Pitch Deck Teardown: Protecto’s $4M seed deck

In an period the place knowledge is king and its quantity and complexity are exploding, Protecto goals to remove the long-standing dilemma companies face between leveraging AI’s energy whereas making certain knowledge privateness. Because the adoption of generative AI instruments like ChatGPT skyrockets, wayward knowledge turns into simpler to search out, course of and do naughty issues with. Protecto’s APIs are designed to guard delicate knowledge throughout the AI life cycle whereas sustaining its utility.

The corporate introduced it raised a $4 million seed funding round led by Collectively Fund, with contributions from Higher Capital, FortyTwo VC, Arali Ventures and Speciale Make investments. This spherical boosts Protecto’s whole funding to $5 million.

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Slides on this deck

Protecto made redactions to the short-term and five-year targets and to particular particulars of the near-term product roadmap earlier than submitting its deck to TechCrunch. The timeline for the targets and milestones associated to the seed funding spherical was additionally redacted. Nonetheless, there’s lots to study from the 14-slide deck:

1. Cowl slide
2. Downside slide
3. Urgency slide
4. Platform interstitial slide
5. Know-how overview slide
6. Outcomes slide
7. Answer slide
8. Case research slide 1
9. Case research slide 2
10.  Aggressive options slide
11.  Workforce slide
12.  Go to market slide
13.  Roadmap slide
14.  Ask and use of funds slide

Three issues to like about Protecto’s pitch deck

There’s a lot lacking from this deck, however there are some good issues to spotlight, too.

Aggressive options

This slide doesn’t speak about direct rivals (there are one or two). However the firm does a great job displaying this data anyway:

[Slide 10] Aggressive options are an effective way to look into aggressive landscapes. Picture Credit: Protecto

Aggressive options are companies, strategies or approaches which are completely different from yours however that fulfill the identical buyer wants or resolve the identical issues. As an example, should you run a espresso store, a direct competitor could be one other espresso store, whereas a aggressive different may be a teahouse or a fast-food restaurant that additionally sells espresso amongst different drinks. These rivals matter as a result of they signify different options on your prospects, highlighting the significance of understanding broader market dynamics and buyer preferences.

Understanding and analyzing these aggressive options may be highly effective as an extra layer of perception, uncovering potential alternatives for differentiation and serving to to determine unmet buyer wants. Having stated all of that, Protecto ought to have included direct rivals, however this slide continues to be a fantastic instance of how a startup can discover its place out there.

Helloooo, workforce

This workforce slide is so stable — the one draw back is that they put it because the eleventh slide:

[Slide 11] A rock-solid workforce slide. Picture Credit: Protecto

To face out in a all of the sudden crowded AI area, you’d finest deliver receipts that present you’ve received the chops to tug it off. The left-hand facet of the slide has an excessive amount of information (why are funding, product and prospects on the workforce slide?) however the half on the fitting has a ton of nice data.

In response to his LinkedIn, CEO Amar Kanagaraj spent virtually eight years at Microsoft, together with a stint in search and AI. CTO Baskaran Alagarsamy spent seven years as a “manager” at Apple India. I’d have beloved to see extra element on precisely what he was managing there (and why this slide says 18 years, whereas his LinkedIn says seven years), however that is the start of a very stable workforce. If I had been investing on this area, a workforce of this caliber would pique my curiosity and I might most likely arrange a gathering.

A chic answer

Privateness and AI can get brain-achingly difficult, quick. I respect Protecto’s efforts to simplify it to some extent the place most individuals can fathom what’s occurring within the tech.

[Slide 5] Take delicate, non-public knowledge. Exchange with related, pretend knowledge. Is sensible to me. Picture Credit: Protecto

Three issues that Protecto may have improved

Pitch deck design isn’t often that necessary, however the design of this deck is especially unhealthy. There are additionally much more critical flaws hidden amongst these pages.

These case research aren’t case research

In a 14-slide deck, Protecto wastes slide 4 as an interstitial (it simply says “our platform”). It then wastes two slides with the title “case studies.” Nevertheless, a extra correct time period could be “use cases.”

[Slide 8] That’s not a case research. Picture Credit: Protecto

A full case research would come with much more details about how profitable it was (did the product achieve eradicating all of the confidential knowledge? How was that measured?), how lengthy it took to combine, and the way glad the client was with the answer. Slide 9 is one other “case study” that’s related: a use case, not a case research.

The headline of a slide is a promise the remainder of the slide has to satisfy. On this case, I used to be let down each occasions, anticipating one sort of data and getting one other. Correct case research would have been actually useful in telling the story right here.

Not a fantastic “use of funds” slide

Redactions apart, there’s not a lot right here.

[Slide 14] Virtually utterly irrelevant data. Picture Credit: Protecto

The corporate got down to elevate $3 million. The usage of funds, nevertheless, is so fluffy; each bullet level right here makes me wish to ask: “But how do you know it is working?”

• Develop engineering: Sure, however why, with what objective, and the way a lot?
• Drive advertising and marketing: Sure, however with what targets? By when? How a lot development?
• Construct channel gross sales: Sure, however which channels are you going after first? Why?
• Drive developer evangelism: What does that even imply?
• Outline the class: ???

Mainly, all of that is simply corporate-grade jargon. Even when the founders themselves purchase it, buyers most likely gained’t.

Sure, it’s scary to get predictive and particular. What should you fail? All plans and projections are predictions. We all know. The buyers know. The purpose is to point out the way you’re pondering by way of these predictions; buyers can study so much about you as a founder. That’s extraordinarily invaluable — and never non-obligatory.

It is a brainstorm, not a plan

[Slide 12] This go-to-market is simply too imprecise. Picture Credit: Protecto

There’s a lot of issues with this slide. The corporate is arguing it can develop by way of product-led development. That’s nice and all, however that hardly ever works in isolation — it must be achieved at the side of different advertising and marketing channels. “If you build it, they will come” shouldn’t be a factor within the crowded startup ecosystem.

I might wish to know what these integrations truly imply, and the way prospects discover them. I’d like to grasp how Snowflake and Databricks play into this plan. And what it’s imagining with “solution integrators”?

This slide is a pile of phrases on a web page, not an actionable, measurable go-to-market plan.

After which there’s all of the stuff lacking from the deck total …

• How huge is the marketplace for this form of factor?
• What traction do it’s a must to date? Did the “case studies” pay? If sure, how a lot? Did they proceed to make use of the product?
• There’s nothing concerning the enterprise mannequin: How will they cost? How a lot?
• How is that this defendable? Does the corporate have patents? Is there some form of particular magic sauce?

The issue with this deck total is that it doesn’t clarify why this downside is difficult to resolve and why this firm is the one to resolve it. Possibly it’s overly simplified within the deck, however simply primarily based on what’s right here, I believe I may spherical up a handful of builders and construct most of this product over the span of a pair weeks. That can not be true, can it? As a result of if that’s the case, there’s nothing right here. However since that’s most likely not the case, it signifies that there’s merely an issue with the storytelling. Sure, this can be a huge downside; now clarify why it’s a hard-to-solve downside.

The total pitch deck

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