The one slide 99% of founders get wrong when fundraising

Welcome to TechCrunch+ Tuesday

There’s no magic formula for creating a winning pitch deck, which is why most of the articles we run on this topic continually emphasize the fundamentals.

Venture capitalists are like judges at a gymnastics competition: each pitch will be assessed for its technical quality and difficulty, but execution and artistry is just as important.

If your deck doesn’t give prospective investors a clear idea of how you will put their money to work, you might leave their office with a logo water bottle, but you are not going home with a term sheet.

Despite its simple purpose, the Ask slide is “almost universally a struggle to get right,” says Haje Jan Kamps, who reviews five reasons why founders frequently miss the mark:

• Forgetting to include the slide altogether.
• Not naming a specific dollar amount you are raising.
• Including a valuation on the slide.
• Omitting what the funds will be used for.
• Listing a specific runway, i.e., “This will keep us running for 18 to 24 months.”

“The whole purpose of doing a fundraising process is to raise money, so you may as well go all-in with a clear ask,” writes Haje.

Thanks for reading,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

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