A free, essential resource for life science founders
The investor slide deck is one of the most important documents you can make as you persuade stakeholders to invest in your ideas and discoveries. A strong slide deck will draw engagement from investors, partners, and other important decision makers.Â
When they invest their time in you, you’ll increase your chances of obtaining funds and closing deals. At the very least, you’ll gather sage advice that can help you grow and commercialize your world-changing innovations.
Producing a strong slide deck requires knowing what you need to include and how to express what you’re including in your slides. That’s why I produced a free investor slide deck for aspiring life science founders to use.
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The contents of the slide deck template
The investor slide deck template covers the major components of what you need to explain to anyone who’s watching your presentation. Whether it’s a pitch competition, a private meeting, or a mentorship session at an incubator, almost everyone who’s watching your presentation will want to know several things about your company:
- The problem: What technological, scientific, or clinical challenges are you proposing to address with your solution? Answer this question from the perspective of your customers and the investors you’re reaching out to.
- The solution: How will your offering solve the problem you’ve addressed? Here, explain how your idea can benefit your customers and make it worth the financial and time investment required to implement it. This is also where you can explain how your solution works, such as a mechanism of action.
- The market landscape: How much is your solution worth? Who else is trying to produce solutions to the problem you’ve raised? How much of the market are you expecting to capture at the customer level if your solution works? These are the questions you’ll need to answer in this section.
- The team: Whose help did you enlist to develop and commercialize your solution? This section should also include advisors who are providing you with advice to steer your company in a sustainable and ethical direction.
- The business model: How will you establish your company’s financial operations? Here, you will discuss how your business model can produce a profit that investors can receive should they invest in your company. Include primary revenue sources and discuss how you plan to use any proposed funds.
- The road map: Where will you take your company if you receive funds? In this section, you will need to establish clear milestones that demonstrate progress towards bringing your solution to market. This can include preclinical testing, clinical trials, partnership deals, or other important events that draw you closer to your goals.
- Your requests: Consider the following questions when filling this section out: How much money are you requesting in your financial rounds? When do you need the money by, and what will you use the money for? What type of people are you connecting with to grow your company?
The story behind the slide deck template
I’ve been reading several books about the biotech industry. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, The Billion Dollar Molecule by Barry Werth, and Building Backwards to Biotech by Stephanie J. Wisner are just a few of these books, all of which you can read too. Across these books, a common theme emerged: the companies that received the most funding received it through a painstaking process of communicating research to people with very little time for biotech founders.
The investors wanted to evaluate the companies they spoke with, but weren’t always receiving the clearest messaging. Conversely, the biotech founders sought support from investors but consistently encountered communication barriers that led to rejection without a fair chance.
I spoke with several venture capital investors and biotech incubators to see if these stories matched their experiences of evaluating and assisting new biotech companies. Amid those conversations, every one of them highlighted just how important a strong biotech investor slide deck was for a life sciences startup. Many of these investor groups also provided their feedback on my slide deck and made sure the content inside was as relevant for the biotech founder as possible.
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If you still need assistance with your slide decks, GenoWrite can help. We review slide decks and provide timely, pertinent feedback that helps you communicate your research clearly to any kind of audience, investors included.
