Deck Review & Fixes
7 critical issues. Fix before sending to any Tier A investor. Per-audience variant guide included.
Current Deck Structure (11 Slides)
| # | Title | Current Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title | "AI-driven Sports Performance Technology — Unlocking the Source Code of Champion Movement" |
| 2 | Traction | $5.5M+ yearly revenues (2025E), 28% YoY growth, MLB teams, D1 colleges |
| 3 | Customers | Notable customers, testimonials |
| 4 | Problem | Fragmented tools, slow coaching, can't prove cause→effect |
| 5 | Solution | Biomechanics engine + VCA + more profitable coaching |
| 6 | Data Moat | 2.1M+ multi-modal swings from 38K+ athletes |
| 7 | VCA | AI coaching co-pilot, proprietary dataset |
| 8 | TAM/SAM | Golf ($500M+ swing analysis) + Baseball ($500M+) |
| 9 | Team | Leadership + Marketing + AI/Dev + Sales teams |
| 10 | Investment | $2M ask, use of funds |
| 11 | Strategic Focus | Closing slide with websites/social |
[source: deck-review.md, March 2026]
Fix These Slides Before Sending
Current: "AI-driven Sports Performance Technology"
Every sports tech company in 2026 claims to be "AI-driven." This tells the investor nothing about differentiation.
Fix: "The biomechanics intelligence platform trusted by 23 MLB teams and 2,000+ golf facilities"
Lead with proof, not claims. When 23 MLB teams and Driveline Baseball all use your platform, the credibility is self-evident.
US investors apply a "European discount" to companies that feel foreign. EU early-stage valuations are 0.45x US levels. The deck must lead with US presence.
- Slide 1: reference US subsidiary (Swing Catalyst USA Inc, Pennsylvania)
- Team slide: lead with US-based staff (Tucker, Seath, Travis, Shakera)
- Revenue split: highlight "73% North America" prominently — not bury it
- Reframe the R&D grant as "$4.5M in non-dilutive R&D funding" — validation, not dependency
The financials show hardware as majority of revenue. US investors reflexively discount hardware businesses.
- Show trajectory: software growing from 21% to 49% of revenue
- Show gross margin expansion: 48% → 68%
- Reframe hardware as "proprietary data-capture infrastructure" — not a product line
- Cite VALD Performance: Australian force plate company that received FTV Capital ($6.2B) growth equity in 2024
Every investor pitch needs temporal urgency. Add a "Why Now" slide with these catalysts:
- Market consolidation: Sony/KinaTrax (Oct 2024), Oura/Sparta Science (Oct 2024), FTV/VALD (Sep 2024), Catapult/IMPECT ($91M, Oct 2025). Window to participate is closing.
- AI coaching inflecting: AI-in-sports market at 29% CAGR. NBA launched league-wide biomechanics.
- VCA grant de-risks R&D: $4.5M non-dilutive funding — external capital goes 100% to growth.
- Baseball breaking out: Driveline partnership, ESPN coverage, MLB player adoption.
Slide 8 shows "$500M+" figures. Investors are skeptical of top-down TAM. Replace with bottom-up SAM:
- Golf Tier 1: ~2,500 facilities × $15–30K = $37–75M
- Golf Tier 2: ~10,000 facilities × $5–10K = $50–100M
- Baseball: ~1,000 facilities × $20–40K = $20–40M
- Tier 3 mobile (future): 200K+ home golfers × $20/mo = $48M ARR potential
- Total near-term SAM: $100–200M with path to $500M+
Current text: "Operating production agentic AI workflows today — autonomous coding agents, AI-driven knowledge systems..."
True and impressive, but most investors won't understand "agentic AI workflows" and may dismiss it as buzzword padding.
Fix: "AI-augmented development delivering 3–5x engineering velocity" or "AI-first engineering, shipping at the pace of companies 5x our size."
$2M signals "bridge round" or "survival round." Median Series A is $10–18M. SC at $5.5M revenue is above the typical Series A entry threshold.
At 11.9x EV/EBITDA multiples (comparable to VALD/FTV), $2M at 20% dilution implies a ~$10M valuation — which drastically undervalues a $5.5M revenue company.
Consider whether the frame should be: "We are raising $2M as a bridge to prove out three specific milestones, then raising $8–12M at a proper valuation. The $2M is the on-ramp, not the destination."
Strengths to Protect
23 of 30 MLB teams is ~77% penetration of the most analytically sophisticated league in professional sports. This should be slide 1, not slide 2. No other sports tech startup has this level of validation in an elite professional market.
"What happened (launch monitor) → Why (biomechanics) → How to improve (AI coaching)" is the strongest narrative asset. Simple, differentiated, true. Don't change this framework.
2.1M+ synchronized swings, 38K+ athletes, multiple data modalities. The flywheel diagram showing coaches/partners/athletes feeding data is good. This is the asset that no competitor can replicate.
"AI coaching co-pilot that pinpoints limiting factors and prescribes the fix" justifies the valuation premium. However: VCA is 18–24 months from GA release (Q2 2028 per IPN timeline). Do not claim it is "shipped" or "in production." Correct framing: "AI coaching capability in active funded development, backed by 24 MNOK Research Council grant, with working prototype in Q3 2026."
Suggested Slide Order for Cold US Outreach
| # | Purpose | Key Message |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title + Social Proof | "23 MLB teams. 2,000+ golf facilities. The biomechanics intelligence platform." |
| 2 | Problem | Slow, fragmented coaching. Can't prove cause→effect. Coaches guessing on feel. |
| 3 | Solution | What/Why/How framework. The only platform with force + video + launch monitor fused. |
| 4 | The Moat | 2.1M+ swings, 10-year synchronized dataset, unreplicable by any competitor. |
| 5 | Traction | Revenue, ARR, subscribers, growth rates (absolute + %). Real numbers. |
| 6 | Why Now | Market consolidation accelerating, AI coaching inflecting, VCA grant de-risks R&D. |
| 7 | Market | Bottom-up SAM: golf + baseball + expansion path. $100–200M near-term, $709M total. |
| 8 | Business Model | Revenue mix, margin trajectory, software pivot. Hardware-enabled SaaS. |
| 9 | Competitive | Matrix + "nobody else has this dataset" punchline. Force plates ≠ computer vision. |
| 10 | Team | US-first framing. US subsidiary, US sales team, Norwegian R&D center. |
| 11 | The Ask | $2M, 100% to growth, R&D funded by grant. Bridge to $5–10M Series A in 12–18 months. |
[source: deck-review.md, March 2026]
Per-Audience Variant Guide
One core deck + 3 persona variants (swap slides 10–11 + add appendix). Do not send the same deck to all investors.
Emphasize ARR quality, retention, unit economics, payback period. Show software revenue trajectory. "Your $500K–$1M lead is immediately backed by $2.4M in non-dilutive government R&D capital."
Emphasize channel overlap, 2.1M+ swing dataset, integration potential. "The company that owns the biomechanics layer across professional sports."
Emphasize 50+ ambassadors, 2,000+ subscriber facilities, downside protection (grant-funded R&D), patient growth story. "The standard platform across professional golf instruction."
What NOT to Say (to Any Investor)
| Don’t Say | Why Not |
|---|---|
| "Our Foresight SDK has been expired for 5.8 years" | Proactively disclose the risk but frame correctly: "the architecture has demonstrated resilience across multiple vendor transitions." Do not say "expired" upfront. |
| "We're a hardware company" | Biomechanical intelligence platform with hardware-attach. Software is 49% of revenue and growing. |
| "AI-driven" without a shipped product | VCA is in funded development, not production. Say "AI coaching technology in active development" or "2.1M multi-modal swings training our models." |
| "We need $2M to formalize contracts" | Reads as management negligence. Contracts cost $20–50K in legal fees. Do not lead with this. |
| Mention Foresight/Revelyst by name proactively | If Foresight learns SC is fundraising and vulnerable, they could use SDK leverage. Information security is critical. |
| "Bryson DeChambeau uses our product" | His Sportsbox AI partnership is a conflict. Remove from deck. Use the 23 MLB teams instead. |
| Exact runway numbers | Never say "we have X months of cash." Say "we're raising proactively to accelerate while we have momentum." |
| Raw CYRUS pipeline numbers | Do not disclose specific counts of investors contacted or passed. Sanitize to patterns. |
[source: oracle-consensus-strategy.md, 2026-03-20]