I guess that if you're reading our articles, you're looking for funds to grow your business. If you are, you should add a "The Ask Slide" (or Investment Opportunity Slide) to your pitch deck.
And if you add the "ask slide" to your deck, you want to make sure that you want to give your potential investors this three information:
- How much are you raising?
- How will you use the funds?
- What will you achieve with the funds?
For the first part, it would be helpful to give a short elevator pitch about the investment opportunity: "We are looking for $1M seed financing to finish our product development and release a beta version". Always be specific about the amount you are trying to raise because it gives a positive signal that you did your homework and know exactly how much funds you need to get to the next level.
In most ask slides, founders tend to use a simple pie chart (e.g., 20% Product Dev, 30% Marketing, 50% New Hires) or boxes with additional information to show where the funds will help accelerate the growth of the company.
The third information every investor wants to see on the ask slide is what milestones you will reach with the funds. It is essential for them since they have to know whether you match your plan or not and if additional money will be needed at what point in time.
