10 Slides That Raised Over $200 million

Over the past near decade running Albert, the direct to consumer banking app I founded, I've pitched over 300 investors. I've heard no nearly 300 times, but I've also heard yes about a dozen times. Those yeses have raised over $200 million. In this post I'll share lessons learned fundraising, including the actual slides I used to raise money.

Running uphill

As a founder raising venture capital, you have one job when raising money: convince an investor that there is a chance your business could be worth $5 billion. 

Consumer business pitches are met with warranted skepticism. I've heard a flavor of all of these:

• Successful direct to consumer businesses are very rare. 
• Consumer businesses need more capital than b2b businesses if paid acquisition is important, which it always is at scale. This dilutes shareholders and lowers investor returns. 
• What's the one unique thing your product does?
• The market is too crowded. You'll need to be the one who breaks through. 

But consumer products also offer the ultimate prize for investors: funding a company that becomes an iconic national brand. This remote possibility is why venture capital funding goes towards consumer bets at all.

As a founder, you have one job when raising money: convince an investor that there is a chance your business could be worth $5B. At every stage, a $5B valuation will change the career of an investor. You don't need to convince someone you could be the next Uber and AirBnb, which today are worth close to $100B in the public markets. But you do need to convince an investor that you could be the next Peloton.

My story

Albert is a banking app I founded in 2016 that helps people earning less than $100k/year make better financial decisions with banking, saving, investing, and budgeting products all in one place. Albert has millions of active users, has generated hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, is still growing quickly, and is profitable.