Deck design for a $450M Series B robotics raise

A full redesign for an AI robotics company raising $450M: next-gen, institutional and on brand.

At a glance

Series B closed

$450M

For an AI robotics company.

Two conceptsIn two days
One chosenNext-gen and institutional
Full deck40+ slides
$450M closedSeries B

First concepts in

Two days

Two directions, both next-gen and institutional

The deck

40+ slides, one document

On the company’s brand

Client

AI robotics company

Robotics
AI

Scope

Two design concepts
Full deck design

The challenge: a frontier company in a dated deck

The deck

Over 40 slides, written and with the content in place. The design looked dated, and a round this size needed it to look like the company.

The timing

Investor meetings were already in the calendar, so the first design concepts had to land within two days.

What we learned: why design matters more as rounds get bigger

In randomised tests with nearly 35,000 investors, design changed how a deck was read, not whether it was funded.

+⅓ more time spent on a deck with better visual design
2x+ positive reactions, the same lift as better content
$18.8B raised by robotics by mid-2026, more than in all of 2025
$1B+ several robotics rounds this year, and a $450M deck gets compared with all of them

Only the substance moved willingness to invest, so design’s job is to get the substance read. And when the product is frontier AI, a deck that looks five years old makes the company look dated.

Sources: D. Blaseg and S. Mayer, Content vs. Design in Startup Pitch Decks, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2025 (nearly 35,000 investors); Crunchbase News, robotics sector snapshot, 22 June 2026 ($18.8B, against $15B in all of 2025; $1B+ rounds for Saronic, Neura Robotics, Skild AI and Shihang Intelligent).

What a deck at this size has to look like

Four standards every slide had to meet.

Next-gen enough to match the technology
Institutional enough to match the cheque: clean layouts, restrained colour, charts like a growth-equity memo
Consistent across 40+ slides, so a long deck reads as one document
On the company’s brand, so deck, website and product look like one company

What we did: two concepts, then the full deck

Design only, with the team’s story and numbers kept as written.

Two concepts in two days
Two distinct directions, each balancing next-gen and institutional, for the team to choose from.
Full deck design
The chosen concept built out across all 40+ slides, from the cover to the appendix.
One set of design rules
Type, colour, layout and chart styles that every slide follows, so the long deck holds together.
Technical slides that read at a glance
The model, data and deployment slides redesigned so a generalist follows them in seconds.
Content kept as written
The team’s story and numbers stayed the same. The design’s job was to make them land.

Results

$450M Series B closed
2 days to the first two design concepts
40+ slides that read as next-gen and institutional at once, on the company’s brand
Content kept as written; the design made it land