VC Fundraising Pitch Deck

GitClear is a developer productivity tool that performs code analysis for technical managers. The software provides extensive insights using data from a team’s code repositories. I worked with founder Bill Harding, senior developer Matthew to design the initial fundraising deck used to raise venture capital.

Defining The Problem

External interest in products like GitClear was apparent and growing — our closest competitor GitPrime was acquired in 2019 for $170 million. However, we didn’t have the resources to run mass marketing campaigns or grow the company to a scale that would be profitable. That is, without external funding.

Our beta version of GitClear was released in 2017, with subscriptions opening in late 2018. After working out some kinks and getting valuable feedback from our early adopters, founder Bill was ready to start VC fundraising.

Identifying desired Outcomes

The first step I took was to think about the ideal outcome for Bill and GitClear. I also put myself in the shoes of the end user (in this case, investors) to identify what might sway them in a pitch meeting. I decided to write a few user stories based on these viewpoints:

• As a business owner, I want to receive funding from folks in our industry that believe in our product and align with our values.

• As a business owner, I want to effectively and accurately communicate our how my tool works, what our business objectives are, and what my plan is for the future.

• As an investor, I want to know that a I’m investing in a promising company with a clear plan and an obvious path to success.

• As an investor, I want to feel l confident in a return on my investment.

Designing a solution

I worked quite closely with Bill on this project, iterating several times. We came up with a list of key talking points, with Bill providing a rough outline of content for me to copyedit and add to our designed slides.

Because GitClear is a technical tool, some of the content was a bit dry, especially for folks who aren’t developers. I decided to create a suite of characters to help present graphs and data in a more engaging way.

I chose to use a variety of body shapes, skin tones, and genders in the illustrations. My favorite kind of illustrations are relatable to the audience, letting individuals spot a bit of themselves in them. I also believe that representation matters, especially in the tech industry.

I chose several abstract shapes to add dimension and anchor the content from slide to slide. On a broader level, these shapes represented the fog or confusion that often clouds developer productivity metrics. For the accent colors, I used bright hues that aligned with GitClear’s site styles.

For the structure of the presentation, we presented an inefficiency that prevents accurate developer productivity tracking, followed by GitClear’s solution and a testimonial about the tool from a current client.

Measuring the outcome

As of my departure from the GitClear team, the pitch deck was actively being used in fundraising presentations. Here are a few of the things I learned:

Key Takeaways

• Ask the experts of your product why they use it. Bill and I received great feedback from our current clients about why they chose GitClear over our competitors. These thoughts helped solidify our product roadmap and gave us an opportunity to prove that we already have paying users in our corner. Similarly, working directly with Bill was a great resource. As the founder of the company, he knows virtually everything about its inner workings, making his insights invaluable during slide creation.

• Think outside the box with projects that seem creatively constrained. Everyone has made a PowerPoint before, but using the same presentation slide format over and over will not get anyone’s attention. Challenging the usual templates of a slide presentation was a fun aspect of this project.

• Use visuals to tell a compelling story. Presentation slides shouldn’t be overly wordy, since much of the content being delivered is done verbally by the presenter. Illustrations and graphics play a major role in tying slides and speech together., so keep the oral presentation in mind when designing visuals.

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