33 Genius Startup Pitch Deck Examples and What You Can Learn From Them

If you want to raise money for your startup or business, a well-designed pitch deck that appeals to venture capitalists and business angels is essential. As an entrepreneur, investing in an impressive pitch deck can make a huge difference in your fundraising efforts.

The ideal pitch should get potential investors excited about the prospects of your business and interested in investing in it. This design can boost your project or startup growth or leave you struggling to attract investors to your business project.

Many big-name companies like Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, and LinkedIn once had to create an impressive pitch deck at the startup stage to get the finance needed for growth.

In this article, you will learn the meaning of a pitch deck, what you should include in an investor pitch deck and tons of genius examples of startup pitch decks. You will also get helpful pitch deck design tips and the best pitch deck templates that can save you tons of time.

Let’s get started.

What is a Pitch Deck?

A pitch deck is a brief presentation that entrepreneurs design to improve the growth of their businesses. It is a group of slides used to show your business plans to potential investors. The presentation gives the investors an overview of your business plans, financial projections, products and services, operations, etc.

The pitch deck is different from the business model canvas. A business model canvas is a tool that helps business owners or entrepreneurs visualize all the building blocks they need to start a business such as customers, route to market, value proposition, and finance.

The aim of a pitch deck is for sponsors to learn more about your business. Slides make it interesting, unlike long-form texts that can quickly bore readers. Pitch deck, also known as startup pitch deck, is an avenue for winning investors' hearts to fund your business plans.

Entrepreneurs make the mistake of presenting a pitch deck to acquire finance. The primary aim is to get investors interested in arranging an official meeting to discuss your proposals. Most big establishments at the top of the big leagues today once passed through this stage. The pitch deck is a step closer to external finances.

A pitch deck presentation is one of the most vital steps in securing finances from investors. Businesses use it to convince financiers to invest their money into their business ideas. It has proven to be one of the best ways small-scale businesses boost the growth of their establishments.

The pitch deck presentation slides are an efficient method to pass across your information to investors. You can host audio-visual meetings to limit the number of texts on your presentation.

You can also do your presentation in a physical setting or a virtual space. For the virtual display, there is web and video conference software that you can use to set up a meeting such as Zoom, Webex, ClickMeeting, RingCentral Meetings, and RingCentral alternatives.

The slides are what express your intentions to the investors. They must include a compelling story arranged in the proper sequence. Pitch deck design software like Visme, Powerpoint, Prezi, and more can help you design a beautiful collection of slides for your pitch deck presentation.

What Should You Include in an Investor Pitch Deck?

The pitch deck is a collection of slides that must be arranged sequentially. Many business owners have tried using pitch decks to convey their business ideas but did not get funded. Why? Your pitch deck must possess some qualities for it to have a high conversion rate.

One of the qualities is the proper arrangement of slides. Other qualities include:

• Easy Understanding
• Compelling
• Brevity

Different businesses have various numbers of slides in their pitch deck. The nature of the company determines the number of slideshows. It helps if you are careful not to repeat the same information under two different slides. If your presentation requires twelve slides, don’t be tempted to increase it with redundant data.

There are 11 important slides that every pitch deck should have. Let’s go through them in detail.

Slide 1: Introduction

The first slide is one of the most important in your pitch deck. For your pitch deck to have a high conversion rate, your intro must be able to catch the investor’s attention.

This slide is where you introduce your business to the investors. You give an overview here of your business, not detailed explanations. Please keep it brief and straightforward. Also, you can talk about the value of your services to the customers.

The intro is your opportunity to deliver a fantastic first impression. Getting it wrong from this slide can jeopardize the efficiency of the whole presentation. Many financiers find it hard to follow up attentively throughout the presentation. So, they use the first set of slides to judge whatever you have to offer. Therefore, you must make it great.

A perfect way of crafting an excellent introduction is to set a limit on texts. Be ready to give an introduction of 150 characters or less. With that in mind, it keeps you abreast of the goal. While trying to make your intro short, also express yourself. Communicate your ideas like someone talking to a novice.

Another great way of introducing your business is to make a slight comparison with a well-known company. It gives the investors a quick grasp of what your business offers. You must be very careful with the comparisons you make. Make comparisons with companies that provide the same services, not because they are high-profiled or popular.

At the end of the introduction, the investor should know your business, mission, and ways to contact you.

Slide 2: The Problem

If your business idea is not solving a market problem, you will end up as a liability in that market. So why should a pitch deck have a problem slide? Investors fund business ideas that provide a solution to a pressing need. It is best to make them aware of the problem you discovered.

The problem slide is where you tell the investors the problem you want to solve and who has the problem. Then, hinting at the current solutions to the problem and their limitations. Ensure you do not sound too competitive on this slide. Ensure you do a lot of research on this part so you can address every possible aspect effectively.

A good problem slide will highlight multiple problems that you can find a solution to. Ensure you keep your texts brief while doing this. You must be sure that your ideas can put an end to the problems. Financing is only effective on yieldable plans.

To make this slide effective, explain the problem by narrating a story. Ideas like these are better understood when you back them up with real-life, relatable stories. The more realistic your examples are, the more they get a deep insight into your plans.

Furthermore, create an emotional atmosphere to show your concern. It builds the trust the investors have in you.

Slide 3: Target Audience

After introducing the pressing need that your business seeks to solve, expatiate more on who the problem is affecting. Talk about the customers with whom your product or service will help solve the problems you highlighted. Discuss the market size and the position of your company. If you can find some numerical data, use it to bolster your point.

Investors want to get a picture of the market size. Also, for a multi-functional business, you can categorize the market needs according to the target audience.

In this slide, don’t try to introduce the market to be as large as they can imagine. Instead, be more specific with the areas you want to touch. It makes your pitch deck realistic.

Slide 4: The Solution

At this point, you introduce your products or services that satisfy the market’s needs. It is essential to present the solution just after talking about the problem. In this slide, you describe how customers use your product and how it deals with the problem.

Use pictures where necessary for the products. If it is a physical product, you can design a display highlighting the essential parts. For an online app or web tool, you can describe how it works. Lastly, you can narrate a brief story on how the services rendered have addressed the problems for a service.

Most business owners are tempted to always introduce the solution at the beginning of the pitch deck. However, it is an inappropriate style of designing a pitch deck. The best way is to explain the problem, talk about the audience facing it, and then introduce the solution to rescue the target audience.

Using more visuals than texts helps the investors understand the pitch deck faster.

Slide 5: Business Model

After discussing the product or service, explain how you generate income from it. Also, explain the payment plans. Some entrepreneurs have specific payment plans for their customers, maybe installment payments, etc.

Furthermore, you can talk about who pays the bills. For example, some businesses build content sites where people can post ads. In that case, the advertisers pay the bills for the services, not the visitors on the site.

Tell the investors your range of pricing relative to the total market. Let them know if your price is on the high side or an average range. Then, give them valid reasons why you maintain that pricing.

Slide 6: Traction

No matter how promising and convincing your ideas are, proofs strengthen trust. Investors need assurances before they can entrust their money into your model. The traction slide is where you talk about what you have achieved over the years of operation. It reinforces the confidence in your financiers.

The traction slide provides proof that your solution works for the problems you highlighted in the pitch deck. Moreover, on the investors’ side, it reduces the risk of losing their money to some random baseless company.

In the traction slide, you can also share the milestones in your business. Talk about the goals you have achieved and the ones you are working on presently. You primarily deal with numbers in this slide. To better present the information, you should use tools like histogram or pie chart creator . Clients get a quick grasp of your data when you show them on charts.

Slide 7: Marketing Strategies

Business owners need sales strategies to advertise their products to the masses. They need marketing strategies that convince the customers that their products can solve customer’s needs.

How do you want to get your target audience? How do you intend to capture your customer’s attention? These are what you should explain under this slide. Provide detailed marketing tactics on how to advertise to prospective clients.

Finding customers can be daunting for many entrepreneurs that are new to the game. So it would help if you did your research on the effective sales channels to use. If you have a different approach from your rivals, try to underscore that.

Slide 8: Team

This slide answers the questions.

• Who are you working for?
• Is your team the right people to handle your company?
• What qualifications do they have?
• Why are they different from the team members of your competitors?

The investors want to know the people you are working with, majorly the key members. Here, you do not need to introduce every member of the company. The executives are enough to tell the investors if you are with the right people.

In your slide, try adding the pictures of the core members and a little bio underneath to describe each of them. Also, you can categorize the key members according to departments; it makes the slide more organized. Furthermore, you can explain why each of them is vital to the business plans you have.

Ensure you keep your texts short in this slide. For example, don’t tell the personal stories of the members, rather discuss their professional feats.

In this slide, you can narrate a short story of how the founder of the business started. These are information that the investors care to know.

Slide 9: Financials

Investors tend to pay more attention to the contents on this slide. It is another crucial slide to convince them to fund your business plans. The financial slide will contain financial information such as cash flow statements, financial projections, balance sheets and income statements. Unlike the traction slide, you tell the investors your short-term financial goals using your business model.

Although the traction slide proves that they are not in the wrong hands, this slide reinforces the confidence they have in you.

For your financials slide, don’t try to stuff the screen with a spreadsheet full of numbers. You can also employ the use of bar charts and histograms to make it neat. When using graphs to represent your data, ensure you use colors that will beautify the slide.

Whatever you have in your financial slide is subject to change. No one can accurately determine the progress rate of a business for a specific time. But, you must be able to back up your assumptions with valid reasons and work towards achieving something close.

Slide 10: Competition

Every business has competitors. That is where the concept of uniqueness in service and thinking out of the box comes to play. Different businesses offer different solutions to the same problem. The ones whose solutions yield a better result win the heart of the masses.

This slide is to introduce who your rivals are to the investors. Leave no major competitor out because you can leave some loopholes when you don’t address every possible competitor. Introducing them does not mean you bring them down with harsh reviews. Describe how good they are and also talk about the parts you feel they missed out on.

Tell the investors why you are different from your rivals. Tell them the little things that give you an edge over their services. Discuss the secrets to your successes that are not open to the alternatives. The aim is to explain why customers will pick your brand without giving it a second thought.

Lastly, you can introduce tables to compare the efficiency of your products and your competitors.

Slide 11: Use of Funds

Throughout the slides in your pitch deck, you have introduced specific parts of the business in detail. Now is the time to make a request. Although you need the pitch deck to get them interested in your model, you still need to request the money for the plans. You have given the financiers reasons to invest in your business; now, you need to tell them the exact amount you need.

You are not just telling them what you need, you also explain how you plan to use the money. Investors will want to be aware of how their money is being used and how it can help you achieve the set goals. But, again, ensure you are specific with your demands.

Don’t be over-demanding, thinking that you have won their hearts with the previous slides. Remember, they also have their financial analysts who will evaluate your plans relative to your demands.

If you already have some investors working with you, tell them about it, why they chose to invest, and how you could implement the funds you got from them. These are the 11 essential slides every pitch deck should have. You can add some extra slides where necessary but never sound repetitive. Ensure cohesion among the slides, it makes your pitch deck meaningful.

Genius Examples of Startup Pitch Decks

1. Uber Pitch Deck

When Uber created its pitch deck, it was called UberCab. On its 9th anniversary, Uber co-founder Garret Camp shared the company's original pitch deck created in late 2008. The pitch deck helped Uber raise lots of investment capital which helped it improve the car service industry.

What Is Great About Uber’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: Uber used 25 slides that adhere to the principle of brevity. Long pitch decks can easily bore your target audience, while shorter ones make it easier for them to follow your presentation.
• Excellent Vision and Value Proposition: The central idea that Uber presented “Next Generation Car Service” was innovative and one that could capture the attention of investors.
• Identified Problem and Solution: The cab industry had a problem which was the inefficiency of cabs. Uber did not only present the problem but also the solution which was its fast and efficient on-demand car service. Instead of calling or standing on the curb for cabs, Uber would pick you up in minutes!
• Future Pacing: Uber’s original pitch deck showed how Uber could change the way the taxi industry functioned with its one-click car service.
• Use of Bullet Points: The slides made great use of bullets to pass across the message to its target audience. Bullet points made the pitch peck presentation simple and short-winded, easy for its audience to follow through.

What Could Be Improved?

• Design: Uber’s pitch deck performed well because of the brilliant way it presented elements of its business plan including key differentiators, use cases, and the best and worst-case scenarios. However, the design is simple black and white and could be improved with sharper visuals and layouts.

How Much Was Raised?

Uber raised $200,000 seed capital in August 2009 and $1.25 million in October 2010. It raised a total of $11.5 billion from 14 rounds.

2. Airbnb Pitch Deck

Airbnb’s pitch deck is one of the most successful pitch decks of all time. It has become one of the most used references for entrepreneurs and designers from all corners of the earth looking to create winning pitch decks.

What Is Great About Airbnb’s Pitch Deck?

• Simplicity and Brevity: Airbnb used a total of 12 slides to pass across information in an easily understandable and quickly digestible way to its target audience. Using a few slides will prevent you from boring your audience. Airbnb’s pitch deck clearly states what its product or service is all about in just 12 slides!
• Use of Images and Charts: Instead of focusing more on text, Airbnb made their pitch deck more engaging by using lots of images and charts to pass across their message.
• Fantastic Introduction: The introduction of the Airbnb pitch deck instantly hooks the audience and describes what it is all about in a few words “Book rooms with locals, rather than hotels.”
• Business Model Slide: Airbnb’s business model slide is arguably the killer slide in its pitch deck presentation. The slide lays out its revenue model in a simple way that possible investors can easily follow and understand.

What Could Be Improved?

• Design: There are very few things to change about Airbnb’s pitch deck, the design of the slides is one of them. Clearer visuals can make the already successful pitch deck even more effective.

How Much Was Raised?

Airbnb raised $20,000 at three months and $600,000 at eight months (seed) from when it presented its pitch deck in 2008.

3. WeWork Pitch Deck

WeWork is another company that was able to successfully raise funding with its pitch deck. The WeWork Pitch Deck Series D is the most popular pitch deck from WeWork, and a great example to draw inspiration from for entrepreneurs and business owners.

What Is Great About WeWork’s Pitch Deck?

• Used Numbers to Show Projected Growth: WeWork used numbers to project their growth to possible investors. Their pitch deck contained lots of statistics about the future of work which helped create a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) situation. It brought home its message to investors.
• Visual Charts: WeWork’s pitch deck makes use of visual charts to show its big plans and huge projections to investors. The company knew it had a great business plan and did a good job at representing them in visual charts in their pitch deck.
• Endorsements by Big Name Companies: One huge bonus that helped WeWork generate hundreds of millions of dollars from its pitch deck was the slide where it showed logos of big-name companies with who they have a partnership with
• Straight to the Point: From the second slide, the company wasted no time in outlining its key metrics and letting its audience know how well they were performing. It caught attention immediately and made investors interested in watching the rest of the pitch deck presentation.

What Could Be Improved?

• Length of the Pitch Deck: At 36 slides, the WeWork pitch deck is quite long. The way it presented its key metrics at the beginning, middle, and end of the pitch deck made it easier for its audience to follow through.
• Design: The pitch deck can be improved with better and clear design patterns, especially in the areas of its readability.

How Much Was Raised?

WeWork’s Series D Pitch Desk raised $355 million as of December 2014.

4. Buzzfeed Pitch Deck

Buzzfeed started as a small company with only five employees in a little office in Chinatown. Since creating its pitch deck, Buzzfeed has attracted funding and grown tremendously, becoming a leader in the online social news and entertainment industry.

What Is Great About BuzzFeed’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: Buzzfeed’s pitch deck has only 18 slides, making it easy for its audience to follow through. In 18 slides, Buzzfeed visualizes its ideas, selling points, and projections to its audience.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Buzzfeed pitched the idea of advertisement as content instead of separating them as two different entities like its competitors were doing. It proposed the idea of using content generated by computer algorithms, users, and advertisers.
• Screenshots to Show How Its Ideas Worked: In their pitch deck, Buzzfeed’s founders showed its audience how its big idea worked using screenshots. The use of screenshots helped the audience visualize how the advertisement as a content idea works.
• Social Proof: The company early in its pitch deck (slide 2) showed the millions of users that visited its website monthly and a quote it got from CNN, a media giant.

What Could Be Improved?

• Adding Picture in the Team Slide: Buzzfeed used a slide that listed its team members but didn’t include any graphics to accompany it. The pitch deck could be improved with pictures of team members. Investors want to see a face or face behind the company.

How Much Was Raised?

Buzzfeed used its pitch deck to raise $3,500,000 in 2008.

5. Launchrock Pitch Deck

Launchrock is a landing page builder that allows users to create landing pages quickly with built-in sharing tools and analytics. It was launched in 2011.

What Is Great About Launchrock’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: Launchrock’s pitch deck contains 15 slides. Using few slides to present its business idea makes it easy for investors to follow its pitch deck presentation. It also makes the pitch deck more memorable.
• Minimal Information on Each Slide: Only the necessary information was used in its slides. The fonts used were big and bold, enhancing their readability.
• Design: The usual pitch deck always involves a light background with dark-colored content on it. Launchrock took a daring design approach by going in the opposite direction of what everyone else was doing. All its 15 slides have a black background and it uses white as its dominant font color. The pitch deck design had a high visual quality and a perfect representation of Launchrock’s brand.
• Flow: Each slide flows into the next in a simple storytelling format. This style keeps the audience engaged from the start till the end of the presentation.
• Team Members’ Visuals: Adding images to those driving the company makes the pitch deck better and visually appealing. Investors want to know the team running the company, don’t just include text but add images too.
• Social Proof: The inclusion of promoted investors that have invested in Launchrock in the pitch deck makes it easy for other investors to join the queue.

What Could Be Improved?

• Launchrock got its pitch deck spot on from its structure down to its visual. While the design is cool and interesting, there is always room for design improvements.

How Much Was Raised?

Launchrock raised $800,000 from its pitch deck.

6. Foursquare Pitch Deck

Foursquare is a local search-and-discovery service mobile platform that helps users to find the best places in their area based on users’ current locations.

In the beginning, Foursquare was just an idea held by two guys (Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai). They created an excellent pitch deck that attracted lots of funds from investors.

What Is Great About Foursquare’s Pitch Deck?

• Lots of Demonstrations: Foursquare makes use of mobile device mockups with real screenshots to explain to investors what the app does. It complements the text at the side that further explains what the screenshot does.
• Benefits: The pitch deck clearly shows on the second slide how the app benefits both users, brands, and advertisers.
• Social Proof: Foursquare used a slide to show the social proof that the app was already getting from its users. It included screenshots of two tweets of companies using Foursquare.

What Could Be Improved?

• Long Sections of Text: The pitch deck has long sections of small text which is not the best style to follow when pitching ideas to investors. Larger fonts and smaller sections of text will improve the pitch deck.
• Problem Slide: There is no problem slide in Foursquare’s pitch deck. The addition of one will no doubt improve an already successful pitch deck.

How Much Was Raised?

Foursquare raised $1,350,000 in 2009.

7. Intercom Pitch Deck

Intercom is a household name in the chat-bot space that helps users build better customer relationships through conversational, messenger-based experiences. The company achieved remarkable success with its seed pitch deck.

What Is Great About Intercom’s Pitch Deck?

• Brevity: Intercom uses just 8 slides to pass across its message to its audience. Having only a small number of slides makes it easy for potential investors to follow the pitch deck presentation.
• Simple Outline and Structure: The pitch deck followed a uniform structure with the majority of the slides using hand-drawn fonts, especially its logo name, headings, and bullets. This uniform style shows investors that the brand is simple, reflects the human side of the brand and adds a good dose of personality. The headings are positioned at the top center for easy skimming.
• Design: The design of Intercom’s pitch deck is eye-catching. It uses a light blue gradient background to make the pitch deck feel calm and reassuring.

What Could Be Improved?

• Images: The pitch deck lacked images and illustrations that could have been used to demonstrate what the company is about to its audience. Adding images to buttress what it does and putting a face or faces around the team will improve the pitch deck.

How Much Was Raised?

Intercom was able to raise $600,000.

8. Mattermark Pitch Deck

According to Crunchbase, “Mattermark is a data platform for venture capital companies to quantify signals of growing and potentially lucrative start-ups.” It is a data-driven B2B search platform for discovering, prospecting, and tracking the world’s fastest-growing investors and companies.

What Is Great About Mattermark’s Pitch Deck?

• Detailed Charts: Mattermark highlighted the growth in demand in their space by using charts. Investors could easily visualize the opportunities for growth in their space. The use of multi-colored charts helped to explain lots of data in a limited space. Its reliance on a flowing arrow diagram to outline the questions and visualize the answers makes the pitch deck interesting and appealing.
• Team Slide: Mattermark got their team slide spot on, it is the perfect template to follow. Apart from naming its core team members, it added their pictures and showed the big companies they worked for previously.
• Use of Screenshots: Mattermark used screenshots to show their audience the problem they aim to solve which is the reorganization of SAAS reporting.

What Could be Improved?

• The Number of Slides: At 30 slides, the pitch deck slants towards being overwhelming for the audience. A reduction in the number of slides can help improve it further.

How Much Was Raised?

Mattermark raised $6,500,000 in 2014.

9. Buffer Pitch Deck

Buffer is a social media management software that helps users to schedule their posts and drive meaningful engagement, track performance, and manage all their accounts in one place. It is one of the first companies to make its pitch deck available publicly.

What Is Great About Buffer’s Pitch Deck?

• Short Number of Slides: With just 13 slides, Buffer’s pitch deck is brief and easy for their target audience to follow through.
• Use of Numbers: Although its pitch deck is not the most visually impressive pitch deck created, it showed a lot of meaningful numbers that instantly caught the eyes of potential investors. The large figures it achieved and the prospects for further growth it showed played a pivotal role in its success.
• Great Traction Slide: Buffer already had an impressive growth record and it did well to leverage that in its pitch deck. If you already have great traction it is easier to attract investors. Buffer used its current statistics (800 users, $150,000 annual revenue run rate, 97% margin, and 55,000 users, growing 40% per month) to win over investors.

What Could Be Improved?

• Visual Appeal: The design for Buffer’s pitch deck can be improved for better appeal and end product.
• Core Team Members’ Images: Images of core team members in the team slide will greatly improve the slide and the overall pitch deck. Putting a face behind the names makes it easy for investors to visualize the people behind them.

How Much Was Raised?

Buffer raised $500,000 from its pitch deck, according to Buffer’s co-founder Leo Widrich.

10. Ooomf (now Crew) Pitch Deck

Crew is a software that connects individuals with freelance software developers, graphic designers, and illustrators.

What Is Great About Crew’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: Crew uses 18 slides in its pitch deck which is a good number for engaging its audience. The last thing Crew wants to do is to bore its audience during its pitch deck presentation with an overwhelming amount of slides.
• Show Existing Investors: Crew already had some investors such as Real Ventures and BDC and did well to add them to their pitch deck. Adding existing investors is a great way to attract other investors as it proves the company project has huge potential.
• Excellent Design: The pitch deck is well-designed and structured. Crew use of dark blue background, and then white and light blue text flows with the brand image and colors.
• Demonstration of How It Works: Crew used screenshots to show investors how the software works. It uses a simple three-step process that is easy to follow.
• Team Slide: Crew’s team slide is a perfect example of how to showcase your key team members to investors to instill confidence in the project. The company showed the names of its key team members, their images, and their experience.

What Could Be Improved?

• The pitch deck is concise and straight to the point, there is very little to improve with this pitch deck.

How Much Was Raised?

Crew’s pitch raised over $10,000,000 in 2015.

11. SEOmoz Pitch Deck

SEOmoz is a company that provides SEO services that include the analyzing and tracking of all your website’s inbound marketing efforts such as social media, link building, search marketing, and brand mentions.

What Is Great About SEOmoz’s Pitch Deck?

• Introduction Slide: You want your pitch deck to capture your audience's attention from the beginning, and that is just what SEOmoz did. “How a tiny mom + son consultancy became the world leader in SEO software and our roadmap to being Seattle’s next $1 billion company” on SEOmoz introduction slide got its audience interested in both knowing how it started and where it is going.
• Design: All the slides on SEOmoz’s pitch deck are well designed. Despite having so much information and statistics to offer which can bore its audience, it used an adorable mascot design on each of its slides to prevent engagement levels from dropping. It also used colorful charts and blocks to show the different statistics.

What Could Be Improved?

• Number of Slides: With 36 slides, SEOmoz’s pitch deck is quite bulky. Although it made each slide fun and engaging while also presenting its facts, a reduction in the number of slides will make it easier for its audience to follow from the start to the end.

How Much Was Raised?

SEOmoz raised $18,000,000 in 2012.

12. Front Pitch Deck

Front is a communication platform that connects teams and customers for long-lasting relationships. It was founded in Paris in 2013 by Mathilde Collin and Laurent Perrin.

What Is Great About Front’s Pitch Deck?

• Good Color Scheme: Front used a specific color scheme across all its slides. Using a specific color scheme helped make the pitch deck look consistent and attractive. The mixture of colors makes the presentation enjoyable to watch and easy to follow. In a world where investors see a lot of pitch deck presentations, using specific color schemes can make your company stand out from the rest.
• Problem Slide: Front did a great job in the way they designed their problem slide. The company masterfully visualized the problems they are solving, making it easier for its audience to follow through.

What Could Be Improved?

• Bolder Fonts: Front’s pitch deck could be improved by using bolder and bigger fonts across its slides. Bolder and larger fonts make the pitch deck more visually appealing and readable.

How Much Was Raised?

Front raised $3.1 million from its series seed in September 2014 and $10 million in Series A funding.

13. LinkedIn Pitch Deck

LinkedIn is a social media network that allows users to connect with businesses and professionals, search for jobs, and find prospective clients. Before its acquisition by Microsoft, LinkedIn used its pitch deck to successfully raise funding for its operations. It was founded in 2002.

What Is Great About LinkedIn’s Pitch Deck?

• Targeted A Specific Group of People: LinkedIn is a networking platform for business-minded individuals. It knows its target audience and made its pitch deck appealing to them. Business-minded individuals have lots of statistics and straightforward facts, which is what LinkedIn puts in its pitch deck.
• Use of Charts: LinkedIn pitch deck made use of charts such as pie charts and graphs to show its network growth.
• Comparisons: The company compared the relationship between some search industry leaders and their older counterparts such as The Philadelphia Inquirer and eBay (online goods listing), Citi and Paypal (online payment), and Altavista and Google (search for things). Having separate slides for these comparisons makes it easier for its audience to accept and understand the next slide, the comparison between Monster, LexisNexis, and LinkedIn. It helped buttress the point that the internet is now the most-used base for services.

What Could be Improved?

• Number of Slides: At 37 slides, the LinkedIn pitch deck is on the bulky side and can be improved by reducing the number of slides.

How Much Was Raised?

LinkedIn raised $10 million in 2004.

14. Facebook Pitch Deck

Facebook is a social media platform that connects friends, families, and other people together. It was launched in 2004 and currently has a $140 billion valuation.

What Is Great About Facebook’s Pitch Deck?

• Simple Communication: The pitch deck by Facebook did a wonderful job of showing investors what the platform was about, how it was launched, and how it became popular.
• Color Scheme: The use of dark blue which is close to the official Facebook colors added some degree of personality and authenticity to the pitch deck.
• Media Quotes: Facebook showed potential investors why it was a good idea to invest in the company by including several quotes from the media. These quotes from popular media platforms helped to validate the information presented in its pitch deck including its current success.
• Key Metrics: Facebook did a great job of highlighting its key metrics with the use of charts and images. The company did not have revenue traction so they used other statistics they had such as user base demographics, site usage, and user growth rate.

What Could be Improved?

• Design: Facebook pitch deck is a great pitch deck example for companies to copy, but it has its shortcomings, and one of them is the lack of visually appealing slide designs.
• Number of Slides: At 26 slides, the pitch deck can do with a little trimming to make it easier for the target audience to follow it.

How Much Was Raised?

Facebook raised $500,000 in angel funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

15. Mint Pitch Deck

Mint is a personal financial service that helps people save money and track their spendings. The pitch deck was first used in a competition. There are so many valuable lessons that startups can learn from this.

What Is Great About Mint’s Pitch Deck?

• Design and Layout: The colorful block text all over the pitch deck is visually appealing to its audience. Each slide is dedicated to addressing specific information, making it easier for the audience to follow the presentation as the slide changes.
• Exit Strategy: Investors want to know what is the exit mechanism of his or her investments. Mint used a whole slide to outline different exit strategy options. Investors will feel at ease investing with Mint knowing it can exit conveniently.
• Risk and Precautions: Mint listed out the risks associated with its business and the precautions it takes to mitigate those risks. This simple and bold strategy does not scare off investors but encourages them to invest. It makes Mint’s story and other financials believable.
• Number of Slides: With just 20 slides, Mint did a great job of making a strong pitch deck presentation. Investors will easily pay attention to the pitch deck presentation because of the brief number of information presented.

What Could be Improved?

• Team Slide: The team slide looks wonderful with the use of colorful blocks and the way they are arraigned. However, adding images of each key member can improve the pitch deck further.

How Much Was Raised?

According to Mint, the company has raised $31 million to date.

16. Mapme Pitch Deck

Mapme is an Israeli startup that allows users to build free, smart, and beautiful maps without needing any coding experience. The maps created works across smartphones, tablets, and computers.

What Is Great About Mapme’s Pitch Deck?

• Design: Mapme pitch deck used simple designs for all its slides. It used consistent backgrounds for all its slides and made use of lots of images, shapes, and screenshots to make its pitch deck visually appealing.
• Lead With Its Strongest Point: Mapme’s pitch deck after its first two slides quickly showed its audience its strongest point, which is its huge and growing community and press coverage. It used these two points to build credibility.
• Number of Slides: With just 14 slides, Mapme follows the rules of brevity in creating a pitch deck. It makes its pitch deck easier for its audience to follow its pitch deck presentation.

What Could be Improved?

• Headings: The headings in the white box on almost every slide can be improved by making them bolder and larger.

How Much Was Raised?

Mapme raised over $1 million in funding from its pitch deck.

17. Mixpanel Pitch Deck

Mixpanel is an advanced analytics platform that helps businesses understand their users’ behavior by tracking the actions they take.

What Is Great About Mixpanel’s Pitch Deck?

• Focus On Their Outstanding Numbers: Mixpanel’s pitch deck had outstanding numbers to leverage on and they did just that. They showed their monthly recurring revenue over time, sales KPIs, and marketing statistics, which are exactly the kind of information investors want to know about.
• Highlighting the Competition: Mixpanel has a slide in which it showed all its competitors and the difference between them and their competitors.
• Design: Mixpanel uses a simple blue color design that is attractive for viewing. The use of large fonts makes it easy to read. The pitch deck does not stuff information in its slides.
• Number of Slides: There are 12 slides in Mixpanel’s pitch deck. The low number of slides makes it easier for investors to understand and follow through with the presentation. It is super easy for its audience to focus on the pitch deck because of the low number of slides.

What Could be Improved?

• Team Slide: Mixpanel pitch deck lacks a team slide that shows information about its key team members.

How Much Was Raised?

Mixpanel’s Series-B pitch deck raised over $65 million in 2014.

18. YouTube Pitch Deck

YouTube is a video-sharing platform that enables users to upload, view, and share videos. In 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.6 billion.

What Is Great About YouTube’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: YouTube’s pitch deck has ten slides, which makes it brief and easy for its target audience to pay attention to.
• Clear Company Purpose: YouTube makes it clear in its second slide what the company is all about.
• Bold and Large Fonts: All over the pitch deck, YouTube uses bold and large fonts to convey its message to its audience. The use of bold and large fonts makes it easy for its audience to see and read the information contained in its pitch deck.

What Could Be Improved?

• Design: YouTube’s pitch deck design is not the most visually appealing. The design is too plain and does not give it an edge. You can improve the pitch deck by adding images, more attractive color schemes, charts, and other design elements.
• Team Slide: The team slide lacks images of its core team members. Adding these images will make the pitch deck better.

How Much Was Raised?

YouTube used this pitch deck to raise $3.5 million seed investment.

19. Manpacks Pitch Deck

Manpacks is a web-based service that deals in men’s essentials such as underwear, razors, and other products from top brands such as Gillette, PACT, Calvin Klein, and Grooming Lounge.

What Is Great About Manpack’s Pitch Deck?

• The Right Use of Humor: A pitch deck is a serious business opportunity but you can use the right touch of humor to pass your message across to your audience. Manpack’s pitch deck used humor to great effect with its cartoonish drawings, pictures of women, and ‘Why buy?’ slide. Except you are sure that your humor will not be offensive to your audience, do not attempt to use it in your pitch deck.
• Number of Slides: Manpack’s pitch deck has just 12 slides which is a great number of slides to have. The number makes it easy for Manpack to gain the unwavering attention of your audience throughout the pitch deck presentation.
• Social Proof: Manpack added screenshots of tweets that showed real people using and praising its products and the company itself. At the bottom of the same slide, it featured different publications where it has appeared such as Inc, The New York Times, NBC, and Maxim.

What Could Be Improved?

• Lack of Statistics: Although the company barely had any interesting numbers since it was a startup at that point, it could have made use of interesting industry statistics to show potential investors that the market opportunity for men’s essentials is huge.

How Much Was Raised?

Manpack raised $500,000 with this pitch deck.

20. Dwolla Pitch Deck

Dwolla is a free web-based online payment system that allows users to send, receive, and request funds. It was founded in 2008 by Shane Neuerburn and Ben Milne.

What Is Great About Dwolla’s Pitch Deck?

• Excellent Storytelling: Telling an origin story through your pitch deck is a great way to get investors interested, everyone loves a good origin story. Dwolla’s pitch deck did just that by sharing a story of how its founder had to pay over $50,000 a year in credit card fees. Such a powerful motivation for creating the company can help attract interest from potential investors.
• Design: All the slides in Dwolla’s pitch deck are well designed with lots of images, charts, and other design elements. The designs are visually appealing.
• Statistics: Dwolla did not just create a pitch deck for design purposes, it also included statistics about Dwolla that will get the interest of potential investors such as opportunities for Dwolla in the US and global markets.

What Can Be Improved?

• No Need for A Reference Slide: Dwolla added a reference slide which took its slide count to 18. There is no need to use a reference slide for a pitch deck. Even if potential investors want to see the references for your information, you can always provide them at any point.

How Much Was Raised?

Dwolla raised over $30 million.

21. Bliss Pitch Deck

Bliss is a code review management software that provides key metrics for teams that makes coding and collaboration easier.

What Is Great About Bliss’ Pitch Deck?

• Revenue Model: Bliss clearly shows its audience how it plans to generate revenue. By highlighting its different plans, investors can get a feel of how the company plans to grow and scale its income.
• Social Proof: Bliss added favorable quotes from two co-founders of tech companies backed with their images and their positions. Adding that slide helps investors to back the project since other people are already
• Number of Slides: There are 11 slides in the Bliss pitch deck. It is a great number that prevents you from boring your audience with too much information. A pitch deck should be brief and address the key issues.
• Covered All The Essential Slides: Bliss’ pitch deck covered all the 11 essential slides such as the introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, and team slide.
• Design: Bliss used very little text and focused on telling its story through good use of images. The background used was consistent for all slides and the color scheme was inspired by its logo.
• Straight To The Point: On its first slide, Bliss wasted no time and swiftly introduced what it does with the tagline “real-time visibility into your development process.’ It is a bit ambiguous which can be considered a good thing as it keeps the audience hungry to know what Bliss is all about.
• Traction Slide: Bliss was a fast-growing company with impressive results. In its pitch deck, it highlighted those results such as 40 paying customers, $12.000 annual revenue run rate, and 90% margins.

What Could Be Improved?

• Bolder and Larger Headings: The headings on each slide are not well emphasized. It can be improved by making the headings bolder and larger.
• Renaming the Ecosystem Slide: The word ‘ecosystem’ leaves room for confusion. A better fit is the competitive landscape.
• No Market Size Slide: Bliss pitch deck lacks a market size slide which makes it feel incomplete. Adding one will help your audience understand the size of the opportunity.
• Poor Slide Progression: The bliss pitch deck can be better structured so that the slide progresses more compellingly.

How Much Was Raised?

Bliss raised over $400,000 seed round in 2015 using AngelList.

22. AdPushup Pitch Deck

AdPushup is a platform that allows users to increase their site’s ad revenue through its advanced A/B testing. Marketers, publishers, and business owners use it to create and test different ad placements, types and sizes to find out which one converts better or brings in more revenue.

What Is Great About AdPushup’s Pitch Deck?

• Case Study: AdPushup’s pitch deck does not just tell you why it is a great fit for investment, it also demonstrates it. The pitch deck has a case study slide that shows how companies and individuals can achieve their desired results.
• Impressive Traction Numbers: AdPushup experienced phenomenal growth since it was first launched, and it did a good job at showing how fast it was growing with its traction slide.
• Perfect Structure: The structure of the pitch deck is perfect. It has an introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, market opportunities or size slide, products slide, case study slide, milestone slide, traction slide, and a future plan slide.

What Could Be Improved?

• A Bit Too Wordy: There are lots of slides in the AdPushup pitch deck that are text-heavy. The small font used in these overly text-heavy slides does not make them as readable as they should be.
• Lack of Graphics: Adpushup’s pitch deck only uses images sparingly in its pitch deck. The overall design could be improved with more graphics.
• Problem Slide: The problem slide does not hit at the pain point of the customer in the way a novice with zero information about the industry can easily understand.

How Much Was Raised?

AdPushup was able to raise $635,000.

23. Wealthsimple Pitch Deck

Wealthsimple is Canada’s fastest-growing online investment manager. It is one of the first digital financial advisor applications.

What Is Great About Wealthsimple’s Pitch Deck?

• Few Number of Slides: Wealthsimple’s pitch deck is sweet and short but effective. It does not bore its audience with needless information and does well in using a few slides to tell its story and make a case for investments.
• Industry Transformation: The pitch deck does a good job of showing its industry over the past 40 years in 10-year shifts and their major changes. The design for this slide is simple and attractive.
• Market Opportunity: Wealthsimple used already available statistics about the Canadian market to show its audience the opportunities available to the company. The next slide showed the US case example to illustrate what is possible in the Canadian market.
• Strong Team and Advisors: Wealthsimple has a strong team and advisors who have accumulated lots of experience working with many recognized companies in previous roles. Putting these amazing professionals in the pitch deck helps potential investors to trust the company’s intention and profitability easier.

What Could Be Improved?

• Poor Use of Graphics: The pitch deck does not use graphics as well as it should. The inclusion of more appealing graphics will make the pitch deck more visually appealing and attractive.
• Wordy ‘What We Do’ Slide: Wealthsimple pitch deck squeezed in too many words in its ‘What We Do’ slide. It can be improved by reducing the word count and making the text a bit bigger for better readability.
• Team Slide: There are too many people in the team slide, making it hard to read the text that explains their current positions and previous experiences.
• Product Slide: The product slide focuses on the features rather than its benefits. This slide can be improved by making it outcome orientated.

How Much Was Raised?

Wealthsimple has made over $2 million in seed funding.

24. AppVirality Pitch Deck

AppVirality is a referral marketing software for mobile apps and SaaS. It allows app developers to grow their platforms using growth method techniques proven by other startups.

What Is Great About AppVirality’s Pitch Deck?

• Introduction Slide: AppVirality’s introduction slide is perfect, it utilizes a rich graphic design, the right color scheme, and a good tagline that informs its audience what the company is all about.
• Design: Every slide on AppVirality’s pitch deck is well designed with interesting graphics and the right color schemes. It uses colors such as green to draw emphasis to certain keywords in its early slides.
• Slide Progression: AppVirality’s pitch deck moves effortlessly from the introduction slide to problem slide to solution slide to ‘how it works’ slide.
• Great Explanation of How It Works: The pitch deck used four steps to describe how the app works to its audience. Instead of boring them with length text explanations, it makes use of graphics to better communicate how it works.
• Team Slide: The team slide is perfect, it showed only three core team members, their images, and their positions. It also included companies that endorsed it such as Oracle, Infosys, and Tata.

What Could Be Improved?

• Number of Slides: The number of slides stands at 21 which is not a comfortable number for a pitch deck. It can be improved by reducing the number of slides to a figure that can best keep the attention of its audience.

How Much Was Raised?

AppVirality raised $500,000 seed investment in 2015 from its pitch deck. The company went ahead to raise more funds from angels, taking the total funds raised to $1.46 million.

25. Podozi Pitch Deck

Podozi is a beauty tech startup that helps women of different colors to find the right beauty products. It is an online eCommerce platform based in Nigeria.

What Is Great About Podozi’s Pitch Deck?

• Small Number of Slides: Podozi’s pitch deck only has 10 slides, which makes it easy for its audience to pay attention to it. It works so well not just because it is brief but it is also engaging.
• Design: The pitch deck is full of lots of interesting images and design elements. All its slides from the start are colorful and visually appealing. It does not tell what it does, it demonstrates it with images.
• Market Opportunity: Podozi does a great job of highlighting the opportunities available in the beauty industry by showing how large the market is, the size of the population (women) buying the beauty product, and the annual income they spend on beauty products.
• Traction Slide: The pitch deck has a simple traction slide that shows its monthly revenue, retention, and monthly growth rate.
• Partnership: Podozi already has partnerships with some exclusive companies and they did well to show it in their pitch deck. The company added the logos of its exclusive partners in one of the slides in its pitch deck. Such companies include Revlon, Sigma, wet n wild, Mehron, and Black Radiance.
• Social Proof: Towards the end of its pitch deck, Podozi had a slide that had the quote of Jean-Paul Agon, the CEO of a French fashion company that identified Africa as a growing market soon to become the number one destination of beauty products. Podozi has a strong African market and can use this to overcome the objections about the uncertainties some investors may have about the African market.

What Could Be Improved?

• Problem Slide: Podozi’s pitch deck can be improved by adding a clear problem slide.

How Much Was Raised?

Podozi was able to raise $120,000 from its pitch deck.

26. Canvas Pitch Deck

Canvas is a cloud-based software service that replaces paper-based processes with affordable and easy-to-use mobile apps and forms. It allows users to easily collect information with their mobile phones, share and integrate it with existing backend systems.

What Is Great About Canvas’ Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: There are 11 slides in the pitch deck. A pitch deck should not be too bulky or you risk boring your audience and losing their attention before you complete your pitch deck presentation. Canvas does a great job in limiting its pitch deck to just 11 slides.
• Communicate with Images: Instead of saying what they do, Canvas’ pitch deck on the second slide shows how Canvas can help businesses through images. There is no need for words, the colorful images did the communication.
• Showed the Problems and Market Opportunities: Canvas did a great job of showing the problems it seeks to solve and the market that needs these problems solved.
• Social Proof: On a slide, Canvas shows logos of companies that use it, their industries, and positive quotes about Canvas.

What Could Be Improved?

• Small Font Size: The font size on the problem slide is quite small and can be improved by enlarging it. In ‘Why businesses love Canvas,” the font sizes are too tiny, and the references are too much for a single slide. Increasing the font size and reducing the references will improve the pitch deck.
• Poor Solution Slide: The solution slide is just a single sentence “Canvas revolutionizes how work is done”. More and stronger points in the solution slide will help improve the pitch deck.

How Much Was Raised?

Canvas pitch deck raised $9 million.

27. Cubeit Pitch Deck

Cubeit is a mobile application from India that allows users to aggregate content from anywhere. The company used its pitch deck to raise capital before it even had a finished product yet!

What Is Great About Cubeit’s Pitch Deck?

• Number of Slides: Cubeit used a simple 13-slide deck which is an excellent number to have in a pitch deck. It makes it easy for your audience to follow through with your pitch deck presentation.
• Powerful Introduction: The pitch deck starts with a powerful introduction by telling its audience that “owning more devices doesn’t make your life easier.” Such a powerful introduction makes the audience want to know more about what the Cubeit means.
• Show and Tell: Cubeit’s pitch deck adopts the twin strategy of showing and telling users what it does. The slide above showed them what the application can do.

What Could Be Improved?

• Too Few Text: The lack of text makes some slides difficult to follow. Although you do not want a lot of text in your pitch deck, Cubeit only sparsely used text and did not address the solution slide adequately.

How Much Was Raised?

Cubeit pitch deck was able to raise a seed round of $3 million.

28. Castle Pitch Deck

Castle is a Detroit-based real estate startup that manages rental homes for landlords and lets them put their properties on autopilot.

What Is Great About Castle’s Pitch Deck?

• Use of Headlines to Tell Their Story: Castle used its headlines effectively to pass across a clear message to its audience. It makes it easy for anyone to run through the pitch deck quickly and still get the message.
• Design: Castle’s pitch deck used good designs through its images and cartoons to make its slides engaging. The designs are simple and effectively convey the message the company wants to pass across to potential investors.
• Problem Slide: In this slide, Castle uses a sentence to tell the problem its target audience faces. The statement “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord” shows the problem. The next slide deeps deeper into the problem landowners face.

What Could Be Improved?

• Team Slide: Castle does not have a team slide or the slide that poses as a team slide does a bad job that only the mention of the team makes you know what slide it is. There is no mention of the core team members or owners.
• Solution Slide: The pitch deck did not do justice to the solution slide. The statement “Automate landlording through software and on-demand labor” is too obvious a solution and not well detailed to entice investors.

How Much Was Raised?

Castle raised $270,000 with its pitch deck.

29. Crema Pitch Deck

Crema is a digital platform that offers loyalty programs and payment solutions for coffee shops.

What Is Great About Crema’s Pitch Deck?

• Social Proof: Crema put social proof to good use by including logos of popular brands at the start such as TechCrunch, Eater, Parade, EatingWell, and Food&Wine. Inside the pitch deck, there is also a slide where it shows logos of top coffee companies such as Voyage, Nossa Familia, Tinker, Mast, James Coffee, Onyx, and Villa Myriam. The presence of these logos from well-known companies in its pitch deck increases its credibility and trustworthiness.
• Similar Color Palette: Although Crema changed its background frequently throughout the pitch deck with different images, it ensured consistency by sticking with a fixed color palette. The color palette of choice makes use of coffee colors which is true to the brand. Using similar background colors even with different images made the design eye-catching and appealing.
• Number of Slides: Crema pitch deck has 10 slides, which makes it easy for its target audience to stay attentive throughout the presentation.
• Statistics: Crema used charts and images to show interesting statistics about its industry such as who controls the coffee market, coffee consumption in the US, and market opportunities. Such statistics make their pitch deck more credible and helps pull in interest from investors.

What Could Be Improved?

• Team Slide: The images of its two co-founders are used as background images. Their images are not as visible as they can be. Also, the header on the slide covers significant portions of their heads.

How Much Was Raised?

Crema raised $175,000 in seed funding from its pitch deck.

30. Kickfolio Pitch Deck (now App.io)

Kickfolio, now known as App.io is a mobile development and marketing tool that allows users to access iPhone and iPad apps directly from the web browser.

What Is Great About Kickfolio (now App.io) Pitch Deck?

• Huge Graphs: Kickfolio (now App.io) uses large graphs to make its brand’s growth and metrics in its slide deck bigger. Such imposing graphs and huge letterings make it easy for its audience to see each slide.
• Number of Slides: There are 14 slides in its pitch deck which is a great number to have to keep your audience engaged and not bored.
• Screenshots: Kickfolio (now App.io) used screenshots to show how it works. It used screenshots of Yelp, TechCrunch, and Facebook to show its audience what it can do.
• Social Proof: The pitch deck used quotes from different people about Kickfolio (now App.io) to boost its credibility.

What Could Be Improved?

• Team Slide: The pitch deck lacks a team slide. Adding a team slide will make the pitch deck better and help its audience have a view of the brains behind the company and its operation team.

How Much Was Raised?

Kickfolio (now App.io) raised $1.2 million from its pitch deck.

31. Yalochat Pitch Deck

Yalochat is an artificial intelligence-based Customer Relationship Management Firm (CRM) that manages and improves relationships with your clients on messaging apps, including Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.

What Is Great About Yalochat’s Pitch Deck?

• Use of Icons: Yalochat used icons as illustrations throughout its pitch deck to add instant context. Icons are one of the latest graphic design trends and are becoming increasingly popular. Using illustrated icons in your pitch deck will catch the eye of almost any audience.
• Design: The pitch deck uses consistent color palettes, images, and illustrated icons to appeal to its target audience.
• Social Proof: Yalochat showed logos of companies it was working with such as Pepsi and Volkswagen. The use of social proof makes the pitch deck more credible and convincing.

What Could Be Improved?

• The Use of Small Text: The text used in many slides is small and not easily visible. Enlarging the text will instantly improve the pitch deck.
• Graphs: The graphs in the pitch deck are small and not as visible as they should be. Bigger graphs will immediately improve the pitch deck.

How Much Was Raised?

Yalochat raised $8 million in series A funding from Sierra Ventures in 2019.

32. Brex Pitch Deck

Brex is an American financial service and technology company based in San Francisco, California, that offers corporate credit cards and cash management accounts to e-commerce, technology, and life science companies.

What Is Great About Brex’s Pitch Deck?

• Team Slide: The team slide is one of the standout slides in the Brex pitch deck. The company wastes no time in announcing its teams and investors in the second slide. Mentioning its top and well-known investors such as Ribbit Capital, YCombinator, Peter Thiel, and Max Levchin gave the pitch deck great momentum. Brex created a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) feeling in its audience since a lot of the big names in the fintech industry were investing in Brex.
• Problem Slide: Brex hits on the problem that entrepreneurs face in getting credit cards by showing rejection letters for credit card requests.
• Solution and Features: Brex addresses the solution (corporate credit card) and uses the subsequent slides to explain the features and benefits of the corporate credit card. It is very easy for investors to understand what Brex is bringing to the market.

What Could Be Improved?

• Poor Design on Some Slides: There are slides where Birex did not get its design elements right. Better proportioning and cohesion in design elements can make these slides better.

How Much Was Raised?

Brex raised $7 million from series A funding in 2017, $50 million from series B funding in June 2018, and a further $125 million from series C funding in October 2018.

33. Pendo

Pendo is an integrated platform that helps product managers and teams better understand and improve product experiences.

What Is Great About Pendo’s Pitch Deck?

• Organization: Pendo is a well-organized pitch deck that starts by painting an inevitable future, and then showing how well they have been performing, and statistics that paint the company in a positive light.
• Simple Formatting: The pitch deck is consistent in its formatting and design. The color scheme is largely consistent, making it easy for investors to follow the pitch deck slide.
• Team Slide: Pendo puts its team slide as the second slide in its pitch deck. It uses the team slides well to show the quality of its team, respected investors, and their strong quarterly growth.

What Could Be Improved?

• Better Structuring and Design: Overall the Pendo pitch deck is well structured with eye-catching designs. However, some slides can be improved with a little more structure and design tweaks such as the ‘go to market’ slide.

How Much Was Raised?

Pendo raised $20 million from its pitch deck.

Helpful Pitch Deck Design Tips

You are almost rounding off your pitch deck presentation in a mini hall filled with potential investors and financiers. Yet, you are still not getting nods in agreement with your plans, no applause, and no excitement. It is looking like all your efforts were in vain, and you are wondering why?

Maybe your contents were perfect, but your designs didn’t show your model the best way. As an entrepreneur, you need to implement the best designs to back up your content.

Your layout makes it easy for you to pass your message across to the audience. For a high conversion rate, your pitch deck must be easy to understand and implement. These investors are probably not knowledgeable about your market, so you must communicate your ideas in the simplest way possible.

Here are some helpful pitch deck design tips to make your work outstanding among your competitors.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

1. Be Creative

The first tip you need to know is to be super creative. You won’t discover new things if you don’t dare to try. I once had a friend who loved using a black pen among hundreds of students using a blue pen. He feels he can draw the examiner’s attention by using something different.

Even if you have to use a template, edit the template to your unique taste. Try new edit features, do something you feel will be okay for your audience irrespective of how it looks to others. For example, the audience can also pay more attention to a unique design.

Also, you can check for some design services that are not common. They will probably have designs no one has tried before.

2. Design For Your Audience

If you check successful pitch decks on the web, they have something in common. They design their pitch decks to meet their audience’s tastes. While trying to create a unique piece, ensure you fit into your audience’s taste.

This tip is crucial for any entrepreneur that wants to win the hearts of the audience. The audiences are the ones you want to present your pitch deck too. So whatever you are designing must intrigue them. Doing this gives you a higher chance of winning the investor’s attention.

To make it easier for you:

• Put your investors in mind when designing your pitch deck.
• Ask yourself things that you feel the investors will be excited to see.
• Add those things that come to your mind.
• Browse pitch decks of related businesses online and take some ideas from what they created; it can save you some stress.

3. Create a Compelling Story

While designing a pitch deck, one thing must run through your mind. All the contents on each slide should work towards convincing your investors to fund your business ideas. They should hear what you have to offer and book the next meeting without having any doubtful thoughts. Do your best to paint relatable scenarios. Make them see situations the way you want.

From the introduction slide, tell narratives to make them understand ideas from your perspective. Stories also make the pitch deck engaging. For instance, when Uber designed their pitch deck, they showed the audience every advantage of getting private rides. However, what they had to offer was better understood with real-life stories.

Imagine you having access to private rides instead of jumping on commercial buses in traffic, isn’t that interesting? Uber understood its assignment, and the audience could relate and fund their ideas.

4. Make Your Contents Short

Another tip to take note of is the length of the texts on your slide. Avoid projecting too much text on a slide. Texts can bore readers, especially the ones that are trying to explain.

When introducing a part of your business – either traction or financials – make your contents brief. While trying to minimize your texts, always give detailed explanations where necessary. In essence, you can say a lot even with a few words.

Your introduction should be as short as possible; tell them about you and your business. The following slides should discuss the exact topic of the slide.

Ensure you do not over-deliver while trying to elaborate. For example, under the team slide, introduce the core members. You don’t need to present every member of the business there, it can make the slide feel crowded.

5. Make Use of Pictures and Charts

When designing your pitch deck, make use of pictures on your slides. A famous saying goes, ‘pictures tell a thousand stories.’ It means you can interpret long pages of texts with a single photo.

Apart from that, pictures make your slides beautiful. It adds more colors to the slide other than the black and white from the texts. In essence, images can minimize texts on a slide, add meaning to your information, and also beautify a slide.

In the slides that involve more numbers, represent them on charts and histograms. A long spreadsheet full of numbers can easily confuse the readers. They would have to read through the different rows and columns to understand the statistics.

Charts make your work understandable and straightforward. They enable you to interpret lots of information without stuffing the slides. Pictures and charts help reduce the stress of passing information across to the audience when presenting.

6. Ensure Your Design Align With Your Brand

This tip is another essential one that business owners do not take into consideration. You need to create your style in the market, and it should reflect in every work you put out.

Be consistent with your colors, layout, and style. It automatically gives you recognition and respect in the market even at an early stage of your business. When presenting your pitch deck with your consistent style, even without saying much, they can understand your motive already.

For instance, Facebook is already known with a blue color that people even term some textiles as ‘Facebook blue.’ They could create a space for themselves with that color and style. It is the same for Twitter, Apple, and other big brands out there. Creating a layout that says more about your brand is essential.

7. Use Readable Font Styles and Colors

Have you ever tried to read an exciting story in grey fonts on a white background? How was it? Stressful, if I must say. It is even worse if the fonts are tiny.

Legibility is important when it comes to your texts on slides. When designing your pitch deck, use readable font sizes, styles, and colors. Avoid making your audience strain their eyes before they read what you have to offer.

When using different text and background colors, make sure you have white text on a black background or vice versa. Texts like these can be easy to read in rooms with any color of lights on.

If you have to use extra colors like red, blue, and more, ensure they are legible and highlight a vital point. Your font styles must be readable too. Don’t use cursives that readers won’t find easy to flow with. Be moderate with designs as you try to impress the investors.

8. Use Background Images

If you have opened a college’s official site before, you will notice some background images showing the school buildings, prospectus, mission, and vision. You can also include pictures of your company’s brand in the background of your slides. Apart from the contents on the slide, those images can tell some information about your business to the investors.

Images show your understanding of the pain that people face. It also shows that your brand can solve the problem. Ensure the pictures pass a message to the audience. Also, these images add spice to your designs.

9. Add Emotional Teasers

This tip is helpful in the problem and solution slide. When you use narratives to explain the issues that your target audiences face, the audiences show emotions. It tells you that you have done a perfect job in bringing them to view the issues from your perspective.

Investors easily understand your business plans when they connect with your stories from the first set of slides. Tease their emotions; make them feel pity for your target audience. It grants you access to their hearts.

These nine tips are what separate you from the average class of pitch decks. You can bag a million dollars worth of investments with pitch decks designed with these tips. As important as your content is, so is the layout you display them on.

Best Pitch Deck Templates That Save You Tons of Time

1. Black Teal Dark Simple Digital Lifestyle Pitch Deck Presentation from Canva

Price: Free

This simple pitch deck presentation template from Canva has 19 slides. The first thing that catches your attention is its dark background complemented with light fonts. All the slides in the pitch deck are well designed, although you want to increase the size of the smaller fonts for easy readability.

The pitch deck template consists of an introduction slide, production slide, solution slide, traction slide, market size slide, competitor slide, competitive advantage slides, team slide, contact slide, and more. You can customize the words, fronts, and other design elements for free on Canva.

2. Startup Pitch Deck by Pitch.com

Price: Free

This attractive pitch deck has 26 slides, which is quite a bulky amount of slides to have in your pitch deck. However, the pitch deck design is eye-catching and attractive. It uses a dark background and complements it with white and yellow fonts. The pitch deck maintains a consistent color scheme throughout (white, black, and yellow colors).

Startup pitch deck templates consist of an introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, product slide, business model slide, market size slide, team slide, and others. You have to open an account with pitch.com to edit any element of the pitch deck and replace it with your business information.

3. Startup Pitch Presentation from Graphicriver

Price: $15

If you own a startup and are struggling with finding the right template to use to create your pitch deck, the startup pitch presentation template by Graphicriver is an excellent choice. At $15 for access to its 44 slide decks, it is a wonderful choice for startups.

Having 44 slides in your final pitch deck is not ideal. You can reduce the number of slides when you customize it. There are slides for virtually all your pitch deck needs such as the introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, team slide, traction slide, financial slide, and marketing strategy slide.

4. Startup Pitch PowerPoint from Graphicriver

Price: $15

The Startup Pitch Powerpoint template is one of the best pitch deck templates in the market. You get 100 slides which are far above what you need to create a winning pitch deck. The pitch deck uses lots of exciting colors in all its slides, especially with its charts, graphs, and other design elements.

Some of the best lides you can find in this startup pitch PowerPoint are market size slides, value proposition slides, competitor analysis slides, business model slides, marketing strategy slides, and team slides. Having this template makes it easy to create a successful pitch deck presentation.

5. Unicorn Startup Pitch Deck from Graphicriver

Price: $15

One of the hardest things to pitch to investors is your unicorn idea. Many entrepreneurs and business owners fail to capture their audience's attention with their unicorn ideas. You can use this unicorn startup pitch deck template to impress investors and get them to invest in your ideas.

This pitch deck is generally clean and a modern pitch deck presentation. You need to make a first impression on your potential investors with your startup’s pitch deck. It is easier to capture their interest when you use an uncluttered and beautiful pitch deck design.

Unicorn Startup Pitch Deck template is structured to maximize your success in getting funding from venture capitalists and angel investors. The pitch deck follows the guidelines set by Sequoia Capital, one of silicon valley’s top venture capital firms. Sequoia Capital has invested in top companies such as Whatsapp, Apple, PayPal, Google, and Instagram.

The pitch deck contains slides such as the purpose slide, problem slide, solution slide, why now slide, market size slide, competition slide, product slide, business model slide, team slide, and financials slide.

6. Airbnb Pitch Deck by Venngage

Price: Free to View, Subscription-based to Download

Imagine using a template influenced by one of the most successful pitch deck stories in history, but not just using it in its original state but in its modified state where every weak aspect of the pitch has been strengthened? Your pitch deck will no doubt attract the attention of investors.

Venngage took the Airbnb pitch deck that used to raise over $600,000 in eight months after its pitch presentation and made it more powerful for the modern audience.

The pitch deck has 10 slides and includes the introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, market validation slide, market size slide, product slide, business model slide, market adoption slide, competition slide, and competitive advantage slide.

You can use this evergreen pitch deck template to pitch a new product or introduce a new startup company to find investors. Feel free to customize the Airbnb pitch deck template by editing the text in the slides, changing the layout and background images. You can also change the icons and tables.

7. Uber Pitch Deck by Venngage

Price: Free to View, Subscription-based to Download

Venngage recreated the famous Uber pitch deck that raised millions of dollars from investors. It took the already successful pitch deck and improved on its weak slides. You can use the pitch deck template to design your compelling pitch deck.

The great thing about this pitch deck is that it encompasses every aspect of your startup. There are 25 slides in the Uber pitch deck template which you can customize and even delete entire slides. You can also change the background images, color scheme, text, font, pie charts, tables, and even upload new images.

Pitch Deck FAQ

Use Your Startup Pitch Deck to Raise Money From Investors

Startups struggle to get funding for their ideas at the early stage. However, it does not always have to be the case. With your startup pitch deck, you can raise lots of money from investors and grow at a rapid pace.

Creating a startup pitch deck will not automatically attract money from investors, rather creating an investor-friendly startup pitch deck will get you the funding you need to grow your startup.

Your pitch deck has to have an excellent design, be concise, have the right information, and follow other rules used by companies who succeeded with their startup pitch deck.

Big companies like Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, LinkedIn, Square, Buzzfeed, Youtube, and others used startup pitch decks to raise money from investors. Luckily they have made the exact pitch deck they used to raise millions of dollars individually on the public space. What you need to do is check them out, study them, and use the lessons learned to build your startup pitch deck.

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