Here’s What Investors Actually Want to See in Your Pitch Deck
Raising a seed round is widely considered a critical milestone for an early-stage startup. To secure funding, you need a pitch deck that pinpoints your vision.
Y Combinator recently shared a practical template to help founders tell their story with clarity and focus. Below are the key steps with examples:
Start with a title slide
The cover page should state the company name and a one-line description of what you do. The opening line sets the stage and tells an investor instantly what your company offers.
Example: Kuanta: Agentic Infrastructure for Startup Scouting & Evaluation.
Set the stage with a problem
Next, you pinpoint the pain that you identify or experience. Make this human and relatable, even more so if you’re selling technology.
Example: Scouting & Evaluation has not kept pace with the market. Startup volume has exploded, yet with most intelligence tools, the high potentials still slip through the cracks.
Provide the cure
Then, you present the product or service that solves the problem we have just addressed. Make it short, sweet, and understandable.
Example: Kuanta offers a platform that guides you in 5 steps from the first scouting discovery until the final deep evaluation.
Proof that you’re real
After that, it’s time to show that the proof is in the pudding. You display early signs of progress and market validation.
Example: We are the largest validated startup database across Europe & Asia. Backed by institutions and trusted by tier-1 organizations.
Why you’re special
Next up, you present the industry-specific insights or technology that differentiate you from others.
Example: ‘Our complex scouting comes pre-evaluated and we offer relevant matching without the need for a pitch deck.’
Time to talk business
Now it’s time to share how you’ll generates revenue. It might still be too early for you to tell, and you’re still in trial or experimenting with different models, but it’s essential to share.
Example: your business model may include monthly fees, free trials to increase adoption, optional API and white-label partnerships.
The size of the prize
You’ll also present the market, the business opportunity and what potential your company has within that space. We recommend to combine a top-down with a bottom-up approach.
Example: The global venture capital market sits at $453 billion, with around $7.9 billion spent on evaluation and analytics AND there are 50 million new startups each year where we predict to perform 500k evaluations per month.
The dream Team
Here you introduce the founders, and other key members of your team. Address why they are suited to tackle this problem.
Example: The founding team has fintech & leadership experience, senior AI engineers, full-stack developers, and industry advisors.
The big question
And finally you present the ask: how much money is your company raising and what you plan to accomplish with it.
Example: The current raise is $X million in seed funding to scale from MVP to a full product, expand into international markets, invest in R&D and marketing, and reach Series A–ready milestones within 12 to 18 months, with a 24-month runway.
Kuanta evaluates startups across 19 industry verticals, each with its own scorecard, its own warning signs, and its own definition of what good looks like. We scout across 3.7 million validated profiles using semantic matching that finds companies by what they do, not by what label they carry. We built it this way because the old way stopped working. Curious what your startup looks like for investors?
Book a demo with us today.
