Capital Raising Education Series: Part 6 | Featuring: ImageArb (Blayn Barnard Smith and Megan Nicholson)
What this video covers: Your pitchbook is the most important document in your capital raising arsenal. It needs to stand alone without benefit of a verbal presentation. It will be forwarded, printed, and reviewed by people you have never met. This session covers what to include, how to structure it, and how to design it so allocators actually read it.
Start with the Investor’s Question
Before drafting a single slide, ask: what problem do I solve for this investor? The answer depends on who the investor is. High-net-worth individuals have different concerns than institutional allocators or family offices. The more precisely you can define your target investor and the specific gap your strategy fills in their portfolio, the more effective your deck will be.
Then ask: why is this hard to solve? Why can’t an investor just do this themselves, or find it at a dozen other managers? Vague answers produce vague pitches.
What Every Pitchbook Must Cover
- Team bios: Near the front. Investors are investing in people first
- Investment philosophy: Your beliefs, not just your process. What inefficiencies do you exploit? What is your edge?
- Investment universe: What you will and will not invest in: securities, geographies, market caps.
- Process: Idea generation, research, portfolio construction, position sizing, decision-making.
- Portfolio overview: Number of positions, net exposure, geographic and sector breakdown.
- Risk management: How you think about drawdown prevention and loss tolerance.
- Track record: Do not hide it. Own mediocre performance and explain what changed. Allocators will find it anyway.
- Terms and service providers: Reputable providers add credibility.
Design and Length
Keep it between 15 and 20 slides, excluding appendix. Anything longer becomes a boat anchor. Allocators skim. Interpret every chart with a sentence above it. Do not make readers guess your point. Include contact information on both the cover and the final slide. Avoid heavy dark backgrounds if the deck will ever be printed. Keep your file size under 10MB.
Honesty as a Competitive Advantage
The managers who retain capital long-term are characterized by intellectual honesty. They acknowledge limitations. They do not overpromise. A fund with modest returns and excellent communication will often retain capital that a fund with strong returns and poor communication loses.
If this video raised questions about how any of these topics apply to your fund, Steve Vlasak is happy to help. You can contact Steve directly at svlasak@richeymay.com.
Dive into the other topics in this Capital Raising Education series:
- Part 1: Rule 506(b) vs. 506(c) — Which One Is Right for You?
- Part 2: Allocating Money and the Due Diligence Process
- Part 3: Considerations for IRA Investment into Fund Structures
- Part 4: What to Do With Investor Contacts — A Look Into CRM
- Part 5: Updating Your Marketing Toolkit
- Part 7: Contributed Securities
- Part 8: Rule 506(b) vs. 506(c) — A Legal Deep Dive
- Part 9: The Human Edge in Capital Raising
