How to Make the Use of Funds Slide [Pitch Deck Funding Slide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- May 17, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 17
Nicole, a sharp startup founder we were working with, asked us something right after we’d wrapped up the core of her pitch deck.
“Do investors even look at the funding slide, or do they just skip to the team or the product?”
Our Creative Director didn’t flinch.
“They look at it like sharks sniffing blood. If it’s messy, it’s over.”
As a pitch deck design agency, we work on hundreds of funding slides every year. And through all that work, we’ve noticed one recurring challenge: founders either over-explain or completely under-explain what they’re asking for. No clarity. No confidence. Just noise.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about what a funding slide really needs to show, so investors don’t swipe past it, they stop and pay attention.
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.
If your funding slide is weak, vague, bloated, or defensive, investors do not just “mentally note” it.
They downgrade you. You think they are evaluating your idea. They are actually evaluating your judgment.
When your funding slide says:
“Marketing – $500,000”
“Operations – $300,000”
“Miscellaneous – $200,000”
You are not communicating clarity. You are signaling that you do not know what drives your business.
And when you overcomplicate it with a spreadsheet screenshot that looks like it escaped from your accountant’s laptop, you are not impressing anyone. You are exhausting them.
Here is what really happens when you get this wrong:
Investors assume you will burn cash without discipline.
They question whether you understand your growth levers.
They doubt your financial forecasting.
They start looking for safer bets.
The irony is brutal. You can have an excellent product, a strong market, even traction. But if your funding slide makes you look careless with money, everything else starts to wobble.
Money magnifies who you already are. If your slide communicates confusion, investors assume scale will amplify that confusion.
That is why the use of funds slide is not a formality. It is a character reference.
And you are writing it about yourself.
How to Make the Use of Funds Slide
Most founders treat the use of funds slide like a grocery list.
That is the first mistake.
This slide is not about listing expenses. It is about telling a strategic story with numbers.
When investors look at your funding slide, they are silently asking:
Does this founder understand what actually drives growth?
Are they disciplined with capital?
Does this allocation match the stage of the company?
Will this money create measurable milestones?
If your slide cannot answer those questions in under 20 seconds, it needs work.
Let’s break this down properly.
1. Start With the Raise and the Runway
Before you even show allocation, you need context.
Your funding slide should clearly state:
How much you are raising
What that capital gives you in runway
The key milestone you will hit before the next raise
For example: “We are raising $2 million to achieve 18 months of runway and reach $100K MRR.”
That single line does three powerful things:
It frames the size of the ask.
It anchors expectations.
It signals that you understand capital efficiency.
If you simply say, “We are raising $2 million,” you sound like someone asking for pocket money without a plan.
Money without milestones is just burn. Money tied to outcomes is strategy.
2. Group by Strategic Buckets, Not Random Categories
Your use of funds slide should typically contain 3 to 5 high level buckets. Not 12. Not 2.
Too many categories signal overthinking. Too few signal underthinking.
Good strategic buckets often look like:
Product Development
Sales and Marketing
Hiring
Operations
Regulatory or Compliance if relevant
But here is the key.
These buckets must reflect your actual growth engine.
If you are a SaaS startup with traction, “Sales and Marketing” should likely be your largest allocation. If you are deep tech pre product, “R&D” will dominate.
Alignment matters more than aesthetics.
Let’s look at a bad example:
Marketing – 40%
Product – 30%
Admin – 20%
Misc – 10%
Now compare that to a stronger version:
Engineering team expansion to ship v2.0 and mobile app – 35%
Performance marketing and outbound sales team to scale acquisition – 40%
Key hires in data and operations – 15%
Infrastructure and legal compliance – 10%
Same idea. Completely different signal.
The second one shows intent.
3. Tie Every Major Allocation to a Measurable Outcome
This is where most founders collapse.
They tell investors where the money goes. They do not explain what it produces.
Your funding slide should silently answer this: “If we invest this capital, what changes?”
For example:
Instead of: Sales and Marketing – $800,000
Try: Sales and Marketing – $800,000 to scale from 1,200 to 5,000 paying customers within 12 months
Now we can see cause and effect.
Investors invest in outcomes, not departments.
You need to show that: Capital → Action → Result
If you cannot map that clearly, you need to rethink your plan before you pitch it.
4. Avoid Over Precision That Kills Credibility
There is a strange psychological trap founders fall into.
They think precision equals professionalism.
So they show numbers like:
Engineering – $483,720
Marketing – $512,380
This does not make you look sophisticated.
It makes you look naive.
Early stage forecasting is directional, not surgical.
Round numbers signal strategic thinking. Hyper specific numbers signal false certainty.
Stick to clean allocations like:
40% Sales and Marketing
35% Product
15% Hiring
10% Operations
Clarity beats complexity.
5. Match Your Allocation to Your Stage
Your funding slide must make sense for where you are.
Pre seed startup with no product:
Heavy spend on R&D is logical.
Series A company with strong retention:
Heavy spend on growth is logical.
If you are allocating 50% to brand marketing before proving product market fit, investors will question your maturity.
You need to ask yourself honestly: What is the single biggest bottleneck in our growth right now? Then allocate aggressively toward solving that bottleneck.
Investors respect focus. They distrust vanity.
6. Make It Visually Digestible
This is a pitch deck, not a finance report.
Use:
A clean pie chart or bar chart
3 to 5 buckets maximum
One short sentence explaining the strategic outcome
Avoid:
Paragraphs
Dense tables
Spreadsheet screenshots
Long footnotes
Remember, investors often review decks quickly. Your funding slide should be understood in under 15 seconds.
If they need to decode it, you have already lost attention.
7. Show That You Understand Burn Rate
The use of funds slide is incomplete without an implicit understanding of burn.
Even if you do not show a full financial model, you must demonstrate awareness of:
Monthly burn
Runway
Hiring timeline
You can subtly include this through:
“18 months runway”
“Team expansion from 8 to 20 employees”
“Reach breakeven by Q4 2026”
These signals show you are thinking ahead.
Investors do not fund ideas. They fund operators.
8. Do Not Hide Risky Spending
If you are making a bold bet, own it.
For example: 50% allocated to international expansion
Do not try to disguise it.
Instead, frame it strategically: “International expansion to replicate proven US model in UK and Canada markets with validated demand signals”
Confidence with reasoning beats cautious vagueness.
When you hide bold moves behind generic labels, investors sense insecurity.
9. Align the Funding Slide With the Rest of the Deck
Your funding slide cannot exist in isolation.
If your traction slide shows strong growth driven by paid ads, but your use of funds slide barely allocates anything to marketing, you look inconsistent.
If your product roadmap shows major features planned, but your allocation to engineering is minimal, you look disconnected.
Everything must tell the same story.
Your:
Market slide
Traction slide
Roadmap slide
Funding slide
They all need to support one narrative.
We are here.
We need this.
We will use it to get there.
Simplicity is not shallow. It is powerful.
10. Remember What This Slide Really Signals
At its core, the funding slide is not about money.
It is about trust.
Investors are asking: Can we trust you with millions of dollars?
If your allocation feels random, inflated, or poorly justified, the answer becomes no.
If your slide feels tight, intentional, and outcome driven, the answer moves toward yes.
So, when you build your use of funds slide, do not ask: “What looks impressive?”
Ask: “What shows we understand our business deeply?”
Because at the end of the day, that is what funding decisions come down to.
Not hype.
Not flashy design.
Judgment.
And your funding slide is one of the clearest windows into it.
4 Data Visualization Tips for Your Funding Slide
Most funding slides fail visually before they fail strategically.
You might have a solid allocation plan. But if it looks cluttered, confusing, or overly complex, investors will not spend time decoding it. They will move on.
Here are four practical data visualization tips we use when designing a use of funds slide.
1. Use One Simple Chart
Pick one clear visual. A pie chart or a horizontal bar chart works best.
Do not combine multiple charts on the same slide. Do not add supporting mini graphs. The goal is instant clarity. Investors should understand your allocation in under 10 seconds.
2. Limit It to 3 to 5 Buckets
If your chart looks like a rainbow exploded on the slide, you have too many categories.
Stick to 3 to 5 strategic buckets. This forces you to prioritize and makes your funding slide digestible.
Clarity signals confidence.
3. Use Clean Labels, Not Paragraphs
Each section should have:
A short title
A percentage or dollar amount
A single outcome driven line if needed
Avoid long descriptions. If it cannot be explained briefly, it probably is not focused enough.
4. Make the Numbers Visually Balanced
If one category dominates, let it dominate visually. Do not shrink it to make the slide look “even.” Investors expect uneven allocations when they make strategic sense.
Design should reflect reality, not aesthetics.
A clean funding slide feels intentional. And intentional design builds trust faster than flashy graphics ever will.
Example of a Funding Slide
Here’s an example from one of our Series B pitch deck projects. The raise is clearly tied to a defined revenue milestone, and the allocations reflect scale stage priorities like CAPEX, marketing expansion, and regulatory strategy. At this level, investors expect operational depth, not vague buckets. Each allocation signals growth acceleration and infrastructure expansion, not just routine spending.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Use of Funds Slide
Let’s clear up a few things founders constantly overthink.
1. How detailed should a use of funds slide be?
Detailed enough to show strategic intent. Not detailed enough to look like your internal accounting sheet.
You want to communicate direction, not every line item. Investors care about:
Where the majority of capital goes
Why it goes there
What outcome it creates
If they want deeper numbers, they will ask for your financial model. The funding slide is a strategic snapshot, not an audit.
2. Should we show exact dollar amounts or percentages?
Both can work.
Percentages are clean and stage appropriate for early startups. Dollar amounts work well when the raise is fixed and milestone driven.
What matters more than format is clarity. If you show $2M raised, your allocations should clearly add up. Sloppy math kills credibility instantly.
3. Do investors really care about the funding slide?
Yes. More than you think.
This slide tells them how you think about capital. It reveals whether you are disciplined, reactive, or overly optimistic.
They may not debate it out loud in the meeting. But they are absolutely forming opinions.
4. Should we include contingency or buffer funds?
If you do, label them clearly.
For example: Operational buffer for unforeseen costs – 5%
Do not hide it under “Miscellaneous.” That word feels lazy. Intentional wording shows you plan ahead.
5. What is the biggest mistake founders make?
Two extremes:
Being painfully vague
Being painfully granular
The sweet spot is strategic clarity. When your use of funds slide shows focus, outcomes, and realism, it stops being just a funding slide.
It becomes proof that you are ready to scale.
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