Welcome back to Raise Like a Pro dear reader! ; a newsletter to help you do exactly that.

I'm David, and unlike most people giving fundraising advice, I don't just talk about raising money – I’ve been there as a founder and now I spend my day raising money for startups all over the world from investors all over the world.

I've closed millions in new investment in the past few months alone for startups - and I’m going to teach you how to do it without needing someone like me. This is my playbook; the operational, tactical and yes - sometimes boring stuff you need to do each and every day to raise your round.

No nonsense, no fluff and definitely no fuzzy sheep.

Table of Contents

• My promise to you

• Beautiful polished decks via GenAI means you have …

• 💰 Deals done this week

• Clarity Over Clutter: The Right Pitch Deck for Sta …

• 📖 Interesting things I’ve been reading….

  • About Raise Like a Pro

My promise to you

Every piece of advice in this newsletter comes from actual experience: deals I've closed, terms I've negotiated, and strategies I've refined through real-world application.

I'm not here to give you startup platitudes or generic advice. Instead, you'll get practical, actionable tactics that you can implement immediately in your fundraising journey.

The goal? To help you raise money faster, at better valuations, while protecting your interests and your time.

– David

Beautiful polished decks via GenAI means you have no more excuses.

Most people think my job is easy.

Grab a deck a founder’s cobbled together, flick it to a few investors I’ve wined and dined, and boom—a fat cheque lands 48 hours later. Easy money, right?

If only.

In reality I’m nostril-deep in decksmithing most days. Reviewing, suggesting, rewriting. Tearing apart the story, the narrative, the messaging, the numbers, the team slide, the market size, the ambition... And desperately trying not to turn it into something so ugly even your mum wouldn’t put it on the fridge.

But we’re living in the age of AI my friends.
My job just got a hell of a lot easier.
Which means your job (yes, you founder reading this) got easier too.
And that means... fewer excuses for crap decks.

Bad decks are the bane of investors' lives (and mine). Everyone preaches the gospel of a “killer deck” but there are about 17 different Bibles out there telling you what that actually means. And sure enough, there are a whole bunch of people happy to charge you for doing your homework.

But guess what?
We’re in the Age of AI now, and the game has changed.

I’ve been playing around with a few AI tools that automatically generate pitch decks—and honestly, I’m blown away. They’re not perfect (that part of the job isn’t going anywhere quick), but they’ve taken a lot of the heavy lifting off my plate.

Join me for our weekly deepdive below.

💰 Deals done this week

• Stockholm-based Froda, an embedded finance platform offering lending solutions for SMEs across multiple European markets, raised €20m in Series B funding. The round was led by Incore Invest.

• Frankfurt-based Node.energy, a SaaS platform for energy management and renewable energy systems, raised €15m in Series B funding. DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF) led the round, with participation from eCAPITAL ENTREPRENEURIAL PARTNER, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Helen Ventures, BitStone Capital, and BONVENTURE.

• London-based Hokodo, a digital trade credit platform, raised €10m in Series C funding. The round was co-led by Korelya Capital and Opera Tech Ventures, joined by Mundi Ventures and Notion Capital.

• London-based Isembard, which builds modular, software-powered manufacturing units for critical industries, secured $9m in seed funding. Notion Capital led the round, alongside 201 Ventures, Basis Capital, Forward Fund, Material Ventures, Neverlift Ventures, and NP-Hard Ventures.

• London-based Neurolabs, specializing in computer vision, synthetic data generation, and ‘image recognition as a service’, raised $7.8m in Series A funding. Nauta Capital led, with support from LAUNCHub, Lunar Ventures, and Techstart.

• Cloud Capital, a London-based platform helping finance teams manage their cloud spend, raised $7.7m in funding. The round was led by Backed Ventures and Middlegame Ventures, with participation from DFF Ventures.

• Paris-based mirSense, a specialist in quantum cascade laser and miniature gas sensor technologies, raised €7m in Series A funding. Safran Corporate Ventures led the round, joined by Supernova Invest, Polytechnique Ventures, and Crédit Agricole Alpes Développement (C2AD).

• London-based Capably, an AI-powered task delegation platform, raised $4m in seed funding. Boost Capital Partners led the round, alongside Concept Ventures, Sure Valley Ventures, Araya Ventures, Haatch, Koro Ventures, Wayra, and Ascension.

Clarity Over Clutter: The Right Pitch Deck for Startup Fundraising

A little piece of me dies every time I open a pitch deck and it’s - well - ugly.

Usually about once a day.

My job is to figure out what the business is, if I can help the founders raise and if there is even an opportunity here.

And I am somewhat human. So if I see a deck that is really ugly - I just lose the will to live. And avoid finding where to start. I’d love to tell you I still read it and try and pluck out the relevant info - but often I just find ways to procrastinate.

Now imagine how a crap deck hitting an investor’s inbox feels like.

There are two aspect to getting a deck right:

• The story, the flow and the strategic narrative - what your painkiller is, how big you can get, why you’re the right team. I’ve written about how I do it for my clients before here.

• How it looks - this matters. It really does. You used to be able to get away with it looking so ugly even the mammy couldn’t love it but I really think those days are over. I even raised £1m for a business in late 2024 purely on a Notion doc. No more.

But founders struggle. Getting all of this right is hard - and even when you have the copy right the aesthetics can be really hard to master.

Evolving My Approach (Thanks to AI)

Recently I’ve evolved my approach to pitch decks – and a big catalyst was the rise of ridiculously easy AI tools for content and design. In the past, opting for a narrative doc over a slide deck was partly because designing slides was a pain. Not every founder is a Canva whiz (and who has the time?). But now, with tools that can transform plain text into slick slides in minutes, there’s no excuse for not having a deck that is both story-led and visually tidy.

These days, I recommend a simple 3-step process to craft an investor-ready pitch deck. It lets you start with raw narrative and end with a polished deck, without getting bogged down in design hell:

1. Draft a stripped-back outline of your story. Begin with a simple doc that captures your core narrative in a few key points. Focus on just the essentials – problem, solution, vision, traction, etc. the Ideal Teaser Deck format – one idea per section, no fluff.)

2. Refine the wording with AI. Take that rough narrative and let an AI like ChatGPT polish it up. The AI can tighten the language, suggest clearer phrasing, and ensure your points are concise and compelling. Think of it as your copy editor who never gets tired. You’re still in control – you’ll pick the suggestions that fit – but this step helps turn your outline into crisp, investor-friendly prose.

3. Generate a clean slide deck with AI design tools. Now for the magic: drop your refined content into an AI-powered deck builder (I’m a fan of Gamma for this). In a few clicks, you’ll get a sharp-looking deck with consistent formatting, nice visuals, and zero Comic Sans. Tweak the results if needed, but you’ll likely find a professional layout ready to go, without hours of fiddling in Canva.

The end result is a clean, story-driven pitch deck that looks like you spent days crafting it – when in reality, you spent your time honing the narrative and let the tools do the rest.

No More Excuses: Clarity Made Easy

The great news for founders today is that clarity has never been easier to achieve. With modern AI tools and a clear process, you don’t need to be a storyteller or a designer – you can leverage technology to help you with both. There’s really no excuse for showing up with a confusing or cluttered deck now. In a matter of an hour or two, you can go from a jumble of ideas in your head to a slick 10-slide deck that gets your story across. Modern tools remove any remaining excuses for not having a clean, story-led, investor-ready deck.

At the end of the day, whether you’re using a Notion doc or a glossy set of slides, the substance is what counts. But if you can deliver that substance with clarity and a bit of style, why not do it? Investors will thank you – if not out loud, then by paying more attention and asking the right questions. So next time you’re gearing up to raise funding, resist the urge to stuff your deck with everything and the kitchen sink. Instead, pin down the narrative that truly matters, say it simply, and let smart tools handle the rest. Your story will shine brighter, and that’s what ultimately closes the deal. Clarity wins, every time.

Links & Resources: For further reading, check out Andy Raskin’s seminal post “The Best Sales Deck” for inspiration on strategic narrative, and give AI tools like ChatGPT and Gamma a try to streamline your deck creation. With the right approach, you’ll craft a pitch deck that leaves investors impressed by your vision – not exhausted by your slides.

🤖 AI in fundraising

Fundraising is time-intensive and distracts from what matters - building the business. Emerging AI tools will help you save time whether summarising investor requests, preparing for meetings, or managing due diligence materials.

Here are a couple of tools that have been a game changer for me recently:

• Gamma.app - Gamma is like the cool middle ground between slide decks and documents. It lets founders create beautiful, interactive presentations without messing around with design tools. You just type, and Gamma handles the layout, adding visuals, charts, and interactive elements as needed. It’s great for pitch decks, updates to investors, or internal team docs that need a bit more flair. Founders can use Gamma to quickly pull together polished presentations that actually look good and keep people engaged—without spending hours formatting slides.

• Capably.ai - Capably is like having a research assistant that never sleeps. It helps founders automate the process of finding and qualifying leads—whether that’s investors, customers, or partners. You tell it who you’re looking for, and it digs through data to find the right people and even gives you insights on how to approach them. For founders, this means less time hunting for the right contacts and more time focused on making connections that count. You can use Capably to power up your outreach campaigns, making sure you’re targeting the right people with the right message at the right time.

📖 Interesting things I’ve been reading….

📈 London-based neobank Zopa has seen profits double as the company enters its second year running in the green. 
🧑‍⚖️ German startup Noxtua, previously known as Xayn, has raised over €80m to help develop a “sovereign” legal AI tool for Europe.

About Raise Like a Pro

Raising a funding round isn’t rocket science. It’s not even brain surgery. But it's incredibly time-consuming, HARD and emotionally challenging.

As a founder, your time is better spent building product, finding product-market fit, signing up customers, and building your team. Yet fundraising demands an enormous amount of your attention and energy.

I've witnessed countless founders struggle with this balance. They get stuck in the cycle of endless pitch meetings, confusing feedback, and the dreaded "no's" that seem to pile up without explanation. Even successful companies like Canva, now valued at $25.5 billion, started with their CEO Melanie Perkins hearing "no" over 100 times before getting that crucial first "yes."

What this newsletter will give you

I'm going to share my exact playbook – the same one I use to raise millions for startups across the world. This isn't about theory or inspiration. Instead, you'll get:

• The actual processes I use to close deals.

• Step-by-step morning routines for effective fundraising.

• Real email templates that get responses.

• Meeting scripts that convert to term sheets.

• Pipeline management techniques that close deals.

• The stuff you really need to know so you don’t get screwed by investors.

My days are spent navigating negotiations with every type of investor: angels looking for their next big win, syndicates pooling capital for bigger deals, and VC firms conducting thorough due diligence.

I'll share insights from all these perspectives, helping you understand how each type of investor thinks and what they're really looking for.

What's coming up

In the next issues, we'll dive into a whole bunch of stuff including:

• How to structure your fundraising for maximum efficiency

• The exact outreach strategies I use to get investor meetings

• Common terms to watch out for (and how to negotiate them)

• Ways to create competitive tension in your raise

• Due diligence preparation that speeds up closing

Raise like a Pro is what David Levine does every single day though this business Glenluna Ventures. An exited founder, he raises money each and every day for founders all over the world from investors all over the world.