Cover
One sentence company description. Logo. Tagline. Round size (optional). Contact. Nothing else. Investors open dozens of decks — your cover is a handshake, not a presentation. Founders who put five bullet points on a cover signal they don't know what their company does.
Problem
Who has the pain? How often? What do they do about it today, and why is that inadequate? Three questions, three answers, one slide. The best problem slides make investors feel the pain viscerally — a number ("Finance teams spend 14 hours per month reconciling this manually") beats a vague claim every time.
Solution
One clear statement of what you do, followed by the mechanism — how you solve it, not just that you solve it. Avoid feature lists. The solution slide should answer: "So what exactly does your product do, in one breath?" If it takes three bullets to explain, keep editing.
Market Size (TAM / SAM / SOM)
Bottom-up, not top-down. "Global logistics market is $9T" tells investors nothing about your actual opportunity. Show your specific beachhead, size it from first principles, and be honest about your serviceable share. A credible $500M market beats a fabricated $10B market every time. Inconsistent TAM numbers across slides are the most common flag in AI consistency checks.
Product
Screenshots, a demo flow, or a short video. Not a feature list. Show the product doing the thing that solves the problem. If your product isn't built yet, show a prototype, wireframe, or architecture diagram. Investors fund products they can visualise.
Traction
Revenue, growth rate, retention, pipeline, signed LOIs, waitlist size, pilot results — whatever you have. Show the trend, not just the current number. A chart that goes up and to the right with a credible Y-axis beats a table of raw numbers. If you're pre-revenue, show leading indicators: signed pilots, design partners, waitlist conversion rate.
Business Model
How do you make money? What's the pricing, who pays, how often. Include one unit economics summary if you have data: CAC, LTV, payback period. At Seed, rough estimates are fine. At Series A, investors expect actuals.
Team
Why are you the right team to win this market? Not CVs — relevant credibility. Domain expertise, prior exits, technical depth, operator experience. If you have advisors with strong signal, one line each. Keep it to founders and key hires only.
Ask / Use of Funds
Amount, allocation (engineering / sales / marketing / ops), and the milestone the round is designed to reach. The milestone should be the thing that makes the next round fundable. Investors calculate whether the raise is enough to get there — if it isn't, that's a pitfall (see: How Much to Raise).