Pitch Deck India.
Know exactly where you stand.

An ideal pitch deck is 10–14 slides: cover, problem, solution, market size, product/demo, business model, traction, competitive landscape, team, financials/projections, ask (use of funds + milestones), and appendix (optional). Shorter is better — investors are more impressed by a crisp 10-slide deck than a 25-slide opus. The appendix can contain detailed financials, unit economics, and product screenshots for follow-up due diligence.

Indian VCs are sceptical of top-down market sizing ("the Indian EdTech market is ₹200,000 Cr, we plan to capture 1%"). Preferred approach: bottom-up sizing — "There are 2 lakh private schools in India. Our target customer is a school with 500+ students in metro and tier-1 cities — approximately 15,000 schools. At ₹2 lakh/year ACV, that is a ₹300Cr addressable market." Then layer in international opportunity or adjacent segments to show the total potential is much larger.

For early-stage (pre-Series A): paying customer count and logos, MoM or QoQ revenue growth rate, and net revenue retention. For Series A stage: ARR or TTM revenue, YoY growth rate, LTV:CAC ratio, and gross margin. For PE/growth equity: EBITDA or EBITDA margin, revenue growth rate, and customer concentration. Always show the trend over 8–12 months, not a single point-in-time number — trend is more credible than any individual data point.

The financial section (1–2 slides) should show: (1) Historical P&L summary — 2–3 years of actuals (revenue, GM, EBITDA); (2) 3-year forward projection — revenue, GM, EBITDA with key assumptions; (3) Key metrics table — ARR, MoM growth, LTV:CAC, gross margin, burn rate; (4) Use of funds — pie chart or table showing how the raised capital will be allocated (e.g., 40% product, 30% sales & marketing, 20% operations, 10% working capital); (5) Milestones — what you will achieve by the end of the funding period (ARR target, product milestones, team size).