Check out these 24 pitch decks that startups used to raise millions to disrupt media and advertising

picnic adtech team — Picnic's adtech team.
Matthew Goldhill

Investors are pouring money into advertising, media, and marketing startups.
These startups are capitalizing on changing consumer habits, automating ad creation, and more.
Check out these 24 pitches to see how these startups sold their visions to VCs and other investors.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

Investors are pouring money into startups that are trying to disrupt advertising, media, and marketing.

Insider has been tracking these startups that are using tech to capitalize on changing consumer media habits and marketers' desire to reach new audiences and ensure their ads are working.

Check out these pitch decks that they've used to sell their vision and raise millions from PE and VC investors.

They range from tools that measure digital ad performance to platforms for people seeking out online entertainment.

Protecting brands' reputation

Founded in 2013, Signal AI collects and analyzes data from regulatory filings, social media, broadcast, and net promoter scores to help clients like Bank of America Securities, Google, and Exxon Mobil, measure their reputation and manage supply chain risks.

It just raised $50 million in Series D funding from venture capital firm Highland Europe along with asset manager Abrdn.

Check out the pitch deck that a PR tech company used to raise $50 million to extend its business beyond public relations

Consumer data collection

Jesse Redniss, CEO and co-founder, Qonsent
Qonsent

Advertisers are scrambling to find new ways to market to people as the privacy clampdown makes it harder to target people online.

Qonsent is a startup that helps advertisers get customers to share personal data like birthdays or email addresses using QR codes on ad creative.

It just raised $5 million in seed funding from Zekavat Investment Group, who led the round; VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk; and Michael Kassan, chairman and CEO of MediaLink.

Check out the pitch deck a privacy tech startup used to raise $5 million from investors like Gary Vaynerchuk to transform how advertisers collect customer data

Digital ad network

UK-based Picnic says digital ads are rife with fraud and perform terribly. Its solution: mobile ads inspired by social media features like stories and carousels that actually engage readers. It claims its ad formats boost ad performance for brands and bring in more revenue for online publishers.

Now it's expanding to the US with help from $3 million in Series A funding it just raised from Guinness Asset Management, along with existing angel investors.

Check out the pitch deck that helped UK digital advertiser network Picnic raise $3 million

Digital user experience

Businesses have scrambled to update their digital operations in the pandemic, creating an opportunity for UX startups like Uniform that help companies customize their user online experience.

Uniform just raised $28 million from Insight Partners, Array Ventures, and Elad Gil.

Check out the pitch deck that this startup that helps advertisers customize their digital user experience used to raise $28 million

Audio ads

AudioMob cofounders Christian Facey (left) and Wilfrid Obeng.
AudioMob

UK-based adtech firm AudioMob offers audio ads that appear in mobile games. It pitches the ads as "non-intrusive" because they don't interrupt the gameplay, the ads only play if a user's device is set to a certain volume, and they don't rely on hypertargeted tracking techniques.

It just raised a $14 million Series A round from investors including Makers Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Google, to grow its team and expand to new products.

See the pitch deck that helped audio ads firm AudioMob raise $14 million from investors including Makers Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Google

Video editing

Toch.ai is an India-based startup that aims to democratize video editing, arguing that the technologies to produce and distribute videos require time-consuming, manual processes, and existing video editing software can be pricey.

Toch.ai has raised $11.75 million in Series A funding led by Moneta Ventures to support an expansion into bigger markets like the US.

See the pitch deck that helped a video-editing startup raise $12 million to take on Adobe and expand into the US

Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising has become a buzzy area in adtech as the sector shifts away from the precision-targeting and tracking of individual users.

Founded seven years ago by two former Googlers, Seedtag specializes in contextual advertising — using data and artificial intelligence to place ads within relevant publisher content that users should be more likely to interact with.

Seedtag just raised a $40 million funding round, led by Oakley Capital.

See the pitch deck that helped contextual advertising firm Seedtag raise $40 million. The European adtech company now plans a US expansion.

Ad automation

Dan Pantelo started a performance marketing agency in college and pivoted to software after discovering that creative testing was the most important and time-consuming part of making ads.

Today, his marketing technology startup Marpipe claims to help advertisers figure out which ads perform best by automatically testing hundreds of variations.

Marpipe just raised $8 million in Series A for a total of $10 million raised to date.

The key pitch deck slides that helped an ad automation startup raise $10 million

Freelance consulting

Catalant CEO Patrick Petitti.
Catalant Technologies

Investors are pouring millions into platforms like Catalant Technologies that connect companies to independent advertising and consulting professionals, a need that's growing as people quit in the pandemic.

Catalant has raised more than $100 million by pitching itself as an alternative to consulting giants like McKinsey.

See the key slides a staffing platform used to raise more than $100 million from investors like Morningside CEO Gerald Chan

Marketing strategy

Ad agency vets Grant McDougall, Liza Nebel, and Matt Gross started BlueOcean in 2019, when they saw an opening to use machine learning to simplify market research and tell marketers how they and their competitors were performing. Now, they count Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Bloomingdale's, and Diageo as clients.

The software-as-a-service startup recently raised $15 million in Series A funding from private equity firm Insight Partners.

Pitch deck reveals how an AI startup that helps brands like Google and Microsoft plan their marketing raised $15 million

Data management tools

Google and Apple's moves to clamp down on third-party cookies and the rise of online shopping have advertisers clamoring for help managing all their customer data so they can effectively market to them.

One such company is 4-year-old Amperity, which sells software that clients like Starbucks, Patagonia, and Crocs use to manage stats from sales, email, e-commerce, and loyalty card programs.

Amperity raised $100 million in its Series D from existing investors including Tiger Global Management, Declaration Partners, and Madrona Venture Group, for a total of $187 million.

Here's the pitch deck that helped a marketing tech startup raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to help brands manage their data

Out-of-home advertising platform

Outdoor advertising is coming back after being crushed during the pandemic, and adtech startup OneScreen.ai is hoping to cash in with a platform for brands to search, buy, run and measure their out-of-home ad campaigns.

OneScreen just raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Florida-based fund TechFarms Capital with other investors including HubSpot cofounders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, Wayfair's alumni fund Wayfund, Lola.com CEO Mike Volpe, and BuySellAds.com CEO Todd Garland.

See the pitch deck that Google, Hubspot and Wayfair alums used to raise $1.2 million to build the 'Amazon of out-of-home advertising'

Consumer data-collection

Tracer started in 2015 as a unit of Gary Vaynerchuk's ad agency VaynerMedia that automatically collects and organize data that isn't personally identifiable. Led by Tracer co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Nicholson, it also offers free consulting services. It started by helping VaynerMedia oversee hundreds of millions in ad buys for clients like Oreo maker Mondelez; today, clients include other ad agencies like Labelium; Condé Nast; and pharma giant Sanofi.

Tracer recently raised $9.9 million in seed funding led by big names like former Walmart and Amazon exec Marc Lore and NBA star Kevin Durant's firm Thirty Five Ventures.

Read the pitch deck a Gary Vaynerchuk-backed data startup used to raise $10 million from investors like Walmart's ex-ecommerce CEO

Building lifetime customers

As people do more of their shopping online, marketers are trying to get them to become repeat customers.

Former Paypal and Facebook product and data analytics manager Emad Hasan says his startup Retina helps brands like Dollar Shave Club and Madison Reed acquire and keep customers by building lookalike audiences based on companies' order history and shopper attributes.

It recently raised $8 million in Series A funding from Alpha Intelligence Capital, Vertical Venture Partners, and others.

This investor deck helped a former Facebook product manager raise $8 million to help brands boost customers' long-term value

Data-buying tools

Nick Jordan founded 5-year-old Narrative to let advertisers buy data without the need for data brokers like Epsilon and Acxiom that can be known for not disclosing their data sources or what cut they take.

The marketing-tech firm makes money by taking a cut of data sales and through larger software as a Service (or SaaS) contracts where marketers pay monthly fees for data.

Narrative in 2020 raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding round led by G20 Ventures and which included Glasswing Ventures and MathCapital, bringing its total funding to $14 million.

Here's the investor deck that helped startup Narrative raise $8.5 million to help marketers buy data safely

Support for online sellers

Adtech vet Paul Palmieri joined Tradeswell as CEO based on his experience as a VC investor, where he saw dozens of DTC companies whose businesses weren't scalable.

Tradeswell is a SaaS platform that consolidates brands' marketing, retail, inventory, logistics, forecasting, lifetime value and financial information. Its pitch is that it gives brands insights so they know what to sell to whom, where, and at what price.

US e-commerce is set to be worth $1 trillion by 2023, according to a recent report by Insider Intelligence's eMarketer, and Tradeswell says it can help traditional and DTC brands save millions of dollars in outsourced contracts and boost their sales.

Tradeswell recently raised $3.3 million in seed round funding from Signalfire and Construct Capital.

This investor deck helped an entrepreneur raise $3.3 million to build 'the Bloomberg terminal' for online sellers

Ad performance tools

BrandTotal is a marketing analytics company that pitches advertisers on the premise that most digital and social media ads are now "dark," or visible only to the people they're targeting.

It joins other businesses that promise greater visibility into digital advertising such as Pathmatics, which measures how much brands spend on Facebook and other platforms.

BrandTotal co-founder Alon Leibovich said the company uses AI to track ads and help advertisers understand their competitors' strategies.

This pitch has helped BrandTotal win business from big brands like L'Oréal and raise $12 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $20 million.

Canada's INcapital Ventures led the latest round along with Maor Investments, Glilot Capital Partners, Flint Capital, KDC Media Fund, and FJ Labs.

This investor deck helped startup BrandTotal raise $20 million to date to help advertisers like L'Oréal see how their digital ads are working

E-commerce advertising services

Brands are increasingly becoming advertising platforms, giving rise to a cottage industry of adtech companies that help marketers build their own ad businesses.

One such firm is 9-year-old adtech firm Adzerk, which is rebranding as Kevel.

EMarketer reports that e-commerce advertising will be a $17 billion market this year. Retailers like Walgreens, Walmart, and Instacart have led the charge, but Kevel sees an opportunity for other types of brands to build ad businesses of their own.

In December 2020, Kevel raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Fulcrum Equity, with Commerce Ventures, MathCapital and Food Retail Ventures also participating.

A digital ad firm just raised $11 million to help brands like United Airlines and Ticketmaster build their own ad businesses

Targeted ad tools

Google's and Apple's moves to clamp down on privacy and digital-ad targeting have been a boon for startups trying to find workarounds like identity solutions.

One such firm is ID5, a European startup that helps advertisers find audiences to target and make sure people don't repeatedly see the same ads. It makes money from licensing its ID to adtech companies for a monthly fee that ranges from $5,000 to $30,000, CEO Mathieu Roche said. The company gives away its technology to publishers to grow adoption of the ID.

ID5 closed a $6 million Series A funding round in March from Alliance Entreprendre, Progress Ventures, and 360 Capital Partners. The 4-year-old company has raised a total of $7.5 million.

Read the pitch deck that a startup used to raise $6 million to save targeted advertising

Privacy compliance help

New privacy regulations are springing up around the globe, and publishers and marketers are turning to technology companies to stay on the right side of these laws and avoid huge fines.

One of the companies capitalizing on the increased focus on data privacy is Sourcepoint. Founded by adtech vets Ben Barokas and Brian Kane, the US-based technology company has a platform that lets publishers and advertisers get legal consent from people to use their data.

Sourcepoint recently raised $17 million in additional funding, led by new investor Arrowroot Capital, bringing its total funding to $47.8 million since it launched in 2015.

The pitch deck used to raise $17 million for a startup that helps advertisers and publishers comply with privacy laws

Real-time market research

Former CEO of Publicis agency MRY and Suzy CEO Matt Britton — Matt Britton

Agency veteran Matt Britton pitches his consumer intelligence startup Suzy as an always-on digital assistant like Siri or Alexa for marketers. It has a consumer panel that lets marketers conduct surveys and research on subjects like product development and ad effectiveness testing.

He raised $50 million in Series D after closing a $34 million Series C last year, bringing its total raised to $100 million.

H.I.G. Growth Partners, an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, led the round, with Rho Capital Partners, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Foundry Group, and Triangle Peak Partners also participating.

See the pitch deck a market research startup that's trying to rival Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey used to raise $50 million

Livestreaming tools for creators

Livestreaming startup Restream was founded in 2015 to help gaming content creators grow their reach by livestreaming to Twitch and YouTube at the same time.

It's since expanded to serve musicians, politicians, influencers, publishers, non-profit organizations, and other businesses and says its goal is to democratize broadcasting. Restream said half its 2.5 million users are now non-gamers. Most of its users are nonpaying, but it sells subscriptions from $19 to $299 per month that come with features like the ability to record streams and access to more customer support.

Restream announced in August that it had raised $50 million in new funding from investors including Sapphire Ventures and Insight Partners.

Read the 14-slide pitch deck that helped livestreaming startup Restream raise $50 million amid the pandemic

Video streaming subscriptions

CuriosityStream is a 5-year-old streaming service founded by former Discovery Communications founder John Hendricks. It went public in fall 2020 through a reverse merger with Software Acquisition Group, a SPAC led by Jonathan Huberman, who formerly led video adtech firm Ooyala.

CuriosityStream is differentiated from other streaming services in that it focuses on factual content like documentaries and features, with more than 3,100 titles. It reported 13 million paying subscribers buying monthly and yearly subscriptions ranging from $3 a month to $70 a year.

The deal with Software Acquisition Group gave CuriosityStream $180 million in cash.

The investor deck that CuriosityStream used to secure $180 million to take on rival video streaming services

Reaching online sports fans

Overtime wants to be the next ESPN, but for social media.

It started 2016 by Endeavor vets Dan Porter and Zack Weiner with a focus on high-school sports and athletes and has expanded into areas including esports.

Overtime captures game highlights through people it pays to film events and also creates original programming and events. It distributes content mainly on social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Its core business is making money from ads, sponsorships, and merchandise, and projects making $200 million in annual revenue by 2024.

It recently raised $80 million from investors including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, rapper Drake, and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, The Wall Street Journal reported.