Technology
Pitch Deck Demolition: Protecto’s $4 million seed deck
In an era where data is king and its volume and complexity are exploding, Security goals to eliminate the long-standing dilemma that corporations face between harnessing the ability of artificial intelligence while ensuring data privacy. With the surge in popularity of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, recalcitrant data is becoming easier to seek out, process, and do naughty things with. Protecto APIs are designed to guard sensitive data throughout the AI lifecycle while maintaining its usability.
The company announced that it had raised approx $4 million seed funding round led by the Together fund, with the support of Better Capital, FortyTwo VC, Arali Ventures and Speciale Invest. This round brings Protecto’s total funding to $5 million.
Slides on this deck
Before submitting its deck to TechCrunch, Protecto made revisions to its short-term and five-year goals and specific details of its short-term product roadmap. A timeline of goals and milestones for the seed funding round has also been edited. Still, there’s lots you possibly can learn from a 14-slide deck:
- Cover slide
- Problem slide
- Urgent slide
- Interstitial platform slide
- Technology overview slide
- Results slide
- Slide with solution
- Case study, slide 1
- Case study, slide 2
- Competitive alternatives are shifting
- Team slide
- Go to market slide
- Slide with motion plan
- Ask and use the funds slide
Three things I loved concerning the Protecto pitch
There are just a few things missing from this deck, but there are also some good things value highlighting.
Competitive alternatives
This slide doesn’t discuss direct competitors (there are one or two). But the corporate still does a superb job of showing you this information:
(Slide 10) Competitive alternatives are an incredible solution to take a look at the competitive landscape. Image credits: Security
Competitive alternatives are corporations, methods, or approaches which might be different from yours but meet the identical customer needs or solve the identical problems. For example, if you happen to run a coffee shop, your direct competitor could be one other coffee shop, and a competitive alternative may be a tea shop or fast-food restaurant that also sells coffee and other beverages. These competitors matter because they represent alternative solutions to your customers, underscoring the importance of understanding broader market dynamics and customer preferences.
Understanding and analyzing these competitive alternatives might be powerful as an extra layer of data, uncovering potential opportunities for differentiation and helping to discover unmet customer needs. Having said all this, Protecto should consider its direct competitors, but this slide continues to be an incredible example of how a startup can examine its position available in the market.
Hello, team
This team slide is so solid – the one downside is that they put it because the eleventh slide:
(Slide 11) Solid team slide. Image credits: Security
To stand out within the suddenly crowded AI space, it is best to bring receipts to prove you may have the nerve to do it. The left side of the slide has an excessive amount of information (why are the funds, products, and customers on the team moving?), however the part on the best has a variety of great information.
CEO Amar Kanagaraj spent nearly eight years at Microsoft, including working on search and artificial intelligence, based on his LinkedIn. CTO Baskaran Alagarsamy spent seven years as a ‘manager’ at Apple India. I’d like to see more details about what exactly he was managing there (and why the slide says 18 years and LinkedIn says seven), but that is the beginning of a extremely solid team. If I were investing on this space, a team of this caliber would pique my interest and I’d likely schedule a gathering.
An elegant solution
Privacy and AI can quickly develop into painfully complicated. I appreciate Protecto’s efforts to simplify it to the purpose where most individuals can understand what is going on on in technology.
(Slide 5) Collect sensitive, private data. Replace with similar fake data. It is sensible to me. Image credits: Security
Three things that Protecto could have improved
The design of a pitch deck is not often that essential, however the design of this deck is especially bad. There are also rather more serious flaws hidden in these pages.
These case studies are usually not case studies
In a 14-slide set, Protecto wastes slide 4 as full-screen (it simply says “our platform”). He then wastes two slides titled “case studies.” However, a more accurate term could be “use cases”.
(Slide 8) This shouldn’t be a case study. Image credits: Security
A full case study would come with rather more information concerning the solution’s effectiveness (did the product manage to remove all sensitive data? How was this measured?), how long the combination took, and the way satisfied the client was with the answer. Slide 9 is one other “case study” that is comparable: a use case, not a case study.
The slide header is a promise that the remainder of the slide must fulfill. In this case, I used to be upset on each counts, expecting one kind of information and receiving one other. Proper case studies could be really helpful in telling this story.
Not an incredible “use of funds” slide.
Editorial aside, there’s not much here.
(Slide 14) Almost completely irrelevant information. Image credits: Security
The company wanted to lift $3 million. However, using funds is so fluffy; every point here makes me wish to ask, “But how do you know it works?”
- Expand engineering: Yes, but why, for what purpose and for a way much?
- Promote marketing: Yes, but for what purposes? Until when? How much growth?
- Build channel sales: Yes, but which channels do you select first? Why?
- Encourage developers to evangelize: What does that even mean?
- Define category: ???
Basically, it’s all corporate jargon. Even if the founders themselves buy into it, investors probably won’t.
Yes, prediction and specificity are terrifying. What if you happen to fail? All plans and forecasts are predictions. We know. Investors know. The idea is to indicate how you’re thinking that whenever you analyze these predictions; investors can learn lots about you as a founder. This is incredibly helpful – and never optional.
It’s a brainstorming session, not a plan
(Slide 12) This entry into the market is just too vague. Image credits: Security
There are many problems with this slide. The company says it can grow through product-led development. That’s great, however it rarely works in isolation – it must be done along side other marketing channels. “If you build it, they will come” shouldn’t be a thing within the crowded startup ecosystem.
I’d wish to know what these integrations actually mean and the way customers find them. I would love to know how Snowflake and Databricks impact this plan. What does he imagine about “solution integrators”?
This slide is a pile of words on a page, not an actionable and measurable go-to-market plan.
Plus all of the stuff is missing from the deck…
- How big is the marketplace for such a thing?
- How much traction do you may have up to now? Did the “case studies” repay? If so, how much? Did they still use the product?
- There is nothing concerning the business model: how will they charge? How much?
- How can this be defended? Does the corporate have any patents? Is there any special magic sauce?
Overall, the issue with this deck is that it doesn’t explain why this problem is difficult to resolve and why this company might be the one to resolve it. Perhaps this is just too simplistic within the deck, but based on what’s here, I believe I could get a handful of developers together and construct most of this product in just a few weeks. This cannot be true, right? Because if that’s the case, there’s nothing here. But since that is probably not the case, meaning there’s simply a storytelling problem. Yes, it is a big problem; now explain why it is a difficult problem to resolve.
Full deck
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