There’s no shortage of “improving” startups, but it’s rare to see one raise $41 million.
That’s what the Spanish startup StudentFinance pulled a few weeks ago. Today we take a closer look at the pitch deck the company used to make it happen.
StudentFinance shared a slightly redacted slide deck; removed sensitive images of revenues, costs and unit economics. Everything else is according to plan.
Cover glass
Mission snapshot
Occasional shot
Problem image
Solution slide
Value Proposition Snapshot Part 1
Value Proposition Snapshot Part 2
Business model snapshot
Technology image
Snapshot of metrics
Road map image (marked as a “pop-up” image)
Geographic drop-down slide (labeled as a “drop-down” slide)
Growth history and trajectory section (marked “expansion” slide)
Team shot
Contact picture.
To raise $41 million, the company needs solid traction and a huge market. I’m not surprised to see that these parts of the story in particular have been very well covered.
Building a company is building the future, and the ability to have a clear vision of the future is essential. The second slide of StudentFinance’s pitch deck sets the tone for what’s to come.
It’s a BHAG, as they call it in the industry – a big, hairy, audacious goal.
StudentFinance is very clear about what they’re building and who they’re building it for, and they really help investors dream with the founders.
This slide invites investors to join this journey, which is what all startups should be doing in pitches.
What is the big goal, the big change you want to see in the world? Bring it to life and you’ll make a great first impression.
The company goes from a great mission to discussing what the opportunity looks like.
From there he goes to this slide and talks about the three big problems that stand in the way of a global comprehensive approach to skills development.
A clear and well-articulated problem statement goes a long way in helping the investor get an idea of how big, serious, and urgent the problem is.
Ideally, it should also indicate how prevalent the problem is (ie, how many people experience it).
Breaking down the problem into three easy-to-grasp segments is particularly elegant.
Funding is obvious, people worry about money – but job hunting and career guidance are less obvious parts of the challenge at first glance.
Bringing it to life with the short example questions below helps humanize the issue. All very well. I would expect pretty strong metrics from a company that makes over $40 million.
Of course, I have nothing to compare it to, so I don’t know if these metrics are actually good or great, but investors must have seen something.
But the win here is identifying and reporting on metrics that seem key to the company: Number of people retrained and value of tuition are key numbers (although I can’t figure out what ISA means, so maybe there’s room for improvement).
Job creation, wage generation and finding that half the people who go through the program get a job are all key indicators that make a lot of sense.
Some crucial numbers are missing here, and under any other circumstances I’d give the founders a run for their money.
The team has already let me know that “sensitive revenue, cost and unit economics slides” have been removed – and that’s exactly the kind of metrics I’d like to see here .
In the rest of this analysis, we look at three things that StudentFinance could improve or do differently, along with its complete offering!
Sources: Techcrunch | skepticsociety