Sample Series D Deck: Honeycomb $50M

Honeycomb collected 50 dollars Million to make the new platform and services look more visible. The long-term goal is to make life easier for people using large software platforms.

In the year What we saw in 2015 and 2016 is that the world is moving in a direction where complexity is inevitable, whether it’s because of the desire to do things like breaking down customer identity, or whether this explosive complexity is about to come to the fore. In Kubernetes, microservices and containers. We [believed] the world [was] Christine Yen, co-founder and CEO at Honeycomb, told TechCrunch in a previous interview that they want a device like this that gives users speed and flexibility.

I found this interesting and am excited to go through the company’s pitch floor to learn more.

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

The company didn’t remove any slides from its 18-slide deck, but it changed revenue numbers and blurred out customer and competitor logos.

This is a quick breakdown of the honeycomb used to land $50 million in the hive.

1. Cover slide
2. Instant slide of data summary
3. Problem slide
4. The solution slider
5. Competitive landscape slide
6. Product category overview slide
7. Client Landscaping Slide Part 1 (mostly modified)
8. Client Landscaping Slide Part 2 (mostly modified)
9. Market positioning slide
10. Value proposition slide
11. History/product timeline slide
12. Go to the middle of the market slide
13. GTM: Land and expansion presentation slide
14. GTM: Game vertical slide
15. Slide the center forward
16. Group slide
17. Question slide
18. Closing the slide

Three things to love

Honeycomb is building a product that – just in drag – is clearly desirable and does the story very well.

This is how you make an “Ask” slide!

One of my pet peeves about slide decks is that most founders get this slide wrong. It’s a breath of honey-scented air to see a company get it right. Honeycomb explains its demand ($50 million) and what it will do with the money: a runway to 2026, a specific ARR target and the option to focus on growth or stabilize a running and profitable business. It also defines IPO readiness as a goal (which is a bit confusing; it means it wants to be ready for an IPO and then raise another round to do the IPO, or include the housekeeping required to complete the $50 million initial public offering?), with some minor ambiguity, but With clear-enough goals around channels and product.

I’ll use this as your baseline for the “Ask” slide. Be clear, pay attention. Show what your fundraising will accomplish. (While the company mentions 2026, the runway isn’t the main focus of the slide, which is exactly how it should be.)

I wish more group slides looked like this, but…

OK, for a group slide, this isn’t very good: it doesn’t explain. why? All of these people have a founder/market fit, and it doesn’t show why this group is unique enough to take HoneyBread to the next level. Specifically, for a round that suggests an IPO is imminent, I’d like to know if at least some of the people in leadership know how to avoid that, or at least get help from people with IPO experience.

[Slide 16] Team Slide! Image Credits: Honeycomb

And yet, it’s refreshing how diverse this group is, which is sadly lacking in the startup world and especially in B2B enterprise SaaS businesses. Having a diverse leadership team does not happen by accident; It is a concerted effort in recruitment and team building. Investors take note.

Of course, this “fix” is not easy. If you’re putting together a slide deck to promote your next round, and it’s the first time you realize your team’s slide is filled with Stanford-educated white dudes, well, no amount of creative storytelling can save you. It’s important to think about the type of company you want to build and take into the world. As a beginner founder, you can make choices about the type of organ you want to create.

So, who needs this anyway?

For people who are not immersed in development and software, a software engineering observatory platform can seem really cool. Blurry logos be damned, this slide does a good job of telling the story:

[Slide 7] A great fairy tale means you don’t even need to see the logo. The point is raised. Image Credits: Honeycomb

Trust me when I say that there are some serious, well-known brands on this slide. But despite the blurring of the logos, this slide does a fantastic job of telling the company’s story: it shows the breadth of companies and sectors Honeycomb works with. “Who is this product for?” It’s a question all investors ask, and with this slide, it’s clear the answer is mostly everyone.