When I was as a student in the UK, I remember renting appliances such as washing machines and TVs was the norm for some people, especially students living in short-term accommodation. Israeli startup Xyte (pronounced “excite”) has it just raised $30 million, as he sees a return to this kind of hardware-as-a-service model as the way to go for manufacturers whose profit margins are under constant pressure. If it works so well for software as a service, why not hardware?
Xyte let me take a look at the 27 slide deck to see how he pulled it off. Excited by Xyte’s deck? Unfortunately, no. This 27 slide deck was short on the information I would need as an investor to make an informed decision on whether or not to invest in it. Let’s break down what I saw.
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It slides into this deck
Xyte’s deck has 27 slides, some with updated information. The tweaks relate to its customers and trading details, which is fair enough and also makes it a bit harder to get a picture of the full company.
- Cover transparency
- Company overview, including some team information
- Group transparency
- Opportunity transparency
- Opportunity transparency 2
- Market transparency
- Problematic transparency
- Value proposition transparency
- Solution transparency
- Solution 2 slide
- Solution 3 slide
- Transparency of dedicated interfaces
- Drag transparency
- “Any Industry, Any Size” Transparency (Client)
- Value proposition transparency
- Business transformation transparency
- Transparency “Unique Business and Trading Platform”.
- Customer study slide
- “Pioneering a new product category” slide.
- Transparency “A single, integrated platform”.
- Group transparency 2
- Intermediate transparency
- Business model transparency
- Go-to-market transparency
- “Forecast and Drivers” slide.
- Investment summary slide
- Close slide
Three Two things to love
You might think that with 27 slides, there would be a lot to choose from for the “three good things” section. Dear Reader, I won’t lie: Try as I might, I really struggled to come up with three good things about this deck.
So, let’s talk about the two sparks of brilliance I could spot in this black void of despair:
Opening summary
[Slide 2] A very well made slide at a glance. Image credits: Xyte
Xyte’s slide deck, overall, was a pretty overwhelming easel of mediocrity. However, I really liked this summary of a slide at the beginning.
Even with some of the key numbers tweaked, it shows a lot of important information at a glance that will likely make an investor take note. In fact, I think this slide will become my recommended template for most startups raising money — it’s crisp, clear, and to the point, and helps set the stage for what’s to come.
Pulling it all together
I have a lot of respect for summaries, and this deck pulled it off not once, but twice. The first sets the scene and the second (below) recaps the same story once again, but through the lens of an investor.
[Slide 26] A compact summary that brings it all together. Image credits: Xyte
I really like the way the team did this. Showing that the company has understood a problem and a go-to-market strategy that makes sense is great. So good, in fact, that I’ll go over each of these points separately:
- Huge opportunity: Yes! A startup must reach “VC scale” to be at all investable. It might be worth reminding the investor of the true size of the market here, but this slightly more abstract summary works well.
- Unique solution: Yes! Including a reminder of what you’re actually doing is great.
- World Class Product: I would love to see this point backed up by data, to be honest. Is it a world-class product? Maybe, but bring the proof!
- Validated solution: Sure, but remember to include why. What validates this solution? I suspect the point the company is really trying to make here is related to the next point. . .
- Scalable GTM Strategy: Being able to acquire customers at scale is what makes a startup stop being a startup, and that’s a good thing. For bonus points, I’d remind investors of the CAC:LTV ratio here, but it’s a good start.
- Vision: Meh. This is not a reminder of the company’s vision, which is a missed opportunity. Perhaps, instead, he could have traded a team summary to remind investors why this is the right team to build this company.
Minor tweaks aside, I think this “investment summary” slide does a great job and I’m glad the team chose to include it.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll look at three things Xyte could have improved or done differently, along with their full pitch deck!
