A funded pitch isn't a feature list in a fixed order. It's one of a small number of story arcs, and the arc decides which slide leads, what a partner is really underwriting, and where the burden of proof sits. Pick the wrong arc and even good slides land in the wrong sequence.
Most founders build a deck by filling in a template: title, problem, product, market, team, ask. But two companies with the same slides can tell completely different stories, because the order and the lead carry the argument. A category-creation story that leads with product looks premature. A platform story that leads with vision before showing the beachhead works reads as over-reaching.
The arc is the decision you make first. Everything downstream — which slide is load-bearing, which metric you open on, what a "no" is really about — falls out of it. Below are the five arcs we score every raise against, distilled from public startup-narrative craft (YC "How to Pitch", Sequoia's business-plan template, a16z/NFX market-narrative writing).
| Arc | Underwrites… | Leads with | Risk a partner prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category creation | a real, now inflection created a new category you'll own | why-now | timing — "right idea, too early" |
| Efficiency play | a known job done 10× cheaper/faster with obvious switching math | quantified before/after | defensibility — "incumbent copies it" |
| Platform | a working beachhead earns the right to expand (rising NDR) | beachhead traction | focus — "core works, or masking that it doesn't?" |
| Picks-and-shovels | you sell the infra every participant in a boom must buy | the boom + your position in it | commoditization / boom duration |
| Wedge → platform | a narrow wedge you win outright is the on-ramp to a big market | a painfully specific problem | market size — "wedge or feature?" |
The thesis: a shift just made a new category possible, you're defining it, and you'll own the default position before incumbents notice.
Leads with why-now. The specific enabling shift — technology, regulation, or behavior — that didn't exist two or three years ago. Without a sharp why-now this arc reads as a solution in search of a problem. The market slide can't cite an existing category you don't fit; you build it bottom-up from the newly-addressable buyer.
Where it breaks: material revenue argues against this arc — if you already have real ARR, the category probably exists and an efficiency or platform story fits better. In our scoring, ARR above ~$3M actually subtracts points from category-creation, and at Series B the claim needs to already be won, not pitched.
The thesis: a large, well-understood job is done expensively today; you do the same job dramatically cheaper or faster, and the switching math is obvious.
Leads with the quantified status quo, then your delta. The investor already believes the market exists — the open question is whether the 10× is real and whether it's defensible. Vague "better UX" fails here; you need the cost/time/error delta and early customers who actually switched. Signals that push a raise toward this arc: language about doing something cheaper/faster/automated, healthy gross margins, fast CAC payback, and real revenue.
The thesis: you've earned the right to expand. A beachhead is working, and the same customer relationship plus data unlock adjacent products and a rising net dollar retention.
Leads with beachhead traction. You can only tell a platform story from a position of proven single-product strength. The strongest single signal is NDR: at 110% or above, expansion is already happening and the platform claim is earned — that's worth a heavy positive in the score. Below 100% NDR, a platform story is premature while the core is leaking, and it scores negative. Pre-seed can't support this arc at all: there's no beachhead to expand from yet.
The thesis: a gold rush is underway; you sell the infrastructure every participant needs, so you win regardless of which application wins.
Leads with the boom and your position in it. Why the boom is real and durable, tied immediately to why you're the neutral layer everyone must buy. The proof is design-partner logos across multiple applications — that's what shows you're a standard, not one vendor of many. Signals: infrastructure/API/tooling language, sitting under a recognizable boom (AI, crypto, robotics, climate), three or more design partners.
The thesis: you enter through one painfully specific wedge you can win outright, and that wedge is the on-ramp to a large market — narrow now, big later.
Leads with a painfully specific problem and wedge. At pre-seed and seed the team and the wedge are the thesis; the market comes after you've shown you can win the beachhead. This is the sensible default: it carries a small positive baseline so it wins when nothing else strongly fits, and early stage adds to it. Material ARR pulls you off this arc toward platform — you may have earned the bigger story.
Each arc accrues points from your stage, model, metrics, and keyword signals in the why-now and wedge you write — every point carries a human-readable reason. The highest score wins; the runner-up is kept as the arc to consciously avoid. It's deterministic: the same inputs always produce the same arc, and you can audit every point against the methodology rubric. What the report adds beyond this guide is your arc, scored on your inputs, with your slides re-sequenced into that arc's order.
Which sentence is most true of your raise right now?
The report runs the full five-arc scoring on your own inputs, shows every point, and re-sequences your 11 slides into the winning arc's order.
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