Six Essential Slides for Scientist-Led Startup Pitch Decks

If you are the founder of a very early-stage startup in the life sciences sector, you have undoubtedly struggled at some point with how to craft a compelling pitch deck for fundraising.

Rather than struggling to find common ground between a scientist’s perspective and that of capital, it is better to shift your mindset and imagine yourself as a storyteller. A good storyteller should focus on how to enable the audience to better receive the information being conveyed.

From this perspective, the approach to solving the problem becomes much clearer. Based on this foundation, we have distilled six key pieces of information that most closely align with investors’ mindset and best demonstrate a company’s core competitiveness.

Without further ado, here’s the concise version:

1. What Problem Does It Solve?

2. What method?

3. How large is the market?

4. Who are the competitors?

5. Who is on the team?

6. How Much Does It Cost, and How Is the Money Spent?

Regardless of any additional content included in your fundraising pitch deck, these six slides remain the most indispensable, delivering the most critical information. With these six slides, founders can enable investment teams to form an initial, effective, accurate, and rapid assessment of a relatively new industry sector and the company’s status.

This is the most critical element among all, and also a rather contentious point when academic personnel embark on entrepreneurial ventures (as previously discussed, their prolonged detachment from the market has led to an insufficient understanding of the unresolved issues within the industry).

The problems a company seeks to solve, and the magnitude of those problems, directly determine its ceiling.

Take the recently surging popularity of AI as an example. If a company aims to leverage large language models to enable hospital triage robots to converse more accurately with on-site patients, such an approach appears open to question in terms of both practical implementation and the severity of the underlying “problem.”

In contrast, if a company aims to use AI recognition technology to address the empirical and subjective judgment issues in early auscultatory murmur screening for structural heart disease, the market ceiling would be significantly higher. Investors with relevant experience will naturally verify the data, examining how many methods exist for early murmur auscultation, which ones rely entirely on manual assessment, the length of the learning curve, etc.

Upon comparison with actual market conditions, investors recognized that this is indeed a significant problem worth addressing; the next step is to explore how to solve it.

This section serves multiple purposes.

On the one hand, a systematic review of the company’s problem-solving approaches helps founders (and secondarily, investors) assess the maturity of their technological pathway and its market positioning. As discussed in our article “Clinicians on Translation: What We Consider Advanced Technology Is Often Already Obsolete,” many technologies presented by researchers or clinicians at the startup stage have already been tested in the market or require resolution of newly identified issues before they can be applied. Founders should ideally identify such gaps as early as the pitch deck stage.

On the other hand, from an investor’s perspective, one can evaluate several dimensions of a company’s product by examining its technological pathway: feasibility (i.e., whether the method can effectively solve the problem); return on investment (ROI) (i.e., whether it requires substantial time or capital expenditure); and competitive barriers (e.g., the team’s exclusivity and irreplaceability, patent portfolio, and the time required for competitors to catch up).

A clearer articulation is a responsible practice for both founders and investors.

Taking AI-based murmur screening as an example, if terminal devices achieve the required sensitivity for murmur detection and obtain regulatory approval, the market potential could be substantial.

First, the relatively low-cost hardware terminals reduce procurement pressure for hospitals and testing institutions, while also simplifying and expediting the approval process.

Furthermore, intelligent software design enables physicians to master the equipment with a shorter learning curve, allowing its adoption across primary care hospitals and clinics. This facilitates patient diversion from large tertiary hospitals and renowned specialists, thereby optimizing the structure of diagnosis and treatment.

Most importantly, the wider adoption of early screening programs can benefit a broader patient population, enabling early detection and intervention, which is more optimized and rational from a health economics perspective.

After determining the size of the market, or the “cake,” the next step is to assess how many players are competing for a share of it.

Unless in cases of extremely high technological barriers or rare exceptions, it is difficult for a single company to monopolize a specific sector.

A thorough analysis of the competitive landscape demonstrates the founder’s comprehensive understanding of the business environment and enhances their credibility. Highlighting competitors enables investors to assess current market dynamics, potential challenges, and the company’s unique positioning within the industry.

Furthermore, transparently addressing competitive dynamics also demonstrates the founder’s strategic thinking, indicating a clear grasp of their advantages and points of differentiation. This is particularly commendable among founders with a scientific background.

By acknowledging the competitive landscape, founders not only demonstrate their approach to handling competition but also provide investors with insights into market potential and the company’s ability to respond effectively.

Who wouldn’t include team information in their fundraising pitch deck? Yet the messages conveyed behind this can be remarkably rich.

A team with diverse backgrounds and complementary skills and experience is always more attractive to investors, especially for early-stage scientist-led startups. This signifies the team’s greater capacity to withstand risks and its faster response to the latest developments within the industry.

Another layer of information here helps investors indirectly validate the core technology and the founders’ capabilities. Suppose you are an investor evaluating two companies pursuing the same technological pathway: one founded by a professor with several postdoctoral researchers, and the other by a professor joined full-time by a former mid-level executive from a major tech company. Which team would you prioritize engaging with?

In this section,How to Spend Moneyis relatively more important.

How you allocate funds demonstrates your planning and goals for the future, helping investors assess the feasibility of your business plan and its long-term strategy. Transparently stating the use and allocation of funds not only enhances your credibility but also showcases your ability to manage resources and risks.

Furthermore, a clear financing plan can help investors assess whether you have sufficient resources to achieve the next stage of development, providing them with a solid basis for deciding whether to invest.

This section should include your top 3–5 key milestones and how you plan to allocate the funds. Feedback from investors on these milestones and fund utilization can also be valuable before formally launching your fundraising efforts.

In summary, the amount required depends on whether you have planned your next milestone, the capital needed to reach that stage, and the cash buffer maintained on your balance sheet.

If you are a hard-tech/medical device company

Please include a slide on intellectual property (IP) in your presentation. Patents are critical, so be sure to highlight whether you hold provisional patents, have pending patent applications, or possess granted patents. If you believe you have other forms of IP that are vital to the company’s future success—such as trade secrets, exclusive access to data, or network effects—emphasize these as well. You can also use this slide to discuss your strategy for progressively strengthening your IP portfolio.

If applicable, include a slide covering regulatory considerations. Most deep-tech and therapeutic technology companies encounter regulatory hurdles, yet this information is often omitted from seed and pre-seed pitch decks.

If you are a therapeutic technology company

You can include in your PowerPoint presentation a summary of partnerships or acquisitions in your field (such as deal status, technology maturity stage, etc.), as this is the most likely outcome for well-positioned therapeutic technology startups.

Large pharmaceutical companies and biopharmaceutical firms possess more comprehensive manufacturing and clinical trial infrastructure to bring your product to market. Clearly articulating how you will reduce technical risks for these companies and align with market demands can significantly boost investor confidence in your venture.

Appendix

Include information in the appendix that addresses questions you are likely to encounter. If an investor asks, “How does your intellectual property differ from that of your competitors?” having a slide summarizing this information will make your discussion proceed more smoothly. Including a detailed slide on risks and mitigation measures (selecting the top 5–10 risks facing the company and outlining the actions you are taking) will help founders and investors quickly align their mindsets and establish rapport.