Archive $9.7 million seed floor – TechCrunch

Tuesday, I cover Archive’s $9.7 million funding round, a startup trying to answer the question: “What if the Smithsonian were owned and operated by the Internet?”

Thanks to the Peach Deck Incubation Series here at TechCrunch+, I got a closer look at the pitch deck that company founder and CEO Tom McLeod used to raise his seed round. Let’s get to it!

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

Arkive’s deck is a to-the-point deck that crams a lot of detail into just 12 slides.

1. Cover slide
2. mission slide
3. Problem slide
4. The solution slider
5. Business model slide
6. Value proposition slide
7. Road map slide
8. Market context slide
9. Market size slide
10. Milestones and the next slide
11. Group slide
12. Closing the slide

The ship has a small number of redactions; The team reports that it has removed the following information.

• Amount of money needed and estimate.
• Specific timeline of product features.

Three things to love

Right off the bat, this slide deck screams both “good storytelling” and “experienced entrepreneur.” The former because the narrative flows effortlessly and clearly from one slide to the next. Very few of the slides, as many founders prefer to clarify, are labeled as “product” or “roadmap.” Make sure you know exactly which part of the story the content and design are referring to.

Here are a few things I think the archive does particularly well:

Planting the seed of dreams

[Slide 2] Beating the drum. Image Credits: Archive (Opens in a new window)

Beginners can only share about their traction. If you have customers, they are not fully representative of your customers. If you have a beta product, it will evolve as you learn more about your problem space and customer needs and wants.

So what’s left? You sell the dream – and my goodness, Archie knocked that particular ball out of the park.

“What if the Smithsonian were owned and controlled by the Internet?” Love the idea or loathe it. It’s a conversation starter. It also serves a more subtle purpose – for some subset of investors, this slide will prevent them from immediately exiting the deal.

That can be an advantage, because it’s almost impossible to convince people who have made up their minds about crypto, blockchain, museum curation or fractal ownership to get excited about an archive. The main thing is who are the investors they are. Those who enjoy this place are invited to enhance their enjoyment with a very simple slide.

The slide provides an overview of the market, suggests that the solution is building an archive, and communicates the company’s goals and mission. It’s simple, effective, and shows a clarity of vision that I rarely see in founders in this context.

There’s a lesson to be learned from this: If you’re struggling to come up with such a clear vision, ask yourself if you really understand your market, the problem you’re solving, and the solutions you’re offering.

That was, now this is.

[Slide 4] “We create a unique opportunity by leveraging crowd-sourced intelligence from consolidating control with elites.” Image Credits: Archive.

As a founder, you must truly, completely believe that you will change the world or something important in it. If that’s not true, I’d ask why you’re doing it in the first place. If you’re smart enough to think you’re going to start a company, why waste that talent on something so simple?

Few founders stop to think that investors are very similar in their motivations. Yes, for LPs they are trying to generate limited returns, but for many VCs, that is the “what” and maybe the “how”, but not the “why”.

I like this slide because it creates a contrast between the old (traditional museum) and the new (archive) because it plants bold wood in the ground. He uses the words of mobilization, equality and democratic truth to the conservative group.

For investors concerned about diversity, inclusion and social justice, the message is spot on – will this be the first time there will be real representation in art and artefacts? And on the other hand, for investors who can’t shake a single copulation about making the world a better place, the slide does something else: It highlights a market that’s surprisingly low on innovation and could be ripe for cash. Termination.

I wish the slide had fewer words in it (perhaps the archive could have made a deck with fewer words for presentation purposes), but that little nig aside I think it’s pretty close to perfect. He draws comparisons and effectively levels the playing field, leaving enough room for fruitful and interesting discussions about his vision for the future of the archive.

Let’s talk business model

[Slide 5] Business model, meet the purchase model. Image credits: folder

A startup’s business model should be like a flywheel that creates momentum as the company grows and evolves.

This slide outlines two important parts of that business model. For one, it outlines the user acquisition path and explains how the company plans to take care of that part of the transaction. Also, “How does this thing make money?” It explains that. A question without relegating it to the most unimportant list.

This slide in particular helped me realize that the founding team is particularly experienced. Instead of looking at just one piece of the puzzle in isolation, they have identified how all the pieces come together by focusing on the user acquisition aspect of the business model.

The effect is simple but powerful. With just a slide, I might cut back on what I have to say, but I’ve interviewed McLeod, the founder of the company, so I know he’s a great presenter and can speak passionately about his vision. Each of the four boxes on this slide is a small barred door that invites you to chat.

With the rest of this teardown, we’ll look at three things with the full deck that the Archive could improve or do differently.