This week’s Pitch Deck Teardown comes to you from the PCB-laden confines of CES in Las Vegas. Today, we’re looking at the video analytics company’s slide deck Qortex used to raise a $10 million seed round. Qortex uses AI to help brands, media companies and creators identify the right moments in a video to insert an ad and maximize engagement, so this is going to be fun.
So without further commercial breaks or preamble, let’s get to it.
We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you’d like to submit your own, here’s how you can do so.
It slides into this deck
Qortex shared the full 13-slide deck with only its client list deleted.
As you can see from the list below, the deck is missing several of the slides you would expect to find in a fully formed deck. There are no “ask for” or “use of funds” slides, no problem statement, no go-to-market strategy, and no business model or pricing transparency, among other things. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that the company was able to raise money with this pitch deck, but the fact that it managed to raise $10 million is a good reminder that the deck is only one part of the puzzle. The conversations you have and the collateral you share outside of the deck itself are part of the fundraising process.
The slide deck includes:
- Cover transparency
- Mission statement
- Group transparency
- Market size transparency
- Slide: “Media Sector Focus”
- Solution transparency
- Product transparency
- Drag transparency
- Future plans slip away
- Counselors slip
- How transparency works
- Enter the connected TV space slide
- Customers
Three things to love
In addition to the omissions mentioned above, the Qortex deck also has some weak slides. I had to dig deep to find things I really love or admire about this deck, but I did find a few slides worth celebrating:
A stellar team of advisors
A big part of the fundraising process involves answering questions about edge cases and scenarios, and even the most experienced founders can feel a little stuck. That’s when it’s helpful to have a great list of resources to draw on — and your board, whether it’s an advisory board or your board of directors — is a good group of people to have in your back pocket.
And Qortex has certainly assembled an impressive team here:
[Slide 10] So consult! Image credits: Qortex
Qortex is strategic, pointing to media expertise on its board, notably the former chairman of ABC Television and ABC Studios. It’s not just about showing support for an industry titan. is a clear signal of Qortex’s access to invaluable knowledge and strategic guidance.
This roster, prominently displayed on slide 10, highlights the company’s ability to leverage high-profile confidence in its vision. This advisory board also features the brains behind Universal Sports Network and other experienced startup advisors, creating a true brain trust.
Indeed, it can be a powerful competitive advantage to be able to say, “I have access to a deep pool of people who have done this before and have a large Rolodex to connect us with the right people.”
The biggest benefit from this slide is that you don’t have to do it all yourself. Fill in the gaps in your knowledge and experience with a table and draw on them to tell the right stories.
Show, don’t tell
[Slide 6] Showing your product in action creates a solid narrative. Image credits: Qortex
Qortex proves it knows how to communicate a story by quietly harnessing the power of video to showcase its cutting-edge product. It’s a masterpiece in visual storytelling, showcasing not once, but three times, the capabilities of video analytics technology.
Slide 6 has a video that offers a real-time look at how the company discerns audience engagement and adjusts marketing strategies accordingly. Slide 7 ups the ante with another video, this time illustrating the seamless integration of ads into the user experience. And slide 12 includes yet another video that reinforces Qortex’s commitment to revolutionizing the intersection of technology and marketing.
Is it a little too much? Maybe, but it effectively answers a lot of questions about how well the product works and the use cases it addresses.
A rising tide. . .
[Slide 4] No one wants to invest in a shrinking market, so Qortex has done well to show that its market is growing. Image credits: Qortex
Qortex does a good job of showing that the global video analytics market is growing and can prove profitable. This is important: All VCs want to see a startup operating in a space full of opportunities.
Unfortunately, the company is only telling part of the story here. Yes, the market is growing, but Qortex is missing some important points: How much of that market it can expect to capture and what the company’s growth trajectory might look like.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll look at three things Qortex could have improved or done differently, along with its full pitch deck!
Three things that could be improved
Above, I noted the glaring absence of several key slides that investors typically want to see in a pitch deck. But with this deck, that’s not all that’s missing. The existing slides are in desperate need of improvement as well. Let’s see how Qortex can revamp some of these slides to take their pitch to the next level.
