9 Pitching to institutional investors
This anecdote covers
- Be in tune with the vibe from the (in person) pitch meeting with a VC partner
- What should be in your VC pitch deck
- Some gotchas to be aware of
Different types of investors require different types of pitches. In the last anecdote, I discussed how to pitch to individual angels, who, even if they are part of a group and have organized meetings to allow you to pitch to the entire group at once, ultimately invest about $25,000. In this anecdote, I’ll cover pitching to institutional investors, which means venture capitalists; highly organized, fund-based angel groups; private equity firms; and corporate or strategic investors. An institutional investor is a legally organized partnership or corporation whose sole business activity is investing in order to make a profit consistent with their corporate structure (for shareholders, limited partners, or parent company). These are the investors you will get to once you have market traction, have proven product-market fit, or later when you are ready to scale the company.