Katzenbar Limited

The Pitch Deck for our Equity Investors is a brief presentation that you will give over Zoom.

• It should give an overview of your opportunity and your current traction.
• It should help you tell a compelling story about your business opportunity.
• It should motivate why Investors should give you their money.

The primary goal of the Pitch Deck is not to secure the funding – it is to get Investors interested and want to move to the next step = Question & Answer discussions.

Thus it needs to be a short slide presentation – ideally 5-7 slides, 5-10 minutes duration.
 

Pitch Decks obviously vary from industry to industry and company to company, but usually the format is

• Start with a few slides explaining the Opportunity

        = problem, solution, maps, site plan, pricing, competitor analysis, etc.

• Then, Amount and Use of Funds i.e. the high-level budget – possibly a pie chart.

        Ask for a specific amount not different amounts, also no ‘contingency’.

• Next, the annual Revenue & Profit projections for 3-5 years – again possibly a graph.
• Finally, who the full-time Directors will be, and their relevant Experience.

Below are somekey things our Investors will want to see.

• Make it clear which company is receiving the investment and selling their Shares.
• How much money you are asking for in this Round of funding – typically to cover the next 9-12 months or 12-18 months.
• What you will achieve with this money, i.e. the key deliverables.
• Whilst it is good to share your vision, be clear what the Investor should expect from this Round of funding (your vision will probably require additional funding at a later date).
• Investors get many pitches that are just concepts, these are rarely fundable.

      Thus, you need to differentiate your opportunity from these -

• If you have a location, include a Map - this helps make your opportunity more ‘tangible’.  Also, location can be an important factor for some businesses – logistics, demand, raw material, etc.
• Only include your full-time Directors and their relevant Experience (include a photo of each Director),  i.e. the people who will be leading the company and will be legally accountable.  n.b. Investors are assessing if they can trust the Directors to grow their money.

Remember to grab the audience’s attention in the first 30 seconds.

There are many other factors that make each opportunity unique, highlight your specific differentiators.
 

Style / format of the Pitch Deck-

• Use large fonts and bullet points.
• Avoid large paragraphs or blocks of text.  Often slides have too many words - you don't want the audience to read the slides you want them to listen to you.
• Don’t use abbreviations unless they are common.
• Show amounts in US$ or £ Sterling or Euros, rounded to the nearest 1,000 or 10,000.
• Show staff costs under the business area where they are employed, not as salaries (i.e. marketing / operations / development / etc.)

Finally, don't try to educate the Investors, rather use the limited time to build Trust.

Following the above guidance will re-assure the Investor that this opportunity is ready for funding, that you have already made progress, understand your market, and have the right people leading the company.
 

Remember to make the Pitch Deck clear and memorable about your Opportunity

and how the Investor will make money.

As an example –

In a Real Estate opportunity, as well as the Amount being asked for and the number of houses -

• The 1st thing we usually look for is a Map showing where the property is in the country.  Remember the Investors are international and may not know your country.
• Then a Map zoomed in to show the location in more detail - local amenities and roads are usually important for Real Estate.
• Next, we look for a Site Plan.
• Then, the Architect's drawings of what the houses will look like. 
• Next would be the Quantity Surveyor estimates at a high level to show what the money will be Spent upon.
• Then the Revenue and Profitability. 
• Finally, who are the Directors, and do they have relevant Experience.