Born and raised in Toronto, he’s helped build businesses on a global scale with stints in New York and London along the way. To date, he has crafted more than 50+ investor presentations that have gone on to raise more than $600M+ USD in funding for organisations across 14 countries. Alex has worked with some of our LifeScience ORG's founders (thank you Zahra Jawad) , helping them create stories that resonate with investors. Throughout his career, he’s collaborated with clients that include MIT, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Telefonica, Nissan & AB InBev to launch iconic marketing initiatives across Europe and North America.
How many pitch decks do you need to fundraise?
STORY, a well know US pitch deck consultancy firm, collated 21 investor opinions on how many pitch decks you need. In total, investors recommended five different versions – but only two or three were important.
As an early stage founder you want to avoid "death by Powerpoint".
It is perfectly OK to run through 100+ slides in a 40 minute presentation – Prof. Randall Peterson has shown us that it is possible. But please do not send 100 slides to an investor as a follow-up.
Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. A life science founder therefore needs (at least) three different presentation decks. Each deck needs to exactly tell your story but with different levels of detail. First, the elevator pitch, for when you first present your idea in a very short Zoom meeting or to a live audience – less than 10 minutes. Your longer noncon deck that you send to investors and discuss in your first 45 minutes pitch. And third, the in-depth, usually confidential deck (ideally a virtual version and an email version).
Alex, who works on the pitch decks of the founders in Techstar and the Google For Startups Accelerator, will walk us through creating these three different pitch deck versions for your venture. In this session we will focus on 1. structure (what to include in which version and in how much detail) and 2. visual presentation so you can grab the investor's attention on day one and keep them engaged and hooked until the ink has dried.
For more than 15+ years, Alex has helped organisations big and small successfully build their brands and “tell better stories”.