Pitching your project: how to convince banks and investors

Your business plan is written, and now you have a meeting: twenty minutes with a bank account manager, ten in front of an honour loan committee, or three to win a second meeting with a business angel. At this stage the funder is no longer reading, they are listening and checking. A founder's pitch is rarely won on the idea: it is won on the clarity of the story, the consistency of the figures and the quality of your answers to the awkward questions.

Quick answer. Pitching your project means delivering, in 3 minutes (a hook) or 10 minutes (a full presentation of about ten slides), the thread problem, solution, market, business model, traction, team and funding need. The banker looks for repayment capacity, the investor for growth and exit potential: the same deck will not convince both without adaptation.

This article covers the oral presentation and the pitch deck. The written document is covered in our article on the business plan, the list of documents to gather in our guide to preparing your bank meeting and financing file, and finding a business angel in our analysis private investor seeking a project.

Pitching your project to a funder means demonstrating three things in a short time: that the problem exists and is costly for your customers, that your solution solves it better than the alternatives, and that the money requested turns this potential into measurable results. Everything else serves these three demonstrations.

A good pitch is not a summary of the business plan: it answers the question "why fund this project, now, with this team, for this amount?". Three formats coexist:

• The elevator pitch (30 seconds to 1 minute): it gets you a meeting, not funding.
• The short pitch (3 minutes): competitions, investor network evenings, first conversations.
• The full presentation (10 to 20 minutes, then questions): bank meeting, honour loan committee, in-depth meeting with a fund.

The banker and the investor do not expect the same thing from your pitch, because they are not paid in the same way. The banker lends and earns interest: the main risk is non-repayment. The investor takes an equity stake and earns a capital gain: the main risk is that the company never grows large enough to justify the price paid.

Our view#

A misreading comes up often: presenting to your bank a deck designed for investors, with very ambitious growth curves. The banker sees execution risk; conversely, a very cautious bank deck suggests to a business angel a project lacking ambition. We recommend a common core (problem, solution, market, team) and two distinct endings: repayment for the bank, value trajectory for the investor.

For the detail of what a French bank examines, read our analysis of the acceptance criteria for a business bank loan.

A pitch deck should contain about ten slides in the order problem, solution, market, model, traction, competition, team, financial forecast, funding need. There is no official standard, but this is the structure most funders expect, and they quickly spot a missing slide.

Depending on the audience, add a "risks and mitigations" slide (bank, honour loan committee) or a "cap table" slide (investor). Detailed calculations, monthly cash flow and contracts go in the appendix. For the indicators to highlight in front of investors, see our article on the forecast and the metrics investors examine.

For a 10-minute pitch, plan on about ten slides, roughly one per minute; for 3 minutes, five or six are enough. These are practical benchmarks, not rules.

The 3-minute pitch#

• 0:00 to 0:30: the hook, built on the customer's problem (a figure, a concrete situation).
• 0:30 to 1:15: the solution and its value, with a customer example.
• 1:15 to 2:00: market and business model, one sentence each.
• 2:00 to 2:40: the proof (traction, pilots, team).
• 2:40 to 3:00: the ask, how much and what for.

The 10-minute pitch#

Same structure, developed, with two additions: competition and the financial forecast. Keep at least as much time for questions: that is often where the funder forms an opinion.

In practice#

• Write the last slide first (the funding need and its milestones), then build the rest to justify it.
• One idea per slide, with a title that states the conclusion ("42 pilot customers in 6 months") rather than the theme ("Traction").
• Time yourself out loud in front of someone who does not know the project.
• Keep a more detailed PDF version to send, and a more visual version for the meeting itself.

The funder will first check consistency between the figures stated orally, those in the deck and those in the financial forecast. A gap between the slide and the appendix is enough to shift the discussion from your project to the reliability of your numbers.

The most scrutinised points:

• Break-even point: the monthly revenue that covers fixed costs, which you should know by heart.
• Working capital requirement (besoin en fonds de roulement, BFR): customer payment terms, supplier terms, stock. It is the most frequent blind spot in start-up forecasts.
• Month-by-month cash flow: the amount requested must cover the lowest cash point with a margin, not just the initial investment.
• Repayment capacity (bank): profit plus depreciation must cover loan repayments; see our article on borrowing capacity and bank ratios.
• Unit economics and cash burn (investor): margin per customer, acquisition cost, retention, number of months funded and the milestone reached before running out.
• Founders' contribution: what you have put in yourself and the salary you are forgoing.

For an established company director, the bank also consults the Banque de France (the French central bank): the company's rating (cotation, its capacity to meet financial commitments over one to three years) and the director indicator (indicateur dirigeant), based on court decisions concerning the companies you have managed. Better to know them before the meeting.

Funders' trick questions test your clear-sightedness about risk and your command of the figures. A short, quantified and honest answer is worth more than a long defensive argument.

On valuation, see methods for defending a start-up valuation. On security, a Bpifrance guarantee on a bank loan (Bpifrance is the French public investment bank) covers part of the bank's risk and, according to Bpifrance Création, generally limits requests for personal guarantees; it does not release you from repaying, and the share covered depends on the scheme.

Our view#

"I don't know, I will send you the figure tomorrow" is acceptable once. What disqualifies you is an improvised figure that the appendix will contradict, or an evasive answer on a central topic. We recommend preparing in writing a list of about twenty likely questions, with a two- or three-line answer for each.

Convincing an investor without commercial traction remains possible if you replace sales with other verifiable evidence: documented customer interviews, letters of intent, a waiting list, a tested prototype, pre-orders, committed partners. The investor is then mainly buying the team and its speed of learning.

Show what you have learned ("25 interviews, 18 confirm the problem, 6 paid pilots" beats a conviction), bring the first milestone down to 12 or 18 months rather than five years, make the team easy to read (who does what, who is missing) and be precise about the instrument: equity, BSA-AIR (the French equivalent of a SAFE) or convertible bond. Our article on preparing a first fundraising round compares these options.

Pitching to an honour loan committee means convincing a jury of business owners, bankers and volunteer professionals who fund the person as much as the project. According to Bpifrance Création, an honour loan (prêt d'honneur) is a personal loan to the founder, interest-free and without security, granted after the project is presented to an approval committee.

The two main national networks cited by Bpifrance Création are Initiative France (loans of 3,000 to 50,000 euros, 10,000 euros on average) and Réseau Entreprendre (15,000 to 50,000 euros, 29,000 euros on average). Bpifrance Création stresses above all the leverage effect: obtaining an honour loan lends credibility to the project and makes it easier to obtain a complementary bank loan.

In the meeting, these committees look at your background, your command of the figures without notes, how you take an objection and how realistic your overall financing plan is (honour loan, personal contribution, bank loan, grants).

We recommend arriving with a financing plan already discussed with a bank: a bank loan envisaged subject to the honour loan makes the project visibly fundable.

The mistakes that lose funding in the meeting rarely concern the substance of the project, but rather the way the story is told, inconsistent figures or a misreading of the person in front of you.

1. Starting with the company's history instead of the customer's problem.
2. Displaying a gigantic market without showing the realistic share you will capture.
3. Quoting figures not found in the forecast, or being unable to explain it line by line.
4. Forgetting working capital and VAT when calculating the need.
5. Asking for a round amount with no justification, or one too tight to leave a margin.
6. Denying or disparaging the competition.
7. Reading your slides, running over time, showing the same deck to a bank and to a fund.
8. Neglecting the follow-up: no reminder, no delivery of the answers promised.

Points to watch#

• Commitments: do not promise security or an equity share in the meeting that you have not agreed with your co-founders.
• Accuracy: state the status of every piece of information (signed, under negotiation, assumption); presenting an unsigned contract as secured exposes the director.
• Approaching investors: in a French SAS, article L227-2 of the Commercial Code prohibits in principle any public offer of financial securities, except for the exceptions provided by law. Raising from many private individuals should be prepared with an adviser, or go through a licensed crowdfunding platform.
• Confidentiality: a non-disclosure agreement is rarely signed at a first pitch; keep your real secret sauce out of the deck.

Preparing your pitch with your chartered accountant (expert-comptable) means having the deck reviewed by someone who knows the forecast and asks the funder's questions before the funder does. The accountant does not write your speech: they secure the figures and train you to defend them.

Preparation covers four points: consistency (every figure in the deck reconciled with the forecast, rounding included), scenarios (prudent and stress cases, to answer "what if" without hesitation), indicators (the three to five figures that best sum up your model for each audience) and rehearsal (a session of challenging questions, modelled on a credit committee).

For a fundraising round, preparation continues with the data room (see our data room checklist for a fundraising round). If the bank says no, see the alternatives after a loan refusal.

• A pitch is built backwards from the ask: every slide justifies the amount and its use.
• The banker looks for repayment capacity, the investor for a value trajectory: adapt the end of your presentation.
• About ten slides for 10 minutes, five or six for 3 minutes, and at least as much time for questions.
• The figures in the deck must be identical to those in the forecast.
• Trick questions are prepared in writing, with a quantified prudent scenario.
• An honour loan (interest-free, without security, granted after a committee hearing) lends credibility to the project in the eyes of the bank.