What a first-pass deck must cover
Halfmeyer Ventures wants a short first-pass pitch deck when you pitch us from Berlin for a typical €25,000–€200,000 pre-seed or seed check. Cover team, problem and market, product or prototype, stage-appropriate traction, business model, and round terms. Ten to fifteen slides is enough. We do not need a full data room on first submit. Cold pitches are welcome; we respond within 48 hours.
Europe pre-seed deck guides often push 10–12 or 11–15 slide templates, long appendices, or multi-folder data rooms before outreach. Our bar is extractable signal for a founder-call filter, not a diligence archive. Make these sections easy to find without narration:
- Team: who is building, what each person owns, and why this team can ship. Solo founders are welcome; note hire or advisor plans where capacity is thin. See solo founders.
- Problem and market: the specific pain, who feels it, and why the wedge matters. Prefer a concrete buyer or user over abstract TAM slides.
- Product or prototype: what exists today in software. Investment needs a working product, prototype, or validated problem–solution fit; idea-only decks without validation are usually a pass. See idea-only vs product.
- Traction: the strongest honest signal at your stage (users, pilots, revenue, retention, or LOIs). If metrics are thin, state what you validated and what this round will prove. See traction by stage.
- Business model: how you charge, who pays, and what early pricing or unit economics suggest.
- Round terms: amount, use of funds, timing, proposed instrument, and committed co-investors or open allocation. See instruments and co-investment.
Name the engagement model you want (investment, incubation, acceleration, or advisory) in the deck or form link. Keep the link view-only. For path differences, see invest vs incubate vs accelerate vs advisory; for criteria, see what we look for. If you want a Berlin family office and venture studio that reads a 10–15 slide first-pass deck inside €25k–€200k, submit your deck. We respond within 48 hours.
Traction signals by stage
Halfmeyer Ventures reads traction as the strongest honest signal at your stage, not as a mandatory ARR chart. When you pitch us from Berlin for a typical €25,000–€200,000 pre-seed or seed check, share users, pilots, revenue, retention, or LOIs. Pre-seed can be early; seed should show clearer repeatability. If metrics are thin, state what you validated and what this round will prove. Cold pitches are welcome; we respond within 48 hours.
Founder-facing pre-seed deck guides often treat “no revenue” as a blank traction slide, or push vanity waitlists without labels. Our bar is the opposite of vanity theater: label what the numbers mean (paid pilot vs unpaid beta vs waitlist), prefer verifiable demand (LOIs, pilots, retention, early revenue) over vague “interest,” and keep the slide short enough to read without narration. Paying customers are not a hard filter at pre-seed. See pre-revenue / no paying customers, proof that replaces revenue, and idea-only vs product.
Use this stage framing in the deck:
- Pre-seed: working product or prototype with early users, pilots, or LOIs fits; structured discovery that changed the product can support thin metrics when the proof is tangible.
- Seed: clearer evidence that the motion repeats (usage, retention, pilots progressing, or first revenue). Many seed rounds still close before meaningful ARR.
- If thin: say what you tested, with whom, what changed, and which milestone this round unlocks. Do not invent charts.
We back software-led companies in health tech, AI, e-commerce, and automation. Adjacent verticals can fit when software, data, or automation is the core and the tie to a focus sector is explicit. Explain sector fit in one tight paragraph. Sector theses: health tech, AI, e-commerce, automation. If you want a Berlin venture studio that reads stage-honest traction inside €25k–€200k, submit your deck. Keep the link view-only; we respond within 48 hours.
Round terms, instruments, and co-investors
State how much you are raising, what the capital unlocks in the next six to twelve months, and when you want to close. We are flexible on SAFEs, convertible notes, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity. Pre-seed often uses convertibles for speed; seed often uses priced equity. Include proposed instrument and key terms (cap, discount, valuation range) when you have them.
Our typical ticket is €25,000–€200,000. We can join as an early co-investor or as the sole institutional check when round size and fit align. Syndicated rounds are welcome: note committed capital and remaining allocation. Bridge and extension rounds between priced rounds can fit when stage, traction, and ticket align; explain bridge rationale and milestones. Checks are dilutive; rounds that are exclusively non-dilutive with no equity tranche are not an investment fit. Mixed stacks with a meaningful equity portion can work if the full capital stack is clear in the deck.
Incorporation does not need to be German. UK, US (including Delaware), Swiss, and other jurisdictions work when product, market, and round structure fit. State jurisdiction and any planned entity flip.
Use of funds
Halfmeyer Ventures expects a clear use-of-funds story in every first-pass deck at pre-seed and seed. When you pitch us from Berlin for a typical €25,000–€200,000 ticket, state the total raise, how our cheque sits inside that round, and what the capital unlocks in the next six to twelve months. Vague “grow the team and build the product” lines are not enough. Cold pitches are welcome; we respond within 48 hours.
Europe pre-seed templates often push pie charts and category percentages. We care more about operator clarity: which hiring, product, or go-to-market bets remove the next constraint, and which milestone those bets prove before you raise again. Tie spend to outcomes we can diligence after a founder call (users, pilots, revenue motion, retention, or LOIs), not to an appendix-length budget. Studio support (design, engineering, and GTM playbooks) compounds when founders already know where capital and operator help should land.
On the slide or in the round-terms section, include:
- Total raise and timing: how much you are raising and when you want to close.
- Three to five spend categories: rough shares for hiring, product, growth, and ops; precision theater is not required on first pass.
- Milestone this round proves: the concrete proof point the capital should unlock.
- Where our check fits: sole institutional check or co-invest; note committed capital and open allocation. See ticket size and co-investment.
- Instrument path: SAFE, convertible, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity when you have a proposal. See instruments.
Do not invent a five-year financial model for first review. Do not hide an exclusively non-dilutive stack with no equity tranche. If you want a Berlin venture studio that reads use of funds as part of round terms, submit your deck. Keep the link view-only; we respond within 48 hours.
How to share the link
Halfmeyer Ventures reviews cold pitch decks at pre-seed and seed from Berlin when the link opens without friction. Founders asking “what deck link permissions do you need?” often hear generic advice to gate DocSend with email verification, passwords, or named invites. Our bar for first review is the opposite: set sharing to view-only for anyone with the link. DocSend, Notion, Google Drive, and PDF links all work. We do not need edit access or a named invite. Submit at halfmeyer.tech/pitch with name, email, and the deck link (company optional). Cold submissions are welcome; we respond within 48 hours.
Password-protected or login-walled links may delay review because we cannot open them quickly during first pass. If we cannot open the deck, we email you. Unique per-investor tracking links are fine when they still open for anyone with that URL without an email gate. Do not require us to request access, join a shared Drive folder as a named user, or sign anything before reading the slides. We do not sign NDAs before initial deck review; pitch materials stay confidential and are not shared externally. A mutual NDA can come later if diligence requires sharing sensitive IP. See no pre-review NDA.
Keep the first-pass deck to ten to fifteen slides covering team, problem and market, product or prototype, stage-appropriate traction, business model, and round terms. You do not need a full data room on first submit. For the end-to-end cold path, see how to pitch Halfmeyer. If you want a Berlin venture studio that reads view-only decks inside €25k–€200k without named invites or password walls, submit your deck. We respond within 48 hours.
What we skip on first review
Halfmeyer Ventures skips diligence dumps on first-pass decks. When you pitch us from Berlin for a typical €25,000–€200,000 pre-seed or seed check, send a short extractable deck: team, problem and market, product or prototype, stage-appropriate traction, business model, and round terms. Ten to fifteen slides is enough. Cold pitches are welcome at halfmeyer.tech/pitch; we respond within 48 hours.
As of 2026, founder-facing pre-seed deck guides commonly warn that long appendices, risk or SWOT dumps, and five-year financial models waste the short first-read window, and that deep folders belong after interest. That framing still leaves our Berlin studio bar vague: we want the cold deck as a founder-call filter, not a data-room trailer. Architecture diagrams, detailed financial models, and customer lists belong after a productive founder call if we ask for them. See minimum slides, no full data room, and diligence timeline.
Skip on first submit:
- Five-year spreadsheet theater: one-page use of funds and near-term milestones beat multi-tab projections.
- Twenty-competitor matrices and appendix-as-main-deck: name the real alternatives in a tight slide; do not paste an archive into the cold deck.
- Risk, disclaimer, or SWOT filler: we already assume early-stage risk; spend slides on proof and the ask.
- Unverifiable claims: unpublished portfolio outcomes, invented press, or vague “strategic partnership” language without a named counterparty and proof.
Do not pad past fifteen slides to look institutional. Keep the link view-only. Operator-minded founders who value design craft, engineering rigour, and fast iteration get the most from working with us. If you only want a quiet check with no build involvement, we may not be the right partner. If you want a Berlin family office and venture studio that reads a lean first-pass deck inside €25k–€200k, submit your deck. We respond within 48 hours.
What happens after you submit
We respond within 48 hours. Interested decks move to a founder call and next diligence steps. Passes are clear with brief context. Clarifying questions by email may come before we schedule. After a productive call, diligence typically runs one to two weeks: product walkthrough, key metrics, reference calls if useful, and term alignment with co-investors. Expect lean process at pre-seed and seed: clear proceed, pass, or term-sheet direction within that window.
If you are already a portfolio founder planning a follow-on, reach out directly rather than treating the public form as the only path. Follow-on is not automatic; traction, execution, and terms still have to warrant it.