Posted on
May 20, 2021
~
min read

25 Business Pitch Decks That Raised Over $2.2 Billion

Maximilian Fleitmann
Maximilian Fleitmann
Ex-CEO @ BaseTemplates
Author Twitter

Are you wondering how to create a pitch deck for your startup? Let me show you a collection of pitch decks that successfully raised some serious amount of money.

After doing some digging, I've compiled this list of top-25 slide decks that brought over $2.2 billion in investment to some talented companies out there.

Each deck has received a very close inspection, along with professional commentary on the designs (snarky and flattering). But the criticized fellows didn't make it to this list, sorry!

Without any further ado, here's our list of the greatest pitch decks out there delivered in the past five years.

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1. Front

SAAS | $10 million in Series A

‍Company Overview: Front is a cool new app on a mission to eliminate messy communication. Think of it as Slack's cousin, which pulls conversations from different channels (email, texts, social media) in one neat inbox. To manage it all, you have a great set of tools – canned replies, reminders, assign features in conversations and a bunch of other smart automation features.

Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Be Data Driven - Front has done great with describing their target market and competitive landscape in the first few slides.‍
  • Highlight current achievements - They have backed up their MRR and Churn metrics with clients' testimonials.‍
  • Capital efficiency - Slide number 14 is brilliant and clearly demonstrates the current ROI and how soon the company will become profitable. This creates a sense of urgency and, at the same time, demonstrates that the company is "down to earth" and serious about investor money.

2. Mapme

Social | $1 million in Seed Stage

‍Company Overview: Mapme is a free drag&drop map-building tool with cool additional functionality like embed videos and integrated photo gallery. You can use it to create amazing new content formats.

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Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Communicate the value of your solution - Mapme builds anticipation by first showing how their product when viral and that it has no direct competition, and afterward transitions to mentioning what exact value they offer to different user segments.
  • ‍Outline your business model even if you are in Seed stage - While no one really expects you to be precise with it and showing detailed financial projections, showing how you plan to attract users and monetize your product is essential.

3. Snapchat

Business Deck

‍Company Overview: Ok, so Snapchat or should I say "Snap" doesn't really need a lengthy introduction. This is a leaked deck of their recent funding round, which revealed a lot of curious data about the company.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Highlighting the key achievements - When you are asking for a "big raise" yet again, you have to clearly communicate why you are worth the money. Snapchat highlighted in details their current revenues + projected growth; along with the user base potential.
  • ‍Be explanative - Even though Snapchat is rather popular, the company goes an extra mile in their business deck to explain how other businesses can benefit from advertising with them and how the whole thing actually works.

4. WeWork

SAAS | $355 million Series D

‍Company Overview: WeWork has built a global network of coworking properties and an active community of freelancers/entrepreneurs around their brand.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Go Graphical - WeWork deck is a great example of how on-the-point data visualizations can spice up your deck and communicate the information more clearly.‍
  • Be ahead of objections - This deck beats any possible objection that pops up to your mind. Competition? Outperformed! Profitability? Already there! Local landlords? Supportive! Slides 10 to 19 are a great example of how persuasion is build-up.

5. Tealet

Ecommerce/Subscription Service | $240.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Tealet is a 500 startups-backed tea wholesaler marketplace and a subscription service mixed in one.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Consistent Branding - Colors and fonts perfectly match the brand's personality and create the necessary vibe.
  • ‍Final Slide - The slogan is catchy and memorable. It's a great alternative to "thanks for your attention" and "give us money" types of final CTAs.

6. Usetrace

SAAS/AI | $125.000 in 2nd Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Usertrace is a smart artificial software tester that doesn't require additional coding or constant updating. Set it up once and have it test your app in development continuously.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Hand-drawn or comics elements - can make your slides more memorable. As long as you are good at drawing or hired a professional to do the job for you.‍
  • Team credentials - Mentioning the "big name" clients your team has worked for or the Uni credentials leverages your credibility.

7. Crew

Marketplace | $8.5 million Series A

‍Company Overview: Crew is a curated marketplace connecting freelance designers and developers with businesses. Some of their top customers include the likes of Dropbox, Tinder, and Google.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Minimalistic slides - work great when you want to keep the audience's attention on your narrative, rather than reading the deck.‍
  • Bold slogans - can work if they match your businesses personality and the tone of the narrative.

8. Vettery

Job Search/Marketplace | $9 million Series A

View Vettery pitch deck on their blog: http://blog.vettery.com/post/149334196269/9-slides-that-raised-9-million

Company Overview: Vettery is the new kind of a job search engine, which allows users to apply for various positions in top tech and finance companies, answer the preliminary interview questions and review salary offers.

Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Keep it short - The entire presentation is just 9 crisp, crystal-clear slides.‍
  • Don't include all graphics in one slide -While Vettery decided to action-pack their KPI slide with 4 charts, it looks a bit too stuffed and overwhelming to consume at once unless it goes with a lot of spoken commentary.

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The deck contained two slides that were key to winning over investors: our vision and traction. -Vettery founders

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9. Contently

Marketplace/SaaS | $9 million Series B

‍Company Overview: Contently is a curated freelance marketplace paired with a content production backend. The company's talent scouts will suggest you partner with one of the registered journalists to produce content and help you optimize your entire content marketing campaign later on.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Explain how your product works. Don't be afraid of going into details and laying out exactly how your solution works. Clearly communicate the value you offer for all the parties involved.
  • ‍State your unfair advantage

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The story is the most important part [of your pitch]. We laid out our deck in a way that allowed us to tell a narrative. We started with the context of the market and what was happening and why it was big, which led to the challenge the market was seeing, then we built a little suspense, showed what others had said about how we'd solved the problem, and then dove deep into the solution and our world takeover plans. -Shane Snow, Contently Founder

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10. Gaze Metrix

Image Recognition/SaaS | $100.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Gaze Metrix created an innovative image recognition tool to identify image-based risks and opportunities for brands. Was acquired by Sysomos in Sept. 2015.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Show your personality - We loved the "funny story" series of slides that demonstrate the product's value in a simple and amusing way.

11. Pinmypet

Pets | $350.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Pinmypet is a Brazilian startup producing GPS-enabled pet tags and software for monitoring the fluffy friends.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Storytelling is powerful - We love how this deck offers a visual overview of the problem and how the company will fix it.
  • ‍Large visuals - work great if you know how to organically styled them without unreadable text-overlays.‍
  • Mind the font choice -Certain combinations on this slide deck didn't look great.

12. Mixpanel

Analytics/SaaS | $65 million in Series B

‍Company Overview: Mixpanel is a powerful user analytics tool for web and mobile apps to track user engagement and receive detailed reports.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Being pretty isn't everything. - Mixpanel pitch deck can't be called "eye-pleasing" or "graphical". If you are pitching to a group of familiar investors and raising yet another funding round, that's forgivable. However, if you a presenting your product during a demo day or pitchfest, such deck will likely go unnoticed.

13. Trym

Insurance | $125.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Trym promises to revolutionize the micro business insurance niche.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Attractive minimalism - You don't need fancy background photos or large images to deliver your message. Limiting yourself to two colors, one font, and simplistic graphical elements can make your deck look more consistent and professional.‍
  • Add an unexpected twist - We loved how Scott Bradley kicked in his presentation (watch the video for that).

14. Statsbot

Bots/SaaS | $125.000 in 2nd Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Statsbot has created a smart Slack bot to fetch Google Analytics, Salesforce and Mixpanel data for you. Schedule smart alerts, receive custom reports and conduct data analysis right in Slack (to share with your colleagues).

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Go Iconic - This deck features some great ways how to deliver the key information using on-the-point icons and visualizations.‍
  • Color consistency - The entire presentation uses the same branded color scheme, which creates a more professional vibe.

15. Mattermark

Adtech / SAAS | $6.5 million Series A

‍Company Overview: Mattermark is a SaaS customer prospecting tool, helping companies to optimize their data on prospects and leads and do better market research.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Team slides - Mattermark created an attractive presentation of their core team, which highlighted their past achievements and current roles. After all, VCs invest not only in the product but at the team as well.

16. Standard Treasury

Fintech | $2.7 million Series A

‍Company Overview: Standard Treasury created a new system for seamless integration of banking services, geared primarily towards startups and small businesses. Was later acquired by Silicon Valley Bank.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍If you are in fintech, numbers are everything - Clearly communicate how your solution will reduce the fees/optimize the profits for all the parties involved.‍
  • Why Now Slide is important - First of all, it instills the FOMO feeling to investors. Next, it shows that you did your homework already and scooped the target market.‍
  • Competitive advantages - Standard Treasury clearly communicated those at slide 15.

17. Melodics

Software/Music | $125.000 in Seed

‍Company Overview: Melodics created a new software tool to help you practice music in a fun, interactive way.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Your opening slide sets the tone of the conversation - Melodics kicked their presentation with a joke, which clearly depicts what kind of a startup they are and who's their target audience.‍
  • Consistency is everything - We liked how they've wrapped it up with another funny pop culture reference to consolidate the effect of their speech.‍
  • Highlighting your financial efficiency - Again, it's always worth showing how you have managed the investment money so far and what you plan to do next.

18. Andromium

Hardware/Software | $125.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Andromium originally created a new Android app, which instantly turns your smartphone into a laptop and enables such features as desktop view, multitasking, memory management and more. Later the company launched a Kickstarter campaign and made almost $3 million in pre-sales for Smartbook – a simplified hardware (resembling a regular laptop) you can connect your smartphone to and use them together as a normal computer.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Flash your data - This presentation kicks in with a large juicy number stating how much they have made in pre-sales so far. It sets the tone of the conversation as investors can immediately understand that the profit and the demand are already there.‍
  • The final slogan is brilliantly creative!

19. Siren Care

IoT/Healthtech | $125.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Siren is a diabetic healthcare company now developing garments made of smart textile, which help users to make better healthcare decisions.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Use the right type of background visuals. - Siren Care nailed it in this deck - the visuals they chose complement the texts perfectly and illustrate the points made.‍
  • Branding - We love the distinctive and memorable colors the company chose for their deck.

‍20. Lighthouse

SaaS/Management | $125.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Lighthouse created new software to improve soft skills among managers and make better leadership and motivational decisions.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Having one catchy slogan - The whole narrative in this deck is built around the "People leave managers, not companies" slogan, which creates a powerful impression from the very start.
  • ‍Illustrate the market gap - The comparison offered on the 10th slide brilliantly illustrates the untapped market opportunity Lighthouse is pursuing.

21. Kibin

SaaS/Edtech | $545.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Kibin created an advanced platform for writing better academic papers. You can use their tools to edit, proofread and build up your college essay, thesis or a research paper faster and more accurately.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Unique opening slide - Kibin illustrates in a witty manner what's their solution is all about on the very first slide.‍
  • Their deck is from 2011 - so it doesn't boast great design and looks somewhat cluttered. You may want to opt for a more modern look.

22. TouristEye

Travel/Mobile App | $300.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: TouristEye were among the first to create a cool mobile app for creating personalized travel itineraries and weekend getaways. Was successfully acquired by Lonely Planet in 2013.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Build up the anticipation -TouristEye starts with some bold numbers, which already look impressive and then delivers another "bam" on slide 19, where they outline the market depth and purchase intentions for their niche.
  • ‍Mentioning previous "raise" can be a good way - to build up trust in your company and gauge the investor's interest – after all, no one wants to miss out "the next big thing".

23. Fragmentic

SaaS/Ecommerce | $200.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Fragmentic is in the processes of developing an AI constructor aimed at optimizing the customer conversion funnel for ecommerce companies.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Elegant minimalism - This is a great example of how stunning a black and white slide deck can be. Using different shadows and relevant background images add additional delightful depth to it. Yet, at the same time, this deck is hard to comprehend without the spoken presentation. It's great for a live event but goes flat when you just send it out to potential investors via email or post it online.

24. Infraspeak

Software/Management | $250,000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Infraspeak is here to remove the common frictions in facility management and streamline the processes for all the parties involved.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Show how big the market opportunity is - Infraspeak makes a bold statement that facility management is a multi-trillion black hole for businesses and then back it up with more stats and data.‍
  • The devil is in the details - Small elements like icons or signs like "That's Peter" add more delight to your presentation and increase information retention.
    Clarity. This pitch deck breaks down the problem and the proposed solution in a non-fluff, authoritative manner.

25. Simplifimed

Healthtech/Bot | $125.000 in Seed Round

‍Company Overview: Simplifimed is building a mobile chat bot app that will help chronic patients receive better care.

‍Pitch deck caveats:

  • ‍Winning visualizations - Slide 6 is a great example of how complicated data can be depicted in a simple, clear manner.‍
  • Mention the regulations/legislature - Certain niches like health care or fintech are more regulated than others, which can negatively impact the user adoption rates and growth. Simplifimed did a great job highlighting how their niche is open for improvements and how the shifts in the legislature are positively impacting its further growth.
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Maximilian Fleitmann
Maximilian Fleitmann
Ex-CEO @ BaseTemplates
Author Twitter LinkAuthor LinkedIN

Maximilian Fleitmann is a passionate founder and entrepreneur. For the last 12+ years he has successfully launched several businesses in the areas of education and digitalization. Max purpose is to enable growth and therefore he shares his experience in building startups.

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