Fund Pitchbook [Everything You Need to Know]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Oct 14
- 9 min read
Our client Marcus asked us an interesting question while we were making his first fund pitchbook.
"Why does nobody teach you how to actually build this thing properly?" he said.
Our Creative Director answered with brutal honesty:
"Because most people who build them have never actually pitched one themselves."
As a presentation design agency, we work on dozens of fund pitchbooks throughout the year. And in the process, we've observed one common challenge that almost nobody talks about. Most fund pitchbooks are built backwards. Teams obsess over the design, the color schemes, the fancy data visualizations, and they lose sight of what actually matters: the story. The reasoning. The numbers that back up the narrative.
So, in this blog, we're going to walk you through everything you need to know about building a fund pitchbook that actually works.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
What Is a Fund Pitchbook?
Let's start with the basics, because we've noticed a lot of people use the term without fully understanding what it means.
A fund pitchbook is essentially your playbook for raising capital. It's a comprehensive presentation deck that tells the story of your investment fund to potential Limited Partners (LPs), institutional investors, family offices, and other stakeholders who might write you a check. Unlike a typical business pitch, a fund pitchbook is longer, more detailed, and designed to be lived with. LPs will flip through it multiple times, share it with their investment committees, and scrutinize every claim you make.
Think of it this way: a startup pitch is a sprint. A fund pitchbook is a marathon document that sits on someone's desk for weeks or months while they make a decision about committing millions of dollars to your fund.
Why Your Fund Needs a Proper Pitchbook
You might be thinking: "Can't I just send over a few slides and have a conversation?"
Sure. You can do that. You can also shoot yourself in the foot and wonder why you're still raising capital eighteen months later.
Here's the reality. When you're raising a fund, you're competing for attention and capital with thousands of other managers. LPs receive dozens of pitches every month. They see the sloppy decks. They see the ones where someone clearly put together slides the night before a meeting. And they move on to the next thing.
A proper fund pitchbook levels the playing field.
It shows that you're serious. It demonstrates that you've thought deeply about your strategy, your market, and your value proposition. It gives potential investors a reason to take you seriously before they ever sit down in a meeting with you.
Beyond that, a strong pitchbook accelerates your fundraising process.
When an LP sees a well-structured, professional fund pitchbook, they can evaluate you faster. They can circulate it internally without embarrassment. They can make a preliminary assessment of whether your fund aligns with their investment mandate. This speeds up the entire decision-making process.
We've also noticed that building a proper pitchbook forces you to clarify your own thinking.
You can't fake clarity on paper. If your investment thesis is muddled, your pitchbook will expose it. If your team story doesn't hold together, the pitchbook reveals the cracks. So in a weird way, the act of building a fund pitchbook makes you a better fund manager.
The bottom line: a fund pitchbook isn't just a nice-to-have asset. It's a fundamental tool that determines whether you succeed or fail in the capital-raising game.
How to Write The Content of Your Fund Pitchbook
This is where most teams go wrong. They treat pitchbook writing like they're writing a legal document or an annual report. Boring, passive, filled with corporate speak.
Your fund pitchbook needs to be written like you're having a conversation with an intelligent peer who has asked you questions about your strategy, your track record, and your plans. Not like you're filing paperwork with a regulator.
Start by defining your voice and perspective.
Are you irreverent and direct? Are you thoughtful and measured? Are you energetic and optimistic? Pick a lane and stay in it. The consistency matters more than the specific style you choose.
When you're writing the core content, use strong active verbs. "We identify undervalued assets in emerging markets" is better than "Assets in emerging markets that may be undervalued are identified by our team." Short sentences beat long ones. Specific numbers beat vague claims.
Here's a practical tip we give every client: write your fund pitchbook as if you're explaining your strategy to someone at a dinner party, not as if you're addressing a conference room full of investors.
The conversational tone will come through on the page, and it will make your document more engaging and more persuasive.
One critical rule: back up every claim with data or experience.
Don't say "the market is growing rapidly." Say "the market is growing at 23% annually, which is 4x the growth rate of the broader economy, and here's why we're positioned to capture that growth." Vague claims destroy credibility. Specific, sourced claims build it.
We also recommend writing in present tense and active voice whenever possible. It creates momentum and energy. It makes your fund feel alive and dynamic, not static and tired.
The structure of your writing should follow a clear progression: problem, solution, proof, action. What challenge exists in the market? How does your fund solve it? What evidence do you have that this solution works? What should the reader do next?
How to Design This Fund Pitchbook
Design is the part where teams typically waste enormous amounts of time and money while missing the actual point.
Your fund pitchbook design should be professional and clean, but it should never distract from the content. If someone finishes reading your pitchbook and the first thing they remember is the color palette, you've failed. They should remember your investment thesis. They should remember your track record. They should remember why your fund is different.
This means the design should be restrained. Use a limited color palette.
Two or three primary colors maximum. Pick a typeface that's easy to read on screen and in print. Helvetica or something similar. Nothing fancy. Nothing that requires explanation.
The visual hierarchy matters immensely. Your most important information should be the most visually prominent. Headlines should be bold. Key numbers should pop off the page. Supporting details should be secondary.
Data visualization is an area where we see teams really stumble.
They create overly complex charts and graphs that confuse the message instead of clarifying it. A chart should take five seconds to understand. If someone has to spend thirty seconds trying to figure out what you're communicating, you've failed as a designer.
White space is your friend. Fill the page with information and you'll overwhelm the reader. Give the eye room to rest and you'll actually increase comprehension and retention. Paradoxically, a sparse page is easier to understand than a dense one.
Consistency is critical.
Every page in your fund pitchbook should feel like it belongs in the same document. Same typeface family. Same color scheme. Same icon style. Same layout logic. When the design is consistent, it builds trust. When it's inconsistent, it looks like you didn't care enough to check your own work.
We also recommend using real photography when possible, not stock photos. Real images of your team, your offices, your portfolio companies feel authentic. Stock photography of models in business clothes has the opposite effect. It screams "generic" and undercuts your credibility.
The format matters too.
Some teams build their pitchbooks in PowerPoint. Others use Keynote or Figma. We typically recommend designing in Figma or Adobe and then exporting to PDF format. PDFs are stable, reliable, and they look the same on every device. They also allow you to control exactly how the information presents itself.
One last design principle: make sure your pitchbook is actually readable.
This sounds obvious, but we see pitchbooks all the time where the font size is so small you need a magnifying glass to read it. Remember that LPs are reading on screens and on printed pages. Design for readability first. Design for beauty second.
The Story Structure We Recommend for Your Fund Pitchbook
Most fund pitchbooks are structured by category: overview, investment thesis, market opportunity, team, track record, terms, governance. This is the safe, boring way to do it.
We recommend a different structure. We call it the "journey" structure, and it works remarkably well because it mirrors how humans actually think and remember things.
The structure goes like this:
Here's the problem we observed.
Here's the market opportunity created by this problem.
Here's why we're uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity.
Here's proof that our approach works through historical returns and portfolio performance.
Here's the team that will execute on this strategy. Here's what we're looking for from LPs.
Here's the governance and process that protects everyone's interests.
This structure creates narrative momentum.
It takes the reader on a journey instead of presenting disconnected information. By the time they finish, they understand not just what your fund does, but why it exists.
Within each section, we recommend following a consistent pattern.
First, state the core idea in one sentence. Then expand on it with supporting details, data, or context. Then conclude with a specific insight or implication. This pattern works at both the macro level (for sections) and the micro level (for individual slides).
We also recommend front-loading your most compelling information.
Most pitchbooks bury their best track record data and most impressive portfolio companies in the middle of the document. Put your wins up front. If you've delivered 25% annual returns, that should be on page five, not page forty. LPs will make preliminary judgments based on what they see early.
Give them reasons to keep reading.
One structural element that works well is the "insight slide." These are slides that present a counterintuitive insight about the market or an observation that most people miss.
For example: "Everyone talks about emerging markets as the growth opportunity. What they miss is that the real opportunity is in the post-emerging markets that are moving from high-growth to stable-growth." This kind of thinking separates serious managers from the crowd.
The structure should also build toward a clear ask.
By the end of the pitchbook, the reader should know exactly what you want from them and why they should say yes.
Example of a Fund Pitchbook Done Right
We've learned a lot from studying effective pitchbooks in the wild, and one that's worth examining is from Greycroft Partners.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you build credibility in your fund pitchbook as a first-time fund manager when you don't have a track record to fall back on?
This is one of the toughest questions, and we see it all the time. First-time managers don't have fund returns to show, so what do you do?
The answer is to build credibility through individual track record and through positioning. You need to establish that you have deep expertise in your specific market. You need to show that you've made successful investments or successfully predicted market movements within your area of focus. You need to demonstrate that you understand the problems better than anyone else in the room.
We recommend being explicit about this in your fund pitchbook. Don't try to hide the fact that this is your first fund. Instead, acknowledge it and then immediately explain why that's actually an advantage. "First-time fund managers are hungry. We're not distracted. We're not living off the returns from Fund I. We're entirely aligned with returning strong results from day one."
You should also build a strong advisory board or LP base that provides social proof. If well-respected investors are willing to back you, it suggests you're worth betting on.
Should your fund pitchbook be different for different types of LPs, or should you have one universal version?
Most teams ask this question and come to the wrong conclusion. They think they need five different versions of their fund pitchbook for different LP types.
In practice, you should have one core fund pitchbook that represents your fund accurately and honestly. But you should have different supporting materials for different LP conversations.
Your core fund pitchbook tells your story consistently. It's your primary selling document. But then you might have supporting one-pagers that address specific concerns. Maybe one LP cares deeply about your risk management process. You have a one-pager on that. Maybe another LP wants to understand your fee structure better. You have a detailed breakdown for that.
This approach allows you to maintain narrative consistency while being responsive to individual investor concerns. You're not changing your core positioning. You're just providing additional context when it's relevant.
The only exception to this rule is if you're raising two completely different types of funds. If you're raising both a venture fund and a growth fund, you should have separate fund pitchbooks for each. But for a single fund strategy, one strong pitchbook is better than five mediocre variations.
Your fund pitchbook is one of the most important documents you'll ever create as a manager. It shapes how investors perceive you. It determines whether they move forward or pass. It accelerates your fundraising or slows it down. Build it with care, tell your story honestly, and respect the time of everyone who reads it. That's the foundation of successful capital raising.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.
How To Get Started?
If you want to hire us for your presentation design project, the process is extremely easy.
Just click on the "Start a Project" button on our website, calculate the price, make payment, and we'll take it from there.
We look forward to working with you!