The pitch deck that raised $12M seed round

Fundraising support for a Latin American e-commerce aggregator

The Opportunity

The market for US Amazon e-commerce aggregators has exploded over the last couple of years with the emergence of multiple unicorn companies. Our client has seen the opportunity to leverage the success of the proven model and build a leading e-commerce aggregator in the relatively untapped LATAM market. Having assembled the team and achieved some initial traction, the company was faced with the challenge of securing a sizable seed round. The funding could be used to rapidly acquire new companies and scale operations before other incumbents seize the same opportunity.

Pitch deck challenges

  • Text-heavy slides and outdated feel

The deck had a strong ‘investment banking’ feel, driving investors to complain that it ‘was too difficult to get through the slides’. Both the presentation of the content and the visuals used had an outdated feel, which didn’t help to create the much-needed impression of a successful, consumer-focused company.

  • Lack of a clear, connected narrative

Even if there is good information on standalone slides, the lack of a ‘red thread’ connecting the entire narrative can negatively affect results. While fairly informative, the deck did not excite the investors, who struggled to understand why and how the company will lead the category going forward.

  • Massive gaps in the storyline

The deck lacked vital information about the competition, the company’s positioning, and its future go-to-market plans. While the founders deemed some of that information unnecessary, its absence was clearly hurting their fundraising efforts, with investors lacking the confidence in the team’s ability to understand the market and execute on the strategy.

HOW WE HELPED

1. Building a coherent, clear, and attractive investment story

  • Re-building the narrative from scratch with a more intuitive, investment-focused flow
  • Updating the titles and copywriting to feature more powerful language and reducing the amount of text for readability and impact
  • Identifying gaps in the narrative from an investor perspective and working with the client team to fill them
  • Expanding the traction story to lead with number-based evidence on the company’s ability to execute
  • Shifting the focus from what the company does to why it will be the category leader, ensuring that investors are excited about the opportunity

HOW WE HELPED

2. Filling the gaps in positioning and strategy

  • Researching the competition, including existing competitors’ positioning, strategies, customer focus, and capabilities
  • Building an attractive positioning story relative to the competition by narrowing down the category in which the business operates, taking it from the global e-commerce marketplace aggregators market to a more specific LATAM segment
  • Strong focus on correctly portraying business fundamentals to prove that the company has what it takes to build strong competitive moat and lead its category
  • Conducting a deep-dive on the execution strategy, including the vision for growth, go-to-market strategies, marketing tactics, and product development timelines

HOW WE HELPED

3. Creating outstanding design to support the narrative

  • Completely re-building the look & feel of the brand; creating new brand assets and materials
  • Using the existing brand voice and values to create a more modern, consumer-focused spin on the presentation materials
  • Creating a style and visuals that effectively position the company as the leading brand of the future that will appeal to target customers; this is aimed at building investor confidence in the team’s ability to understand modern consumers and effectively sell to them
  • Smart infographics and illustrations to reduce the visual load of text-heavy slides

The result

Within two weeks, we managed to completely turn around the boring, text-heavy banking slide deck into an impactful, attractive presentation that clearly explained why the company is positioned to be a future leader in the space.

  • $12M in Seed Funding from Tier-I US investors
  • Outstanding feedback for the deck created from investors, with deck itself featured in Business Insider