While you’re pitching your business ideas, it is necessary to put your best foot forward. Whether you are an agency, a tech startup, or just a person with some random creative idea, having a professional-looking and well-thought pitch deck, gives you a leg up and makes you a step ahead in your niche. So, if you’re looking for pitching investors to raise money for your company, it is very important to have a solid and creative pitch deck.
In simple words, Pitch Deck is all about briefing your business to another party. For example, you may explain your startup to investors or your product to a potential client in order to get them convinced of your idea or product.
There are certain mandatory features, that play a huge role in making a certain pitch deck more successful than others. Though a lot of best pitch decks have a basic outline but the ones that stand out the most, are the ones that are capable of gathering the reader’s or the investor’s attention quickly (preferably within 30 seconds of the read)! It is indispensable to know that a pitch deck might be the very first impression that an investor gets, on your business and it should look STELLAR!
It is a prominent fundraising tool for any startup, but creating a pitch deck that can win an investment is pretty daunting at times. Remember, no investor will ever invest, thinking about your team or skills but what will make them invest in a promising and profitable idea, and convincing them for that is a very strenuous task!
The Pitch Deck Outline and Structure
List of Top 25 Companies Pitch Deck
- Airbnb
- Moz
- Buffer
- YouTube
- Square
- BuzzFeed
- Foursquare City Guide
- Mixpanel
- Canvas
- Castle
- Adpushup
- Tinder
- Ooomf (Crew)
- Pendo
- Contently
- Yaydoo
- Backstartup
- Coinbase
- Front
- TeaLet
- SickWeather
- Task.ly
- Mint
The Pitch Deck Outline and Structure
Dozens of accelerators, venture funds, successful startups and internet personalities have polished their ideal content of a pitch deck that gives some insight about what is the general or basic approach followed. However, the majority of pitch decks have the same content. Pretty much every pitch deck follows this structure that consists of:
- Cover
- Problem
- Solution
- Product Demo
- Market Size
- Business model
- Competition Slide
- Underlying Magic
- Go-to-market plan
- Team slide
- Traction or milestones
- Fundraising information
Though all these basic constituents are usually redundant, few companies have made a name for themselves, with the help of their best pitch decks of all time.
List of Top 25 Companies Pitch Deck
There are few examples of top companies pitch decks that stand out and are top in their domain.
Facebook is one of the biggest companies that everyone is aware of today, but this billion-dollar company was once a startup.
Back in 2004, when Facebook wasn’t big in business, it was Mark Zuckerberg and his friend Eduardo Saverin, the co-founders of Facebook, looking for people to invest money in their growing company, just like any other entrepreneur. The success story of how they found one of the biggest companies ever, is intriguing to everyone. But like any other small business, Eduardo did go to New York, to meet potential buyers and investors for Facebook’s initial idea of advertising.
Facebook’s initial pitch deck was just a media kit, showcasing the company’s value proposition, key metrics, and marketing services online.
Their slide layout included cover, quote, product description, solution, market validation, vision, market Size, demographics, user engagement, growth metrics, services, and closing quotes.
What was unique in Facebook’s Pitch Deck?
The most unique feature of Facebook’s pitch deck was that as Facebook.com wasn’t making revenue back then, the pitch deck was also not revenue traction, but what made it a success was, they showed solid numbers about the growth metrics, customer base, and user engagement.
Airbnb
Airbnb is a popular rental online marketplace company for vacations that helps people to find and list lodges, motels, hotels, and a lot more.
However, when it comes to startups, Airbnb is the one whose success story is looked up to by a lot of entrepreneurs. Their pitch deck is a source of reference when it comes to the top pitch decks of all time. But what made Airbnb’s pitch deck differently?
Airbnb’s pitch deck is a perfect example of how to convey a message using short and simple phrases. The intro or the cover page is what catches the eyes of the investor, at the beginning itself.
Imagine, explaining something to a 7-year-old about the business, it sounds difficult to convey but to be precise, if you can’t do that with your pitch deck, then that pitch deck is certainly not what investors are looking for.
What was unique in Airbnb’s Pitch Deck??
The Airbnb summarising the problem in three simple short sentences was a unique feature of their pitch deck.
- Price is an important factor for travellers.
- Hotels are bubbles.
- And there is no way to book a room with a local or to host a spare room in your apartment.
This was the reality back then in 2009. The way the problem was summarised was pretty down to earth. There was no use of complicated Jargons, no debatable statements and the claims made were 100% straightforward verifiable claims.
Gorish Dua
Moz
The best pitch deck ever made for Moz series B fundraise was also called SEOMoz, with the help of which the company raised $18 million.
Moz is a popular tool for SEO, link building, keywords search, and analytical comparison as well. It provides all in one marketing solutions, that help any business to grow without any manual excessive work.
The Moz pitch deck was made after 5 years of the company’s existence. The pitch was somewhat on a lengthier side, but what perfectly was conveyed is the accurate details and in-depth idea of the company.
What was unique in Moz’s Pitch Deck?
What was standing out in Moz’s pitch deck was, as the company was already in business when the pitch was made, they could easily present the exact revenue rates, prices, average customer lifetime value, estimated revenue, cost of paid acquisition, etc.
Buffer
When talked about the best SaaS pitch decks, Buffer hands down takes the top position. The pitch deck is an example of how basic and simple language can have a huge impact on your investor’s mind.
This Buffer pitch deck was used to raise $3.5 million in Series-A. Buffer is a platform that helps users to share the content for social media by scheduling the posts throughout the day. These social media sites can be Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest.
The pitch deck became popular due to Buffer’s transparency. The owner decided to put that up to help the other startups to raise funds.
What was unique in Buffer’s Pitch Deck?
Quite similar to Facebook, Buffer’s pitch deck was also based on numbers and facts. These numbers were the ones that were provided by the Buffer users only. They even showed their milestones and had a pretty transparent business model to gain the investor’s attention.
LinkedIn, founded in 2002 is one of the biggest platforms for business-oriented social media interaction. Through LinkedIn, one can easily showcase their professional skills, experience, interests, and milestones.
With years passing, LinkedIn has become one of the favourite spots for recruiters and job seekers to grow a connection and be in a certain community that suits his or her niche.
When talked about the LinkedIn pitch deck, the theme of the company is clearly personified, which makes the pitch unique and appealing.
The pitch deck answers questions like:
- What is LinkedIn?
- Why is it valuable?
- How is it different?
It clearly talks about the company’s values, the values this network brings and how is it different from other social media networks.
What was unique in Linkedin’s Pitch Deck?
The detailed answers to questions are what make this pitch unique. The pitch deck also used graphics and pie charts, combined called infographics to explain the message. This pitch deck uses an extensive analogy in order to tell its investors, WHAT LINKEDIN ACTUALLY IS?
YouTube
YouTube just like Facebook doesn’t need any introduction. It is a vast platform of content creators that help in free video sharing. The platform was developed in 2005 and since then it is probably the most famous video-sharing platform in the world. With YouTube, one can easily share his or her content by creating a YouTube channel. The company was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
YouTube wanted to be the primary outlet for video sharing and that was what was portrayed in its pitch deck as well.
What was unique in YouTube’s Pitch Deck?
YouTube focused on being the biggest video sharing platform and it succeeded to do so as well. The pitch deck clearly mentioned the potential of its service and thus helped in earning a fruitful result as well. The pitch deck shows that if you understand the potential of your product and can portray that efficiently, then the pitch will always be successful.
Square
Square is an American-based financial and merchant services aggregator, a mobile payment company. The company is fulfilling the dream of bringing merchant services and mobile payment services into an easy-to-use, single service.
Square provides the transaction information to acquiring processor via an internet connection, while a small fee is paid per transaction. Thus it helps the merchants in getting credit card payments via dongle.
Square’s pitch deck consisted of in-depth details of its team, with its members being pretty experienced because of working with renowned companies. This helped in establishing social proof for square. Other than that the pitch deck also had detailed charts representing 5 years plans and the business model etc.
What was unique in Square’s Pitch Deck?
The greatest positive for the square was its company’s team. SOCIAL PROOF AND EXPERIENCE played a major role in gaining trust. Showcasing experience, is usually what creates authenticity especially when your management team has worked in Twitter, PayPal, LinkedIn, Google, and a lot more.
Along with that the business model and simple financial model, its pitch deck also depicted the company’s annual revenue and 5-year revenue rate.
Parnas Ghosh
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is a digital platform that contains various news, headlines, entertainment, and a lot more. BuzzFeed is one of the biggest digital platforms that provide information and data to millions.
With abundant features, it is popularly known for its quizzes and other than that various stuff and articles about DIY, animals, politics, and business, etc.
Talking about the BuzzFeed pitch deck, the company managed to raise 240 million dollars. Its pitch deck gives answers to questions like:
- What we are?
- Where are we headed?
Other than that it also has its revenue model depicted transparently.
What was unique in BuzzFeed’s Pitch Deck?
Similar to Square, what is unique about BuzzFeed is its SOCIAL PROOF ABOUT NUMBERS. Pitch shows the number of users visiting the website on monthly basis and also there were quotations from large sites like CNN. Other than that the questions answered make the pitch unique and trustworthy.
Foursquare City Guide
Foursquare City Guide is a famous social media networking service used by common mobile users like Android-powered phones, BlackBerry, iPhone, etc.
This app’s prime goal is to discover various business opportunities and to discover and share various business attractions around you. It helps in searching for the best places to go in an area.
The pitch deck of Foursquare City Guide uses authenticity as a tactic. It shows its user’s reviews, tweets to boost app popularity.
What was unique in Foursquare City Guide’s Pitch Deck?
The pitch deck had screenshots of tweets from the existent users, thus helping in setting social proof and authentication. This makes the investor, aware of the pre-existing user base of the app and its review among its users as well.
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is a popular platform that helps in providing real-time insights about a certain page and also gives a detailed analysis of page viewership and actions taken.
It is a business analytical search company that helps in checking user’s web and mobile applications interaction and provides tools for such targeted communication.
The pitch deck helped raise $65 million, which was the series “B” deck.
What was unique in Mixpanel’s Pitch Deck?
The pitch deck provided by Mixpanel stands out because of its chronological order. It firstly highlights the problem and then shows solutions for the same. And then ultimately depicts the competitive advantages as well. The problem-solving approach is what made the pitch deck unique and trustworthy.
Canvas
Canvas as the name suggests is a business solution, that helps in digitizing paperwork. Their prime objective is to shift the paperwork to mobile apps for quicker and easier solutions. It helps to make the process quite easier with easy to use apps and forms, thus reducing the monotonous nature of the work. The canvas pitch deck, helped them raise $9 million.
When it comes to startup decks canvas shows that simple can also be appealing and can be sometimes a lot beneficial than complex pitches.
What was unique in Canvas’ Pitch Deck?
The pitch completely stands out for how it shows, that time has evolved from primitive to digital. The digital visualization of day to day tasks, like listening to music to reading a book, shows their eye-pleasing tactics. Also, they provide information about their high profile associates, like Pepsi and how their application helped them, thus creating trust among investors. Rather than explaining who they are, they focus on how their startup will help business.
Castle
Castle is a real estate solution for owners of rental property. The primary objective is to put your property on AUTOPILOT MODE, which means the owner need not worry about the property. This reduces the usual headache of being an owner. The landlord can manage his or her property without any complex management tactics. Though the company isn’t that big its pitch deck is surely something, that has stood out.
What was unique in Castle’s Pitch Deck?
The biggest pro of the pitch was its visuals. The aesthetics and the icons were not only self-explanatory but also very easy to understand. The beginning of the pitch deck talks about how the owners wish to manage their property without the need for performing the functions of a landlord.
This makes the investors and the readers pretty clear about the idea that is meant to be portrayed. It also gives them the impression that a solution is required. Their easy to use growth plan also helps, in understanding the historical growth and the future growth insight.
Yash Gupta
Adpushup
The Adpushup is an ad optimization platform for web publishers. This platform helps the publishers check the placement, size, and types of different advertisements thus providing a lot of insight. This helps in streamlining the process, of ad placement and helps in optimization. While their sample was pretty normal and was an example of a standard pitch deck.
The numbers and statistics they could show, were the reason for the success of the pitch deck.
What was unique in Adpushup’s Pitch Deck?
The most unique feature about the pitch deck was the CASE STUDY. Case studies are not only helpful in establishing users’ trust but helps in creating an impression on the potential investors as well. This helps in selling the pitch to them with ease.
The greatest pitch decks often tell about where their business was when it started, where they are now and where they see themselves in the coming future. This gives a clear picture in the mind of the investors. Adpushup stated this very clearly. They showed their milestones over the years, to show their growing graph.
Tinder
When it comes to dating apps, Tinder is hands down the most popular one. But this famous company was once a startup as well. This brings us to its initial name, which was Matchbox. Tinder earlier called Matchbox created its pitch deck which comes in the list of some of the most successful pitch decks ever.
Tinder wasn’t the only dating app to exist but what made it unique were the features that it used. The swipe right or swipe left feature created a sense of enthusiasm and excitement among the audience. Tinder proved how to balance creativity and simplicity together and get the most amazing output, required.
What was unique in Tinder’s Pitch Deck?
Although the app presented the views in the simplest form, the pleasing feature was the real world linkage. The pitch deck raised the real question of the FEAR OF REJECTION, which is prevalent among the youth and today’s generation. This made the audience connect with them and made the investors consider their pitch. They also showed complete money-raising tactics, which gave its investors a clear understanding of the profits.
Ooomf (Crew)
The Ooomf was first discovered as an app discovery platform back in 2012. Later after raising some money the company decided to relaunch itself as a freelance marketplace to connect different web and mobile developers, in a way that will fit their niche. It, for this reason, decided to retrace the path as a startup and became a hub for freelancers doing work on various projects.
Ooomf is now known as Crew, and the creators on this site get to be picked by top companies like Apple, Google, Uber, and more. These handpicked creators can thus work on the projects they wish to.
What was unique in Ooomf’s Pitch Deck?
The pitch deck they made used, storyline to depict the ease of working on this platform. They also used graphics with minimal texts to promote the company’s theme. To depict the authenticity, they used several direct quotes from various freelancers, which helped to promote the ideology and work of the platform.
Pendo
Pendo is a product analytics platform that helps software developers create software that the audience might love, on the basis of the analysis done. They combine the analytics with real-time feedback in order to understand the user needs and preferences, their product usage patterns and user sentiments, thus helping the product developers create the most appropriate tools, providing the best product experience for users.
The biggest pro of the platform is that it doesn’t require coding. Thus when enough data is acquired, insights are drawn in order to increase user engagement.
What was unique in Pendo’s Pitch Deck?
The Pendo series B pitch deck was one of the most efficient ones to come across. Series B pitch decks often need to have more content, as by this stage the business usually has covered a lot more and has gained milestones as well. To sum this all up, in an effective way without making it monotonous is a big part of an effective series B pitch deck.
Though a lot of information needs to fit in, Pendo didn’t compromise in its simplicity and design. They used visuals wisely, using graphs, charts, and a lot more.
Contently
Contently is a highly rated content marketing solution, that includes expert content strategy, expert content marketing, and a global talent network. It helps in striving for the key elements of content marketing. These key features, that the platform includes make the marketing process easier and better. The users of the app, can grow their brands and increase their career opportunities, by creating the content that their audience loves.
What was unique in Contently’s Pitch Deck?
This pitch deck opens up with strong statistics to prove the point of the platform. It highlights the point of how the brands aren’t able to meet their content marketing goals and what solutions are required for the same. Contently also shares screenshots and experiences of their clients that make the pitch unique.
Yaydoo
Yaydoo is office management and procurement platform, that helps companies create productive workspaces. It helps companies streamline their purchasing process. With Yaydoo the businesses can interact one on one with different vendors, and negotiate the business opportunities in real-time. This helps in saving time, effort, and make the process much easier for the team.
What was unique in Yaydoo’s Pitch Deck?
The pitch deck of the company depicts the prime motto in just a few slides. This 9 slide pitch deck effectively talks about its milestones of the past two years and how the company has evolved. It also shows logos of its clients that it has worked with earlier, thus establishing the company’s social proof and face value.
Backstartup
Launched back in 2014, Backstartup is an all in one solution for companies. It helps in checking their legal, accounting and payroll, etc. The platform allows various SMEs and startups to, achieve ease when it comes to all the basic tasks mentioned above. With their impressive pitch deck, Backstartup was able to raise $905k in 3 rounds of investment.
What was unique in Backstartup’s Pitch Deck?
The biggest pro of the pitch deck is the aesthetically pleasing visuals and graphics. The 11 slide pitch deck had unique visualization in each and every slide with a pop of colour. They also go into detail about the amount of traction they have received to date and talks in-depth about the product and market Size.
Coinbase
Coinbase is one of the largest cryptocurrency transaction platforms. It helps in carrying out transactions and make the digit currency exchange easy and secure, especially bitcoin, ethereum, etc. Being the biggest Platform, Coinbase earns revenue of billions of dollars since its launch. It makes the storage and transaction of cryptocurrency easy between different countries.
What was unique in Coinbase’s Pitch Deck?
Coinbase pitch deck came at a time when the investors weren’t aware of cryptocurrency. They didn’t know its pros and cons and how was it a great alternative. The pitch deck they made was what enlightened the investors. Not only did it highlighted how the crypto was a great alternative but they also showed that the current tactics require reforms as well.
Front
Front is a customer communication platform, which helps to integrate the emails, apps, and teammates in a single view. With Front, all the emails can be seamlessly kept in a single place, from where they can be sent to the desired locations and users. It also has a chat box that helps in the collaboration of teammates in an easy way. The platform makes the process or organization and routing, seamless.
What was unique in Front’s Pitch Deck?
Front raised over $79 million in venture funding. The traction of the company is shown with the help of charts and graphs but the clearance of each slide is kept in mind. The graphics usage of the front is significant. The graphs help in explaining complex things with the help of very little text.
TeaLet
TeaLet is a world marketplace for exclusive teas. Tea is a widely used commodity but the process of tea reaching from farmers to buyers is pretty complex. The middlemen make the process inefficient. This is where TeaLet comes in handy. This web platform helps in connecting the farmers to wholesale buyers, helping in increasing the profits for the farmers, and also proving the team at lower prices to the buyers.
Their amazing pitch deck also summarises this theme efficiently through the storyline.
What was unique in TeaLet’s Pitch Deck?
The TeaLet pitch deck immediately sets up the credibility by powerful statements like,” we have sold 100,000 cups of tea in more than 20 countries”.Such powerful statements immediately help in setting the tone of the theme. They also emphasise a lot on WHY! They provide hard numbers in order to depict WHY TEALET? The design too stands out as compared to other pitch decks.
SickWeather
SickWeather is an app specially meant for analyzing human population health on the basis of various data. This app claims to predict the outbreaks of illnesses nearly 91% of the time. SickWeather has a radar that offers illness forecasts instead of the weather forecast.
It helps in forecasting and mapping the illness so that we can get the knowledge, just like one gets about rain. The app scans the social network to detect any indications of illness.
What was unique in SickWeather’s Pitch Deck?
They used videos that were appropriate for personal decks sends via mail so that the investors could see what they are dealing with. It also included the list of their clients, those were well-known people, which helped in increasing the credibility of this startup. The use of graphs was also a positive, format!
Task.ly
Task.ly is a task management platform for business professionals. With the help of this, one can easily organize the tasks of collaborating with their team, checking work progress, and carry out meetings.
The platform is an amazing alternate for unorganized emails, notes, and meets platforms and Carrie’s out the process in an efficient and seamless manner.
What was unique in Task.ly’s Pitch Deck?
Thought the pitch Deck of the app isn’t in the recommended limit of slides. This 28-page slide pitch deck includes graphics and icons placed in a manner where they are best suited. Although being long its slides contain a very little amount of text and have icons that help in explaining the pitch effectively and quickly.
Mint
Mint is a financial service tool that can be personally used by people to keep a check on their expenditure and find ways to save money. It helps in keeping a track of how much a person is spending and what are ways in which the expenditure can be decreased. It does help the user get an insight into their finances.
Though the pitch deck was never used to raise money there is still a lot that can be learned from the Deck by different startups.
What was unique in Mint’s Pitch Deck?
The most highlighted feature of the deck was its exit mechanism. The pitch deck provides various exit strategy options that make it unique. This simple deck provides a very clear view and proposition to its customers and investors, thus making it a powerful startup pitch.
Shubham Kumar
Conclusion
In a nutshell, a strong pitch deck not only enhance your chance of getting investors but also let you know what your business is all about and who your customers are. The examples of these famous startups will provide you with inspiration to create the best pitch decks to communicate your ideas, present your business or raise venture capital.
FAQs
What is a pitch deck?
A Pitch Deck is all about briefing your business to another party. For example, you may explain your startup to investors or your product to a potential client in order to get them convinced of your idea or product.
How do you pitch an idea?
Tips for pitching your idea or product to investors:
- Nail your elevator speech.
- Research your audience.
- Use realistic data (and be able to back it up)
- Tell an engaging story.
- Have a documented succession plan.
- Dress for success.
- Know your revenue model.
Which are the best startup pitch decks of all time?
Following are the best examples of startup pitch decks:
- Airbnb
- Moz
- Buffer
- YouTube
- Square
- BuzzFeed
- Foursquare City Guide
- Mixpanel
- Canvas
- Castle
- Adpushup
- Tinder
- Ooomf (Crew)
- Pendo
- Contently
- Yaydoo
- Backstartup
- Coinbase
- Front
- TeaLet
- SickWeather
- Task.ly
- Mint
