How to Create the Funding Slide [Pitch & Secure]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- May 17
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 2
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 presentation 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.
Why the Funding Slide Matters More Than You Think
Investors are not here to read your life story. They’re not looking for fluff, vision-board slogans, or an emotional TED Talk. They’re looking for clarity. Fast.
And the funding slide is where your deck either tightens up or falls apart.
Here’s the brutal truth: you can have the most revolutionary product in the room, but if you fumble on your funding ask, you're broadcasting one thing: you don’t know your business well enough. That’s all it takes to trigger doubt.
The funding slide is your moment of financial self-awareness. It tells the investor, “Here’s what we need, here’s what we’ll do with it, and here’s what you’ll get in return.” It’s a statement of intent, not a wishlist.
But let’s be honest, most founders treat it like an afterthought. They slap on a number, throw in a few vague bullet points, “Marketing. Hiring. Growth.” And expect that to pass as strategic thinking.
It doesn’t.
You’re not just asking for money. You’re asking for belief. And belief comes from precision.
We’ve seen this pattern too many times, great decks, clear narrative, clean visuals, then boom an awkward funding slide that reads like it was written on the way to the meeting.
So, if you’re building a funding slide, you need to understand what it actually needs to show. Not what looks good. Not what you think they want to hear. What it needs to show.
That’s what we’ll get into next.
What Founders Must Show in a Funding Slide
1. How much are you raising? (And why that amount?)
Start here. Loud and clear. Don’t make the investor hunt for your ask.
If you’re raising $1.5M, write exactly that. Not “we’re looking to raise between 1.2–1.7M depending on interest.” That’s not clarity. That’s hedging. And hedging sounds like you haven’t done your homework.
Now let’s talk about the why.
The number you put here shouldn’t be pulled out of thin air or matched to what “most startups at this stage raise.” That’s lazy.
Instead, it should come from a reverse-engineered roadmap.
For example:
We’re raising $1.5M to achieve three specific milestones over 18 months: launch our beta, reach 10k active users, and onboard 50 B2B partners.
Now that’s a statement. It’s confident. It shows intent. It also gives the investor a frame to measure you against—if you hit these milestones, they know the money was well-deployed.
The number isn’t just a number. It’s a commitment.
2. How will the money be used? (Be brutally specific.)
If you’re raising money, you need a budget. Period.
We’re not saying you need to break it down into cents and spreadsheets, but you can’t just throw out buckets like “Product. Marketing. Hiring.” That doesn’t tell anyone anything.
Let’s compare two examples.
Weak:
Funds will be allocated across product development, marketing, and operations.
Strong:
• 40% Product development (building iOS + Android app, hiring 2 engineers)• 30% Marketing (performance marketing, brand refresh, GTM strategy)• 20% Sales hires (2 BDRs for B2B outreach)• 10% Ops & runway buffer
See the difference? One is vague. The other is deliberate.
And yes, we know startups pivot. Budgets shift. But showing a starting point of clarity builds trust. Investors are not expecting perfection. They’re expecting ownership.
3. What will this funding help you achieve? (Milestones, not dreams.)
Investors want outcomes, not aspirations. That means your funding slide should clearly lay out what will happen if this round gets closed.
This is where founders often get caught in startup-speak. “This funding will help us scale.” Scale what? To where? By when?
No one’s asking you to predict the future, but you do need to outline what success looks like post-funding.
Examples of clear milestones:
Launch MVP in 3 months
Reach 50k users in 12 months
Expand to 2 new markets
Hit $500K ARR
Secure key partnership with [industry name]
Milestones give the funding slide tension. They say: here’s what we’ll prove with your money. And that’s where investors perk up. They start imagining the Series A already.
Don’t oversell. Don’t sandbag. Be realistic but ambitious.
4. Why now? (The part most founders skip.)
Timing matters more than people think. And most funding slides don’t talk about it at all.
Here’s the thing—investors want to know you’re catching a wave, not trying to create one from scratch. So explain why this moment is the right time for your product and this raise.
It could be:
A shift in regulations
A new consumer behavior pattern
Market consolidation
Recent competitor exit
An underserved niche getting attention
Think of it as your macro tailwind. The best funding slides frame the ask not just around internal needs, but around external timing.
If you can’t articulate “why now,” you risk sounding like a nice-to-have startup floating in no man’s land.
5. What kind of investor are you looking for? (No, not all money is equal.)
This doesn’t go on the slide per se, but it needs to inform how you present yourself.
A funding slide written with desperation reads like a cold email. A funding slide written with alignment in mind sounds like a business partnership.
Smart founders signal what kind of capital they’re looking for:
Strategic partners who can help open doors
Investors with experience in SaaS / consumer tech / AI etc.
Long-term thinkers vs short-term exit seekers
When we help founders shape this section, we always remind them: you’re not just being evaluated—you’re evaluating too. And that mindset shift alone changes how the funding slide is written.
You’re not begging. You’re selecting.
6. Tone matters. Confidence, not arrogance.
This is where presentation design meets psychology.
You can say all the right things and still lose the room if your tone screams “we’re guessing.”
Confidence means saying, “We’re raising $2M to hit our next growth stage.”
Arrogance means saying, “We only need $2M because we’ve already cracked the code.”
One invites a conversation. The other invites skepticism.
Remember, the funding slide is not a negotiation yet. It’s a pitch. A well-structured pitch that should make the investor want to dig deeper. Not raise eyebrows because you sound overhyped.
And visually? Keep it clean. One number. One short paragraph. One bar chart or pie if needed. Don’t clutter the slide. Don’t bury the ask in design noise.
7. What not to show. Ever.
Here’s a rapid-fire list of what to leave out:
A range instead of a specific amount
No breakdown of how the money will be used
Milestones that are just vanity metrics
Vague language like “scale operations” or “disrupt industry”
Hyper-inflated projections without context
An ask that doesn’t match your stage or traction
Slides overloaded with charts that don’t support your ask
We’ve literally seen a funding slide where the founder wrote: “We believe $5M will give us enough firepower to go big.”
Firepower to do what? Against who? For how long? That's not a funding slide. That's a motivational poster.
Your funding slide is a snapshot of your thinking. It shows if you're clear-headed or still winging it.
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.