Investor Presentation: A Key Communication Medium in Fundraising

Investor presentations are perhaps the most frequently used tool in a fundraiser's toolkit. This tradition has been around for decades, tracing its origins in investment banking. But what worked in the beginning doesn’t necessarily serve modern best practices.

Challenges with Traditional Investor Presentations

The hallmarks of investment bank-style presentations are still visible today, particularly in the format and visual presentation. 

Typically, these presentations comprise 25 to 50 slides, often created in Microsoft PowerPoint, intended to guide a 45 to 60-minute pitch meeting with an investor.

Still, many of our clients refrain, "We never use it from cover to cover. I do my spiel, and we flip around to some slides and use them to back up the points we’re making."

‍This poses a curious challenge: the communication medium is not being used in the way implicitly intended.

Frequently, these presentations are a ‘leave behind’ after a meeting with a limited partner (LP).

An LP then socializes that fund offering within their institution, moving the presentation up the chain to a senior decision-maker or an analyst who double-checks the numbers and enters the data for analysis.

Building Strong Investor Presentations

Given this nebulous and multi-purpose nature of the investor presentations, how do we optimize them?

While the mission might be imperfect and multi-faceted, we strive to do our best by considering all potential audiences and use cases. 

We consult extensively with our clients beforehand, acknowledging that many presentations can benefit from several consistent practices.

But no matter what type of firm you’re pitching, your investor presentations should be polished both visually and verbally. 

This level should be equivalent to communication materials like a website, an AGM presentation, an ESG report, or any other medium bearing the firm’s name. 

Although it might be a more challenging medium, the investor presentation deserves equal focus and attention. 

In an industry where the typical allocator sees 150-300 presentations per year, it must be memorable.

That’s where customization comes in.

Investor Presentation Customization Tips for Different Audiences

An investor presentation might undergo many layers of decision-making before it is finalized, so tailoring your content to different audience segments and their different needs and priorities is worthwhile. 

Here’s how.

Senior Executives and Decision-Makers

Senior executives and decision-makers should concentrate on the big picture and highlight only the key insights and strategic vision. 

Keep your slides concise, highlighting your fund’s value proposition, long-term objectives, and how your fund will be differentiated. 

Don’t get bogged down in the details. Instead, focus on outcomes, projected financial performance, and alignment with your investor’s objectives.

Analysts and Finance Teams

This group will dive into the details and run more advanced analyses. Provide them with more granular data.

‍For example: 

• Financial metrics
• Performance comparisons
• Risk assessments

Make them easy to find, visualize, and compare through charts, graphs, and clear data tables. Then, teams can mine and digest the information quickly and accurately.

Cross-Functional or Junior Stakeholders

For stakeholders with less background context for the business at hand, it's helpful to include context-setting slides (e.g., introduction to industry basics or the fund’s mission) before the more meaty content.

This helps create a north star for the audience before diving into the details. 

As you address those needs, you design a presentation tuned to those particular audiences, enhancing the chances of buy-in from the top down.

Benefits of Modernizing Investor Presentations

Updating investor presentations to align with current best practices can bring considerable advantages:

Streamlined Design

Minimalist design and text better retain an audience’s focus and attention. Investors who can process information quickly will likely remember the main points and pay attention to the entire presentation. 

The “primacy effect” is also worth considering here. 

Put simply, this phenomenon refers to information presented at the beginning of a list being more likely to be remembered than the items in the middle or at the end.

Clarity and Conciseness

More clarity means less opportunity for misinterpretation, while fewer words mean fewer confusing concepts. The clearer the line of communication, the better your fund stands out, and the easier it is for investors to understand complex ideas.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

As more presentations are shared offline and online, modernization ensures your slides are ready for both worlds. 

Visual clarity and intuitive flow make the presentation compelling, whether a guided in-person pitch or self-contained reading.

Better Brand Positioning

A finessed, consistent design enhances your firm’s brand and credibility. 

When the slide deck mirrors the quality of other branded material (the website or annual reports, for example), it forms a rationale for trusting your business’s professionalism and attention to detail.

When you modernize presentations, you differentiate them from the competition, make them more engaging, and help facilitate better decisions from various investor types.

Next Steps

In our upcoming blog series, we dive deeper into best practices, formatting questions (particularly for Microsoft PowerPoint), ideal content sequencing, and design production, among other tactical topics. 

Our goal? 

Ensuring your presentations read cleanly, clearly, and directly, whether they’re being used alongside an in-person presentation, a Zoom presentation, or when read independently by an investor without a sponsor’s representative present. 

Stay tuned as we unravel the complexities of investor presentations, one slide at a time.

Contact Darien Group today to discuss your investor presentations and other branding assets.