There are times. When you don’t need or want to raise money in a startup’s life, but a great opportunity comes up to bring in a strategic investor to create a new round.
That was the case for Danish animation and motion capture company Rococo over the summer. I wrote about a $3 million strategic round that valued the company at $80 million — a round specifically raised to buy Zeppetto into the Rococo Cup table.
When something like this happens, you usually don’t need a deep layer; The investor is convinced that they want to invest, and you are convinced that you want the investor. Plus, if the deal doesn’t happen… whatevz, you don’t need the money anyway.
Talking to Rococo, I found myself wondering: What would you use as a deck in this particular situation? Fortunately, the CEO of the company was happy to share the boat with me. So for this week’s Pitch Duck Breakdown, I’ve got something a little unusual: a strategic extension deck!
Let’s take a closer look.
We’re looking for more unique pitches to break down, so if you’d like to submit your own, here’s how to do that.
Slides on this floor
- Cover slide
- Problem slide
- The solution slider
- Product roadmap slide
- Market size slide
- Market direction slide
- “Business Flywheel” – Business Model Slide
- “Rococo platform in 2 years” – Product roadmap slide (updated)
- “Conquering new heights starting with health” – market opportunity / expansion slide
- Group slide
- “We operate on the world’s most powerful human activity dataset” – market orientation slide
- “Company Background” – Metrics and Process Slide (edited)
- Financial Forecasts (Revised)
- “Rococo at a glance” – KPI slide
- “Fundraising Story” – Fundraising journey slideshow, with reviews
- Closing the slide
Three things to love
If you’re building a company in the creative space, you better have a nice deck. And oh my goodness Rococo delivers on that front.
Perfect clarity
[Slide 2] Problem slide. Image creditRococo
The team at Rococo is all about movement and possession. How did you capture the ever-loving hell in the frame slide deck? Well, slide 2 will give you the answer. This slide is an absolutely fantastic piece of storytelling. By contextualizing a person in motion next to their digital counterpart, Rococo presents a side-by-side look at what Rococo does.
The photography is great, and it inspires movement and movement. Anyone who has ever tried to lift something with their hands knows how difficult it is to make the movement look natural. The two images go a long way, and the text further hammers home the point: we live in a universe where animation is widely used to make animators’ lives easier. It’s not hard to imagine that’s true for games, animated movies, and more. I love the simplicity of this slide and how much work it does. It’s a great way to start the conversation.
A large market with a large neighboring market
Now you know all the praise I heaped on Rococo above? It will be better. I’m already convinced that this is a great opportunity, but go ahead and tell us that there are so many more opportunities.
[Slide 4] Neighboring markets. Image creditRococo
If you’re building a company in the creative space, you better have a nice deck. And oh my goodness Rococo delivers on that front.
It makes sense that creators – especially low- and medium-budget games and animation producers – are a big and growing market. As Rococo thinks (and is doing) about market expansion, that’s exactly what investors want to see.
I would push back at this point, saying that for many companies this is a division and a lack of focus, but I really like how Rococo tells the story in this example: they are thinking about health and life sciences, Web3, sports. And other use cases, but you’re not making a big deal out of it. It shows that they are waiting on things without changing too many resources. At least that’s what I expect. If I wanted to invest, I would ask them how many resources they are using, but the way this slide is designed and worded, I’m sure they will run some pilots/initial tests.
The exterior is “robotics and automotive”, the company casually mentions the presence of Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and Mercedes as existing customers. That’s understating what’s going on, but it’s a great way to tell this part of the story. Yes, there are many questions that immediately come to mind: How are they using your product? How much are the contracts worth? How did you find them? What can you do to increase your presence there? How can you take on more robotics and automotive customers? But as a narrative, it points to a strong core market (innovators) and many potential market extensions. It’s a great place to be as a beginner.
Oh, and about those creators…
When I first clicked into the Rococo deck, I was confused about the order; I changed slides 4 and 5. Instead of doing “this is our core and other opportunities” they are doing it the other way around. Slide 4 shows the lay of the land and then Slide 5 shows that there is a huge growth opportunity deep within the core audience.
[Slide 5] About those creators… Image creditRococo
This slide tells us an important part of the Rococo story – slide 4 covers the whole scene, and here the company double-clicks on the creative economy; The extra context shows where amateur and low-level producers can put their content. And it’s encouraging to see that the company has room to grow into high-quality content, also produced by the likes of Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video and Netflix. It shows the breadth and depth of customers who are using these services.
This round is about bringing in an investor who wants to get involved early on, so I’ll forgive Rococo for this, but if this is a general VC round, I invite them to talk more about “strong growth.” It looks like a number.
For the rest of this tear, we’ll look at three things that Rococo could improve or do with the entire deck.
