Pattern Seed pitch deck: Goodcarbon’s $5.5m deck

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Carbon credit (and the buying and selling thereof) is massive enterprise, however it may be needlessly difficult to get these resolved. Goodcarbon simply raised a €5.25 million (round $5.5 million) spherical to place a dent in that market. Let’s check out the deck the corporate used to convey residence that sack of money.


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Slides on this deck

Goodcarbon has an 18-slide deck that has a lot of repetition in it; greater than half of the corporate’s pitch deck is the issue and answer part. The eagle-eyed amongst you’ll have realized which means there’s a bunch of stuff lacking, however we’ll get to that. Beneath is an inventory of the slides. The corporate says it eliminated the ask and use of funds slides, and a number of the different slides are redacted as nicely. What’s left behind remains to be a fairly respectable deck:

  1. Cowl slide
  2. Drawback slide: World context
  3. Drawback slide: Market context
  4. Drawback slide: The necessity for carbon removing
  5. Drawback slide: The value of carbon credit
  6. Drawback slide: It’s onerous to search out carbon credit
  7. Resolution slide: Carbon portfolio constructing
  8. Resolution slide: Constructing carbon credit score portfolios
  9. Resolution slide: Instance portfolio initiatives
  10. Resolution slide: The way it works half 1
  11. Resolution slide: The way it works half 2
  12. Buyer slide
  13. Traction slide: Income
  14. Traction slide: Clients
  15. Traction slide: Provide
  16. Case research slide
  17. Group slide
  18. Closing slide

Three issues to like about Goodcarbon’s pitch deck

Decks are all about telling a compelling story that paints the image that claims: “OMG, if you miss out on this investment, you’re truly going to regret it for the rest of your life.” Goodcarbon does job on that entrance.

A big and rising market

It’s surprisingly difficult to inform good tales about carbon firms as a result of it all the time entails a level of describing a future that everybody is aware of is coming, regardless that no one is aware of when it’s coming. Goodcarbon does a fantastic job right here:

[Slide 5] The explosive progress in the price of carbon credit means an enormous — and quickly rising — general alternative.
Picture Credit: Goodcarbon

Portray an image of one thing large, inevitable and rising is a straightforward solution to clarify that you simply’re gunning for a market measurement that’s value being attentive to. If yow will discover a solution to define a development like that in your pitch deck, you’re heading in the right direction.

Gotta love portfolio method

one factor VCs abso-frickin-lutely love? Portfolios. They reside and breathe spread-risk portfolios as a part of their very own funding theses, and if you’ll be able to persuade them that you simply’re serving to scale back threat via a portfolio method, you’re typically talking the fitting language.

pdt 95 5.5m seed goodcarbon slide 7 of 18
[Slide 7] Positioning your self as a managed-risk balancing platform with a portfolio method? Yeah, tremendous good.
Picture Credit: Goodcarbon

One of many massive challenges with carbon offsetting is that you simply don’t essentially know the way safe these credit are. “Many of the carbon offsets on offer today are outdated, of poor quality or hard to verify. They risk boosting global emissions instead of curtailing them,” in accordance with a current S&P World report. So what do you do when there’s excessive threat? You unfold the danger round — if one a part of your portfolio goes bitter, the remainder will (hopefully) stability issues out.

The issue, in fact, is that carbon offsetting and shopping for credit is already fairly difficult, so threat balancing that’s even more durable. Goodcarbon doesn’t make that a lot of the portfolio angle of what it’s doing, however it was one of many extra progressive and inventive features of its enterprise, in my view. Effectively accomplished discovering area for that within the deck.

Social proof out the wazoo

Goodcarbon has some wonderful traction, however it layers that in with social proof: firms that belief goodcarbon with their carbon technique.

pdt 95 5.5m seed goodcarbon slide 12 of 18
[Slide 12] Hey, I acknowledge a few of these logos.
Picture Credit: Goodcarbon

Social proof is a strong instrument in a pitch deck. Goodcarbon would have been simply wonderful with out it, however it might probably’t hurt — and what the corporate may very well be doing is priming the pump for a number of the reference calls which are little question occurring between the preliminary assembly and the funding.

Three issues that Goodcarbon may have improved

As I hinted above, the Goodcarbon deck is fairly respectable, however there’s so a lot data lacking. A few of it’s not noted on function, however even nonetheless, this deck wouldn’t fly if you happen to had been elevating from a U.S. institutional investor.

A guidelines of the lacking data

I fed this deck via my AI-powered deck assessment instrument, and it gave a fairly damning abstract:

Goodcarbon summary ai pitch deck review
The abstract for the Goodcarbon slide deck: That’s a variety of lacking data, you guys.
Picture Credit: Pitch Information/Haje Kamps

Yeah, that’s a variety of lacking puzzle items.

  • Competitors slide: You positively want a contest slide.
  • Go-to-market slide: How are you going to attain your clients?
  • Goal buyer: However first, who are your clients? In fact, you’ll be able to in all probability deduce that from the remainder of the deck, however there’s no hurt in being specific. Good buyer personas actually assist pull this collectively.
  • Working plan: I’m an enormous fan of an easy-to-read working plan, along with extra detailed financials. I’m guessing they had been not noted of this deck when the corporate submitted it to TechCrunch, however buyers are finance individuals, so that you may as nicely make sure you get forward of that dialog.
  • Enterprise mannequin: There’s little or no on this deck explaining how Goodcarbon goes to become profitable.
  • Pricing mannequin: Or how a lot it’s charging for its companies. Each are essential features of a pitch, to know whether or not this can be a good funding.
  • Unit economics: Unit economics (i.e., how the price of delivering your service is altering as your organization grows) is towards the “advanced financials” finish of the dimensions, however for a enterprise this advanced, it’d have been a very good thought to incorporate.
  • Moat: There are a god-awful variety of firms attempting to unravel this downside. The truth that there’s no competitors slide is one factor, however how does Goodcarbon see its enterprise as defendable? Are there patents? Is there tech? Is there one thing else that places it forward of its rivals?

There are many nice checklists of what must go on a pitch deck (oh, hey, right here’s one I created earlier), and there’s no excuse for leaving something out.

We have to speak about this group slide

pdt 95 5.5m seed goodcarbon slide 17 of 18
[Slide 17] Yeah, however …
Picture Credit: Goodcarbon

Have a look at the above slide and ask your self: Is that this a slam-dunk excellent group to run a carbon credit firm? My intestine says no, so once we get to this slide within the pitch, I’d inform the group: “OK, so you’ve convinced me that this is a problem worth solving. Explain to me why you’re the right team to my $5.5 million.”

For the report, the “correct” reply right here could be for the group to have a look at me like I’m a raging lunatic and click on again to the traction slide. “Look what we did, you muppet. We’ve proven ourselves.”

Nonetheless, this group slide may do some a lot heavier lifting.

In the event you want this many slides to elucidate the issue …

Truthfully, there isn’t actually product slide wherever within the deck. What does the product appear like? What are the options and performance? How a lot of that is truly constructed versus a figment of Figma? However I’m not going to provide Goodcarbon too onerous of a time about that. What I’ll roast it for, although, is that this: The corporate spent greater than half its deck on its downside and answer slides.

Put your self within the buyers’ footwear: Do you actually assume they want 5 slides to be satisfied that (a) this can be a downside, (b) this can be a downside with a big impact and (c) this can be a downside value fixing?

The corporate may have eliminated nearly 1 / 4 of its pitch deck by summarizing the ten downside and answer slides down to 2 or three slides, highlighting solely the issues that could be new or uncommon about the best way the corporate approaches the issue. The reality is that if an investor on this area doesn’t have a agency grasp of the issue and the results of local weather change, they’re not going to speculate anyway. Don’t waste your breath or your pixels attempting to persuade them in any other case; as an alternative, simply get to the purpose.

The complete pitch deck


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