"I don't want to be led around by the nose"

As someone who has been a part of the VC world for a long time, Holger Witte has experienced quite a few things. In this interview, he explains what makes a good pitch these days - and what founders should rather not even try.

Vorwerk Ventures currently manages a fund of 150 million euros. Since 2019, the VC has been independent of its namesake company. Holger Witte has been on board since then. Vorwerk Ventures mostly invests in the seed phase and participates in Series A financing rounds. In this interview, he explains when a pitch deck stands out.

Mr. Witte, how many pitch decks actually land in Vorwerk Ventures' inbox?

There are probably around 3,000. Of course, we can't go through them all with our eight-person team. That's why we "find" them first, so to speak: everything that doesn't fit our profile is thrown out immediately. If it fits, we discuss whether we want to schedule a meeting with the start-up. Because quite honestly, we also receive a lot of inquiries that just don't fit at all.

What was the worst pitch deck you can remember?

That was actually many years ago. One example that comes to mind from my time before Vorwerk Ventures: A founder wanted to build a music platform along the lines of Spotify and align it with his own, yet very extravagant, taste in music. The design was supposed to be in the style of the Bundestag website, which was inappropriate. In the absence of a photo, one founder once included a picture of his ID card in his pitch deck. Nowadays, however, pitch decks are much better and more professional, I don't really get such negative outliers anymore.

Are there still positive outliers?

In terms of content, these decks are all very similar now. Most of the founders also had a designer go over it again. I recommend that to everyone, by the way. The eye eats with you, as we all know.

On the internet you can find a lot of instructions on how a pitch deck should look like. Don't you find the same structure annoying?

I actually find such instructions very useful. But it can make sense to deviate from them. With some start-ups, the team is particularly relevant, and I want to see that up front and not on the last pages. If the product is very complicated and I don't know what it's about even after page five because the general guideline says: the product description doesn't come until page ten, then that's also bad. I don't feel like clicking through a whole pitch deck only to realize at the end that it doesn't fit us. Above all, the storyline has to be right and it has to be possible for us as a VC to establish a personal connection with the founding teams.

In which cases is a start-up a good fit for Vorwerk Ventures?

We invest in founding teams with disruptive product and service ideas that improve the everyday lives of as many people as possible. Of course, a business idea must first fit our investment hypothesis and also show sufficient potential. But then it also depends very much on the personal "fit" with the founders. After all, we have to spend a lot of time together in the future. Currently, by the way, for good deals, we VCs also have to pitch to be allowed to participate in the round. So it's a two-way pitch - not only on the part of the founders, but also on the part of the VCs

What should startups who want to send you a pitch deck definitely not do?

This is a trick that many founders also use: They say another VC has strong interest. By doing this, they are trying to play us off against each other. But we VCs know each other. So it should be true if a founder says something like that - otherwise it will be really unpleasant. The biggest mistake is to just send us something via the generic email address that's on our site. Instead, founders should make the effort to get an intro elsewhere - through their business angels, for example.

Isn't that what it's supposed to be for?

Yes, the email is there for contact - but not for direct pitches. That's the worst thing you can do. I've seen funding come through that in all the years, not even at other VCs I've been at. If founders don't even bother to get an intro for us, then nothing can actually come of the pitch already.

If the majority of pitch decks are now at such a high level, how can founders still stand out?

The actual pitching is becoming more and more important. It has to be fun to talk to founders about their ideas. There are meetings where I look at the clock after 30 minutes and hope it will be over soon. Ideally, you don't even notice how fast the time goes. I have to be able to believe that the founders themselves believe that this thing will become big. Of course, that's a fine line, they shouldn't completely exaggerate in their pitch, they shouldn't oversell themselves. I don't need a self-proclaimed sales guru.

Have you ever been fooled?

Yes, I have also experienced unpleasant things: for example, a start-up whose idea we thought was really good. But they had the risk that they could get an injunction on their product. Basically, this was clear to everyone, but we still found the start-up interesting. When I asked if they saw that as a risk, they just said "no". I don't want to be led by the nose. We didn't invest then.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Personal details: Holger Witte has been a partner at Vorwerk Ventures since 2019 and is an experienced early-stage investor - with a total of 11 years in the VC business. He uses his expertise and network to invest in consumer tech startups, including Sharpist, Formelskin and Boon. Previously at Project A Ventures, his responsibilities included incubator projects and later fundraising and structuring follow-on financing.