Successful pitch decks have 12 things in common, from founders who've raised millions

Whether it is to get a bank loan, win over investors, or acquire customers, pitching is an important part of the journey. You need to convince people to buy into your product or service.

This year will be different even though funding for startups had hit a record high. According to The New York Times, the start-up world is no longer easy money, and research firm PitchBook shows that in the first three months of 2022, venture funding in the US is going to go down. This is an 8% decrease compared to last year, which means that entrepreneurs need to be aware of the change.

At the risk of sounding cliche, what goes up must go down. As individual limited partners, investors in most small to mid-sized venture capital funds watch the market shrink their net worths, it is inevitable that you would see caution everywhere.

She told Insider that fear in venture is one of the few things in finance that actually trickles down.

Being a masterful storyteller suddenly becomes a critical competitive edge for investors, and decks are still the Storytelling instrument of choice.

Insider publishes pitch decks from startup founders who have raised capital, and they also share many techniques. We sorted through our library to find out what makes a successful pitch deck.

Dominic- Madori Davis contributed to the article.

Courtesy of Alix Greenberg

ArtSugar is an online art store and gallery.

$500,000 was raised in July 2021.

The ArtSugar customer was broken down by Alix Greenberg in her pitch deck. She gave survey data on how likely customers were to return for another purchase.

A-Champs broke down its target customers and the pain points they face. Afrocenchix highlighted customer retention in its deck, while showing it had plenty of room to grow with new customers.

ArtSugar has a pitch deck.

Courtesy of A-Champs

A-Champs is a line of connected devices and training programs.

The seed round was raised to $124,000.

Kilian Saekel, a co-owner of A-Champs, showed how his company has grown by dedicating a slide to revenue, showing how he had made $600,000 in his first year.

Papa, an eldercare startup, used a timeline of its milestones to show investors that the company was scaling.

A-Champ has a pitch deck.

Seraphina Therapeutics

The company sells a supplement called Fatty15.

Series A was raised to $11.2 million.

An essential fat, C15, is now sold as a supplement through a company. The most challenging part of building her pitch deck was transforming the rigorous scientific studies into information investors would understand.

Depending on their background, we either lean heavier into the science background or into the commercialization.

See the pitch deck of Fatty15 here.

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