The Startup Fundraising Playbook

About Our Research

DocSend’s fundraising research, the DocSend Startup Index, provides insights into how startups raise capital at various stages in their lifecycle. We study how founders craft their pitch decks, seek meetings, and pitch investors in order to uncover fundraising trends and evaluate changing investor behaviors. Our data-driven research demystifies the startup fundraising process and answers many questions founders have about what goes into a venture-backed raise.

Our Approach to Research

We combine survey data on elements like demographic trends and investor outreach strategies with proprietary data from DocSend’s platform that reveals how pitch decks are structured and consumed. We also use qualitative data from industry experts that highlights lived experiences behind the numbers.

Contribute to Our Research

Our research is possible because of the survey responses and pitch decks submitted by startup founders. To share your fundraising experiences, process, and results, take our startup fundraising survey. All survey data is aggregated–individual responses are kept strictly confidential.

Pre-Seed Startup Fundraising: All You Need To Know

Pre-Seed Fundraising Trends

As investors grew more risk-averse due to challenging macro conditions in 2022-23, we found that their overall focus shifted from growth to long-term profitability. With a high supply of pitch decks to choose from, VCs spent less time than ever reading founder narratives and rewarded decks whose stories made an early impact.

VCs spend less than than ever scrutinizing decks in 2023

Between 2022 and 2023, the average deck viewing times fell considerably, both for companies that successfully raised a round and for those that were unsuccessful.

Comparing first and subsequent visits, we found that VCs spent more time scrutinizing unsuccessful decks in 2023 versus 2022. Even when a deck made an unfavorable first impression, investors may have given it a more thorough second viewing to make sure they weren’t missing out on a potential disruptor.

Read all pre-seed fundraising trends

Long-term profitability becomes a top concern

As the fundraising market tightened between 2022 and 2023, investors gave extra scrutiny to the financials, business model, and traction sections. In fact, the financials section was the fourth most-scrutinized section overall in 2023. VCs also spent 48% and 25% more time on the business model and traction sections, respectively. Unsuccessful decks received even more scrutiny: investors spent 110% more time on unsuccessful traction slides and 85% more time on unsuccessful business model slides in 2023. The competition section saw a drop in scrutiny, and investors rewarded decks that linked their product and business model sections at the beginning of their narratives.

Read all pre-seed fundraising trends

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More companies from southern, western US in 2022-23

The western and southern United States saw significant year-over-year increases of pre-seed companies raising funds. These changes may be due to tech workers starting new companies in the wake of industry downsizing or, in the case of the American south, significant population shifts to the southeast. Pre-seed companies from outside the US make up about a third of our dataset.

Read all pre-seed fundraising trends

Pre-Seed Pitch Deck Analysis

The order of sections within decks varied for successful and unsuccessful companies. Successful pre-seed decks tended to foreground their product and business model sections, placing them near the beginning of the deck (and before the problem and solution sections). Unsuccessful decks placed their product and business model sections near the middle of the deck, often foregrounding their team section instead.

Pre-Seed Pitch Deck Template

To help pre-seed founders create effective pitch decks, we launched a section-by-section guide to the art and science of pitch deck construction. This guide builds on our pre-seed research and highlights what’s unique about pre-seed decks compared to later rounds. We also created deck templates that founders can customize with their unique company stories.

Download the guide and templates

Seed Startup Fundraising: All You Need To Know

Seed Fundraising Trends

Amid an ongoing slowdown, VCs spent less time reviewing seed decks in 2023 compared to 2022. We found that although staple deck sections like product and business model remain important, investors sharpened their focus on competition and why now? sections that speak directly to the current market environment.

Deck review times fall to under 2 minutes in 2023

As we saw at the pre-seed stage, seed deck viewing times fell in 2023, with the average time spent dropping under two minutes for the first time.

Comparing first and subsequent visits reveals that investors spent significantly less time on follow-up visits for both successful and unsuccessful decks. Many seed investors may be putting extra weight on a first read.

Read all seed fundraising trends

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Investors evaluate how seed founders can thrive in uncertainty

When analyzing seed decks in 2023, VCs paid heightened attention to how founders speak to current market challenges and how they inform future opportunities. On the one hand, they focused more on deck sections like why now?, which had the third-longest viewing time in 2023. On the other hand, investors also spent 88% more time on the competition section and 33% more time on the traction section, suggesting that they are interested in businesses with timely business problems that show signs of long-term success.

Read all seed fundraising trends

Contacting more investors doesn’t yield better results

Our data shows a weak correlation between the number of investors contacted and the number of meetings held. But it shows an even weaker correlation between the number of investors contacted and the amount of seed funding raised. Reaching out to the right VCs (rather than simply more VCs) will ensure founders work smarter, not harder, during their raise.

Read all seed fundraising trends

Seed Pitch Deck Analysis

Successful seed decks in 2023 rearranged some of the classic building blocks: instead of foregrounding problem/solution sections, they often inserted the why now? section after an opening company purpose slide. They also tended to place their product and business model sections earlier slightly earlier in the narratives than unsuccessful decks.

Seed Pitch Deck Template

To help seed stage founders build effective pitch decks, we launched a section-by-section guide to the art and science of pitch deck construction. The guide builds on our seed research and shows how seed decks differ from pre-seed decks. We also created deck templates that founders can customize with their unique company stories.

Download the guide and templates

Gender & Race Bias in Startup Fundraising

Disparate impacts of fundraising slowdown

The macro environment in 2022 created a challenging climate for founders raising capital, but not all teams have been impacted equally. On the one hand, our data showed that early-stage (pre-seed and seed) teams raised less amid broad economic uncertainty and investor hesitation. On the other hand, all-female teams and teams with minority members experienced unique challenges.* For example, all-female teams raised 36% less than all-male teams, down from 25% less in 2021.

*In this data set, “minority” refers to survey respondents who self-identified as members of nonwhite racial groups.

In 2021, all-female teams with minority members had the largest year-over-year gains in investor meetings held. In 2022, however, the average number of meetings for these teams fell back to 2020 levels.

Read more about fundraising bias

Pitch deck scrutiny and gender

As in previous years, investors in 2022 spent the most time overall scrutinizing the team sections for all-female decks, averaging 125% more time on this section than for all-male teams. Equally in keeping with prior years, all-male team slides had one of the lowest viewing times.

VCs spent 103% more time on the product sections for all-male decks and 125% more time on their company purpose sections, as well.

Read more about fundraising bias

Pitch deck scrutiny and race

When we break down deck scrutiny by racial demographics, four sections stand out where diverse teams received more scrutiny than all-white teams. First, VCs spent 25% more time on the team sections for diverse teams compared to all-white teams. They also spent 28% longer examining the traction sections of diverse teams.

Investors also spent 55% more time on diverse teams’ competition sections compared to all-white teams. The largest discrepancy emerged when comparing market size sections: VCs spent 67% more time on these sections when it came to diverse teams.

Read more about fundraising bias

Pitch Deck Interest Metrics

Part of DocSend’s fundraising research comes from survey respondents who report on their recent raises. However, another part of our data comes directly from the DocSend platform: we track how pitch decks are being shared and viewed on DocSend in order to gauge activity in the fundraising marketplace.

On a weekly basis, we analyze three Pitch Deck Interest metrics

• Founder links created: Number of pitch deck links founders send out

• Investor deck interactions: How actively VCs are on those decks

• Investor time spent: Average time investors spend reading decks

To learn more about our Pitch Deck Interest metrics and follow our regular analyses of fundraising activity, check out our weekly fundraising trends tracker.