Pitch Deck

A pitch book, also called a Confidential Information Memorandum, is a marketing presentation used by investment banks, entrepreneurs, corporate finance firms, business brokers and other M&A intermediaries advising on the sale or disposal of the shares or assets of a business.

Ideal content size for pitch deck presentation

While pitch decks vary in size, the average length is 12 to 14 slides (and never longer than 20), with each slide presenting one clear idea

Things to consider while drafting pitch deck 

• Before you walk into a meeting with angel investors or VCs, it’s super important that you know what you’re walking into. You want to make sure that you’re pitching the right people, i.e. the ones who are most likely to invest in you. Ask yourself:
  1. are they going to pick up what you’re throwing down? Or, in other words,
  2. do they typically invest in your type of company?
• Once you’ve identified the right VCs and investors to pitch, you need to make sure have one clear message. This should be a one-sentence take-away that you want investors to remember when you’re done. Your message should clearly communicate two things:
  1. The problem. What problem are your customers struggling with?
  2. The solution. How does your product or service solve that problem?
• What VCs want to know about your company is completely different from what your friends or your customers or your mom would want to know, and if you don’t package your information in the right way, you’re going to lose out on investment dollars.

  Before they make the leap from “potential investor” to “investor”, VCs need to know:

  1. Market Size/ Opportunity
  2. Your Business Model
  3. Technology and Expertise
  4. Landscape / Competition
  5. Competitive advantage
  6. Team Profile
  7. Go-to Market Strategy
  8. Financial Performance
  9. The ASK
• Use numbers and data to tell your story clearly. Visualization of data into graphs and charts can be more helpful.
• There should be an emotional attachment of the founder with the project to make it more convincing. Business is done with business mindset but there should be PASSION.
• Do not make the pitch lengthy. Make yourself short, factual and crisp. Try to keep it short, simple and precise.