How to make a pitch deck: the TechAngels guide

By TechAngels · Published 17 July 2026

A pitch deck has one immediate purpose: earn a serious conversation with an investor. It does not close the round, substitute for diligence or prove that the company will succeed.

For a first approach to TechAngels, ten core slides are usually enough. A founder may need an extra slide for a complex route to market or regulated product, and supporting detail can sit in an appendix. Treat ten as a discipline, not an eligibility rule.

What a pitch deck is for

The reader should be able to explain the company after one pass: who has the problem, what the product changes, why this team can deliver it, what evidence exists and what the proposed investment will buy. If one of those answers is missing, visual polish will not repair the argument.

Do not hide uncertainty. Investors expect an early-stage company to have unanswered questions. They do expect the founder to know which questions matter and to distinguish measurements from assumptions.

How long and how simple

Aim for ten core slides, with one principal claim on each. If a slide needs three headings and a paragraph of explanation, it probably contains more than one claim. Move evidence that supports but does not advance the main argument into an appendix.

On design, favour large readable type, one idea per slide, plenty of white space, a consistent look, and as few words as the point allows. Use a real screenshot or a simple diagram instead of a wall of text wherever you can. Avoid jargon and acronyms a non-specialist would not follow; angels invest across sectors and will not stop to decode your vocabulary. The deck should be legible on a laptop and still make sense if someone flicks through it in two minutes.

The slide-by-slide structure

The order below is the classic structure TechAngels has recommended to founders, modernized. Treat it as a spine, not a rulebook: the slides matter more than their exact sequence, and a strong deck sometimes opens with the problem rather than the market. What does not change is that each of these questions gets answered somewhere, on its own slide.

1. Title and one-line pitch

The first slide needs the company name and a sentence a stranger could repeat accurately. “We help dental clinics fill last-minute cancellations automatically” identifies a customer, problem and action. “We are reinventing how the world works” does not.

2. Problem

Name the customer and the main problem. Quantify its cost, frequency or urgency where reliable evidence exists. Listing four unrelated problems usually means the target customer or use case is still unclear.

3. Solution

Explain what changes for the customer and why the proposed approach is materially better than the current one. A catalogue of features forces the reader to infer the value; do that reasoning on the slide instead.

4. Product

Show the actual product: a screenshot, workflow, device image or concise explanation of how someone uses it. For a product that cannot yet be demonstrated, say what has been built and what remains. Do not use a conceptual diagram to imply functionality that does not exist.

5. Market

Start with the segment the company can plausibly reach, then show how it expands. Cite external market data and expose the assumptions behind bottom-up estimates. A large global category is not evidence that this company can acquire customers within it.

6. Business model and financials

Explain who pays, how much, how often and what it costs to serve them. Show the few assumptions that drive the forecast rather than a precise five-year curve with no derivation. If distribution is the company’s central risk, use a separate go-to-market slide and move detailed financials to the appendix.

7. Traction

Choose metrics that reveal customer behaviour: active use, retention, paid pilots, recurring revenue, renewal or a sales cycle that is becoming more predictable. Downloads, registered accounts and an unqualified pipeline need context. Use dates and define the period measured.

8. Competition

Include direct competitors, indirect alternatives and the current behaviour you want customers to abandon. State the proposed advantage and the evidence for it. A two-axis chart is useful only when the axes describe criteria customers actually use to choose.

9. Team

Connect each founder’s relevant experience to a risk in the business. Job titles and employer logos are not substitutes for that explanation. If the team lacks commercial, regulatory or technical capability essential to the plan, acknowledge the gap and state how it will be filled.

10. The ask

State the amount, expected runway and milestones. Break the use of funds into meaningful categories, but avoid false precision. The investor needs to understand what becomes demonstrably different if the round is completed.

The email deck and the live deck are different

The same content works two ways, and most founders build only one version. The deck you email has to stand on its own, because you are not there to narrate it. It needs enough words on each slide that a reader flicking through at their desk gets the full argument without you, and an appendix at the back for the detail that would clutter the main flow. The deck you present live is the opposite: fewer words, bigger visuals, one point per slide, because you are the narration and the slides are the backdrop. Text-heavy slides fight you when you are speaking.

For most founders the first contact with an investor is a sent deck, so build the standalone version first and strip it down for the room later. When TechAngels receives an application, the deck usually arrives before any founder does, which means the sent deck has to make the case entirely on its own.

How TechAngels reads your deck

Your deck is the first filter, and the funnel is narrow. In 2025 the TechAngels network reviewed more than 300 startups and selected 81 to pitch to members. Most of that filtering happens on the deck, before any live conversation, so the sent deck has to survive on its own merits.

Screeners compare the application with the network’s published criteria: the founders’ relevant experience, the market, the maturity of the product and whether the proposed financing fits the network’s scope. State the evidence for each point instead of mirroring the criteria with unsupported adjectives. The full investment criteria and selection process explain what happens before a company is invited to pitch.

A final check before you send: make sure each slide carries one clear message and that the whole story is simple, credible, and convincing. An investor should finish your deck able to answer why this problem matters, why now, why your solution is credible, why customers will buy, why your team can execute, and why the opportunity is worth their time.

Before sending it

Read the deck once without speaking. Every acronym, chart and transition must make sense on its own. Check that dates and units appear on metrics, sources sit beside external market figures and the amount on the ask slide matches the financial model. Move supporting detail (not unresolved contradictions) to the appendix.

Then give the file to someone who does not know the company and ask them to describe the customer, product, evidence and funding ask. Their errors identify what the deck failed to communicate.

TechAngels reported that more than 300 startups were reviewed and 81 were selected to pitch in 2025. The deck carries an important part of that screening, together with the application and any follow-up information. Before submitting, compare it with the network’s investment criteria and selection process. The archived Pitch Deck Guidelines and general rules for pitches remain useful as short final checks.