off and talk about one of your main customer successes, and how that ties into your company’s vision and traction.
- Absence of a Competition Slide: Many founders overlook the importance of including a competition slide in their presentation. This is a major mistake, as not acknowledging competition can lead investors to think the founders are unaware of their market landscape. It’s one of my favorite slides. If you’ve got big competitors, great, you’ve just helped the VC understand who you might sell the company to in a few years!
That’s just a few of the top venture capital pitch deck fails we go over in the video - check it out. Being aware of these common mistakes and addressing them in your pitch deck can significantly enhance your chances of capturing a venture capitalist’s interest.
Common VC Pitch Deck Fails Video
Tips for the financial section of your pitch deck
As financial advisors to funded startups, we tend to overly index on the financial section of our client’s fundraising pitch decks. Note that this is our interest area (and how we get paid), so it may or may not be all that interesting or important for your startup’s presentation.
What Financial Data Goes Into a Great VC Pitch Deck?
For very early stage companies you either want to have an operating plan or more detailed financial projections in the pitch. These should be backed up with a model that is sharable with investors. The model doesn’t have to be fancy - simple is often better in fact. The purpose of the model is to illustrate your strategy’s financial implications, but even more importantly, the model is like the pitch deck - it’s there to sell your vision and get the investors excited about investing.
Financial Data in the Deck by Stage
The financial detail that you go into in your VC deck will vary based on the stage of your business. Let’s breakdown what you might need for a seed to Series C company.
- Seed stage - Your pitch deck only needs a brief description of what you are intending to do with the money. As Scott mentioned above, a visual can go a long way here. Since revenue is now often expected for an A, you should articulate some sort of an expectation in revenue before the money runs out (i.e. investors want to know if you’ll have the exit velocity you need to raise the next round).
- Series A - A 5-year view is ideal, as this gives you the chance to show / “prove” that you are going to create a venture scale business. An extrapolated income statement with include revenue growth, high-level spend, burn, and other KPIs like customer count. You ought to have an appendix with more detail - or just a piece of excel that you can share (probably better at this stage).
- Series B - You are still going to need the 5-year projections. But, at a B, you’ll have more financially minded investors. This means that you ought to have a real appendix section that gets into the drives and assumptions to your continued growth. SaaS companies are going to need to be able to explain how they calculate their LTV to CAC - so your pitch deck will have to address both parts of that calculation. You can still put the detail in the appendix, but have it organized so that you can go through all the financial part in an organized presentation if needed.
- Series C - Series C companies should have real financials that have been prepared by a professional accountant, either in house or as a consultant. While you’ll still want a single slide in the meat of the pitch deck that has your five year vision, your historical results will also matter - so that slide will have to do a lot. This may mean that you have to push your KPIs like customer count into a seperate slide(s). And the financial appendix should have historical statement - probably all three - and projections.
Finally, we’ve complied some other pitch deck examples that you may find helpful. Again, we think the best VC pitch decks templates/examples are the ones we highlighted at the top of this page, but here are some of the others that are floating around on the internet that you may like.
FiveSIX More of the Best Pitch Deck Examples
- Uber (pitch deck here) - this is when they were still called “UberCab.” And it’s very early in the life of the company, so is product and market focused. You won’t find data about the company’s performance, since it’s so early. This deck may be helpful to pre-launched startups.
- Intercom (seed pitch deck here) - another example of a seed stage pitch deck, this one for when Intercom was raising $600k. This is a short deck - only 8 slides - and it focuses on the team, problem, solution and market. Note that the “progress” slide consists of a tweet from a user - pretty slight - you may not be able to get away with this lightweight of a presentation unless you have the clout of these founders. BUT if you are looking to talk about the market size and opportunity, this is a decent example.
- Mattermark (deck here) - data company Mattermark has real traction, and there are several examples of solid metrics/charting visuals in this deck. With $1.5M in ARR at the time of this pitch, they are probably around where many Series A’s are getting done in Silicon Valley. (I’ve even seen Series B’s happening at this level). This is a great pitch deck example if you are looking to impress the VCs’ with your traction. Check out slides 11, 12 and 13 for information on how to present historical revenue growth, projections and customer industry diversification.
- Mixpanel (deck on slideshare here) - Mixpanel shared their deck as an example that other startup can use. This is the set of slides that Mixpanel used to raise a $65M round. The competition slide is particularly good for driving a disucssion with the VCs. The traction slide is also strong - one of the best in combining the visual “up and to the right” chart with some details on the company’s milestones. The slide that is close to the “what we do with your money / operating slide” is a good overview of what the company needs to do to grow, although it’s not as focused on financials as I’d like.
- Mint (seed pitch deck here) - A great seed stage fundraising deck, with the whole enchilada: a good team slide, a great market size one, solid competition, user acquisition, and a financial slide that makes my inner accountant happy. Notice the flow on this slide, with the team slide right near the front. This could be the best template/example for companies with an experienced team.
- Orange (seed pitch deck template here) - A great example of a hardware as a service deck. It gets into the problem, the market size, the solution and then makes a solid case for why this team is the one to solve it. One of the best parts of this one is the intro slide - it kicks off right at the front with a strong explanation of what the problem is, and the VC looking at it can immediately infer what the startup’s solution is.
So that makes 11 of the best pitch deck templates and examples that we’ve seen on the internet.
Pitch Deck Example from a Kruze Client
One of our clients, DeepScribe, was interviewed on TechCrunch Live about their Series A fundraising process. Akilesh Bapu, the CEO and co-Founder of DeepScribe, was interviewed along with Nina Achadjian, a VC and Partner at Index Ventures. Nina invested $30 million into the company, and was impressed with the founders and the story they explained during their pitch.
In addition to giving Kruze Consulting a shout-out for our help on his accounting diligence (thanks Akilesh!) he also walks through part of his VC pitch deck. It’s one of the better examples that we’ve seen of a live pitch deck presentation. You can watch on Youtube or see below.
What Questions do VCs ask During a Pitch?
Questions during a pitch are a GREAT sign - that means that the venture capitalist is paying attention. I strongly recommend founders use their venture capital pitch deck as a crutch, jumping to the right slide to answer the specific question , then going back to the original presentation order to make sure all important topics are hit. Again, I’ve seen partners reject a company because “the founder didn’t talk about go to market.” Yeah, they didn’t have time to talk about it because of all of your questions!
Here are some of the trickier questions investors might ask during a presentation. Think about which slide you might be able to use to answer these questions. Resist the temptation to argue with a VC if they ask difficult questions; saying you don’t know but then laying out your plan to figure it out is a great response to many questions.
Questions VCs Ask
- What’s the backstory?
- Tell me about yourself
- How did you meet your cofounder?
- Tell me about the team? How did you find your first hires?
- What is the specific problem you are solving?
- What’s the key insight about your user that led you to build this business?
- What’s the ideal outcome for your customer?
- How are customers currently solving this problem, before your product/solution existed?
- What differentiates your solution from alternatives?
- What have your biggest learnings been so far?
- How are you planning to acquire customers?
- What would your customers say about your solution, and how would they react if it went away (i.e. you went out of business)?
- Why now? What has changed in technology or the market that makes this possible only now?
- What do you think has to go right for this to be a massive outcome?
- How much do you want to raise, and what milestones do you hit with that capital?
VC Pitch Deck FAQ
Because Google says people are asking questions.
What is a VC pitch deck?
A VC pitch deck is a presentation (typically in Powerpoint, Google Sheets or PDF) used to explain a startup idea to potential venture capital investors. A pitch deck contains information on the business, the market and the company’s traction/financials.
What is a pitch deck used for?
These presentations are used to 1) convince venture capitalists to take a 1st meeting with the founder(s); 2) begin investment due diligence and 3) convince the venture firm’s partnership to want to invest in a startup.
What Goes into a Data Room?
We’ve got an entire article on what VCs ask for during due diligence, but the biggest items that won’t be in your presentation will be legal documents, financial statements, the revenue model, contracts, etc. Most pitch decks are light on larger spreadsheets and customer contracts, which happen to be materials that are better shared in a data room.
Will a deck help you get a meeting with a VC?
A great venture capital pitch deck may help you get a meeting with a venture capitalist. VC firm NFX reminds startup founders that investors are looking for the following 12 data points before taking a meeting with a startup:
- Team
- Company description
- Market opportunity
- Business model (how you make $ + your financial projections)
- Geography (less important post COVID)
- Team size (FTEs)
- Timing of the fundraise
- Company traction
- How much you are raising
- Fundraising history
- Fit for the specific VC
- Referrer - who introduced you to the fund
Does your venture capital presentation have to be PowerPoint?
VCs typically expect a slide deck; these days usually a PowerPoint, Google Slides or a PDF of one of those formats. I’ve been with companies that have used designers to create an incredibly slick venture capital presentation, which they presented as a PDF - no idea which tool was used to actually design the presentation, but it was likely an Adobe product. The most important thing is making the presentation be in 1) slides and 2) something they can share and access from their computer.
Is it OK to share your venture capital presentation by DocSend or a presentation sharing platform instead of as an email attachment?
These days more and more VCs are Ok getting the presentation as a DocSend or other presentation sharing platform that asks for their email address or asks to verify that they are someone you to share the document with. However, you’ll occasionally find the grump VC who wants their presentation the old school way. Often these investors write up their dislike of sharing tools on their blog or Twitter.
How do you modify your pitch deck for the final, all-hands VC partner pitch?
The final step to getting a term sheet, at many venture capital firms, is to pitch the partnership one final time. This is after you’ve already gotten one of the partners to support your investment internally as the champion. In the final meeting, you’ll have the full range of understanding of your company - from the partner who is supporting you and who knows a ton to partners who know close to nothing.
It’s not safe to assume knowledge on your industry or problem. Invite all the partners into the fold by explaining and building excitement around what you are doing. Don’t gloss over the market size or competition!
Hope this helps you find a good pitch deck template for your fundraise!
