PITCHING TO EARLY STAGE INVESTORS

THE SLIDE DECK

Once your patent has been filed with your institution, the question of how to exploit its commercial potential will arise. One of the most popular ways is to spin out a company from the University or Research Organisation, license the patent exclusively into the company and commercialise the technology this way.

You’ll need funding so you’ll need to pitch to potential investors. In the past a full business plan was required but these days pretty much everyone works from a slide deck, which is typically a short PowerPoint presentation.

Since it’s likely that you’ll be pitching to a fund known to your institution, they will contact them and set up a first meeting. This will be a Venture Capital fund that specialise in early, high-risk technology companies.

After that it’s up to you so you’ll need to put together a slide deck.

SO WHAT IS IN THE SLIDE DECK?

Remember this is not a scientific lecture. Your audience may well have some technical background but, first and foremost, they are investors who want a return. Don’t drill down into the technical details at this stage – you can always do this later if they are interested. This is your chance to tell your story in a compelling way.

So here is a suggestion as to how to split down a slide deck.

1/ What you do

Focus on the problem, not the product, for the first two slides. Sell the story – give the investors a high-level overview of commercial area you’re operating in, how applicable it is and what impact new technology could have. Keep it high level and simple.

2/ Why you do it

What are the key issues with the current technology and how you address these – a simple one-line summary of the technology. No science yet.

3/ Company overview

Now they have an understanding of the market area you’re in and what issues you are addressing; introduce the company and the team.

Summarise the company that is being formed. Its IP position, R&D history, reiterate the problem it is targeting and any critical information you already have (e.g. its general regulatory position), any key external contacts. etc.

4/ The Team

Investors will invest as much in the team as the technology so this is your chance to sell yourself. You want brief biographies of the key players and their roles in the company. Emphasise any SME or Industrial experience. Include all the founders and any other senior executives that are proposing coming on board. This will most likely be a Chair at this stage.

5/ The Technology

Limit this to 2-3 slides and cover at a high level.

Slide 1 – What is the technology,

Slide 2 – How does it work,

Slide 3- How effective it is.

6/ Technology Benefits

Now go a bit more in depth about the benefits of the technology. It’s advantages and the number of people or businesses that will benefit.

7/ Market Size

Be conservative here – it’s difficult to estimate the market size without spending a fortune on marketing reports but early-stage investors won’t expect you to have this broken down too much. You do need to show some awareness of it and put some high-level returns on the investments.

8/ Manufacture and Approvals

At the moment you are likely making very small quantities in the laboratory for testing. In this slide summarise your plan to take this to the first scale up stage, not a global market stage. This could be in-house or outsourced but state the capacity following the scale up and what this addresses, for example customer qualification or initial clinical trial.

Also, whatever industrial sector you are in, there will be quality standards or regulatory pathways. Make it clear that you understand what these are at a high level and state that you intend to drill down into these to put together a clear compliance plan.

9/ Timeline and Costs

Split this into two – on the top half of the slide show the timeline from where you are now to a key value inflection point. This could be first customer adoption or the end of a first clinical trial. Add a few of the key milestones that get you to this point.

On the bottom show the funding requirements. Show the total cost and then subdivide into potential funding stages. This allows the investors to judge where the seed round fits into the overall cost to a key value point.

SO WHAT IS IN THIS BUDGET?

This is tricky as you don’t have a lot of information to go on at this point. Click on the button below to find out more information.

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