When preparing to raise venture capital, businesses need a dialed-in pitch that can wow potential investors. But VC time is precious, which leaves you limited time to sell your team and your business. That’s why your pitch deck needs to be efficient and concise.

We’ll cover how to build a successful VC pitch deck and also offer some examples of companies that built their pitch deck right.

Try TaxRobot, Get an R&D Credit of up to $250,000.

Simple & Easy Setup for Maximum Returns.

Table of Contents

What Exactly is a VC Pitch Deck?

A VC pitch deck is a set of 10-15 presentation slides that summarize your business and why investing in your business is a smart decision. The presentation should define key aspects of your business, market, and financials succinctly. A pitch deck presentation is generally created in Powerpoint, Google Sheets, or PDF format.

A VC pitch deck does not cover all aspects of your business. The focus and goal of your deck are to peak interest from the VCs to land a second meeting. In that crucial second meeting, you can go into more depth about your business with more time.

A short deck of slides allows you to give your full pitch within fifteen minutes. You should also have a high-level five-minute pitch that you can do for venture capitalists that cannot stay for the full presentation. By delivering your full presentation within fifteen minutes, you allow equal time for answering any questions the VCs may have.

Why Your Startup Needs a VC Pitch Deck

A pitch deck gives the VCs a high-level view into your business, its potential, and your ability to utilize their investment to grow your business and their potential for return. An effective presentation can excite interest and solidify your ability to raise money for your business.

Want help identifying all the tax incentives your business could qualify for? Contact us for help.

Standard Outline of a VC Pitch Deck

You can effectively deliver a successful VC pitch by following this structure for your pitch deck:

Title Slide: This is a cover slide for your presentation. It should include your company name, founder’s contact information, and company logo. You can add an elevator pitch if it is tight.
The Industry Problem/Pain Point: You need to illustrate the problem or pain point your business can solve on this slide.
Your Solution or Value Proposition: You need to communicate how you solve the industry problem and all the customer benefits of using your solution.
Product/Service Demo: You need a video demo or other visual depictions of your product/service.
Market Analysis: This slide should clearly define your market size, traction within the market, and market growth. You need to illustrate the potential of the market and your anticipated growth in the current environment.
Business Model: This slide needs to present your business model for making money.
Competition & Competitive Analysis: You need to list your top competitors and your SWAT analysis of how you measure up to your competitors.
Team: You need to give highlights of your management team and why you have confidence in their abilities. List where the team’s experience qualifies them to lead.
Financials: You should present a clear picture of revenue growth, spending, burn, and other KPIs your VCs will value. You can add an appendix for a deeper dive.
Summary/Go to Market Plan: This slide should communicate how much money you want to raise, how you’ll use the money, previous funding rounds, and current investors that have already invested.

Guy Kawasaki’s VC pitch template is a good example deck of how to pitch in ten slides.

Want an automated tax solution to enable your business to maximize its efficiency in pitching your financials to VCs? Contact us to see a demo.

5 Examples of Effective Pitch Decks

Here are five examples of effective pitch decks you’ll want to check out:

Airbnb: Their pitch deck for seed money is worth looking at if you are looking to launch in a new industry.
Uber: An excellent example of a focused pre-launch startup.
Mint: Paints an overall picture that is easy to follow. They also illustrate how to highlight an experienced team.
Facebook: This deck shows how to present key metrics and data well.
Buzzfeed: Their original pitch deck illustrates how to showcase your startup business plan in easy investor bites.

Tips for Building a Venture Capitalist Pitch

Here are some of our best pitch tips for building an effective presentation deck:

Identify your business’s strengths and vision before building your deck to define a focus for your deck. Each slide should highlight how your strengths and vision will help you achieve funding.
Pick one critical takeaway for each slide, then ensure all points, charts, and information hits that vision home.
Practice your pitch deck out loud to ensure the flow is concise and natural. You don’t want to sound rushed or disjointed. Make adjustments as necessary. Deliver your pitch to friendly partners, mentors, or first-round investors.
Create a five-minute presentation for your deck that can walk quickly through the presentation without feeling too rushed. Yes, it’s not ideal, but unfortunately a common occurrence you need to be prepared to deliver. This is the cliff-notes version of your pitch, but it’s necessary to have it ready because, too often, these meetings get cut short.

Team presenting financials in the pitch deck

You Can Create an Amazing VC Pitch Deck

Look at these examples, stick to the outline, and practice voraciously to ensure a successful pitch deck that can solidify funding. There are a million things to do when you’re in startup mode. Make time to do this well. It’s a matter of getting funded or not.

TaxRobot has an experienced team of tax professionals who can help your startup business maximize its deductions and reduce tax liabilities. Our intuitive software automatically evaluates areas of our business where you can improve efficiency and productivity to streamline your business.