I have not seen A lot of agtech startups give their pitches for this series, so I was excited to get one Phosvolutionany Just closed a $10 million roundBringing the total funds raised to $32 million.
The team initially said they used the combination to raise a Series B round, which confused me, but upon reading the press information more carefully, it appears they made a mistake. I usually let people get away with this kind of thing, but this set is full of problems that could have been avoided by just paying more attention to detail.
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Slides in this surface
Parts of the Phospholutions collection have been heavily redacted, making it difficult to get the full picture, but there is still a lot to access.
- Slide cover
- Slice the problem
- Market context segment
- Business opportunity segment
- Solution slide
- Benefits segment
- Product segment
- Sustainability benefits slide
- Competition segment
- Value proposition slide
- Competitive price comparison segment
- Footnotes slide (revised)
- Go-to-market segment
- Finance history slide
- Short-Term Goals Slide (Revised)
- Five-year forecast (revised)
- Use of Proceeds from Series B (Revised)
- Team segment
- Existing investors slip
- Summary slide
- Close the slide
Three things she loves
The Phospholutions pitch is a captivating display of innovation and strategic vision, and captures the essence of an effective presentation. It’s a harmonious blend of compelling storytelling, clear value propositions and compelling data points that together create a compelling narrative.
To P or not to P
[Side 2] Clarity out of the gate. Image credits: Phosphorus
I love how the title gets to the heart of things. “Global use of P is ineffective and unsustainable” is all we really had to say.
Investors familiar with agricultural technology will likely know this well – the market has a few established companies that have performed well over the years, and if Phospholutions has an innovative approach to solving this problem, it would be an obvious investment to say yes.
I like the simplicity of the graphics. I like that the company alludes to the impact of the issues (“reduced farmers’ profitability” and “inefficient use degrades our waterways”) in addition to mentioning the issues themselves. All the narrative points are very good.
Bottom line: “Farmers need more reliable solutions…” Suggests a solutions-oriented approach and communicates what needs to be done. Since this is just a presentation, it’s clear what happens next.
There’s a ton of information on this slide, but I like how each point leads logically into the next, creating a narrative flow that helps guide the eye and keeps the reader engaged. It’s also scannable, so you can digest the content quickly, too. very smart.
A few small quibbles: I know that P stands for phosphorus, but the writer in me keeps tripping over abbreviations that aren’t explained. There is also no shortage of space on this chip, so naturally GHG stands for greenhouse gases, you can explain that. and “~1.7MT CO2 equivalent/MT P2Hey5“” is a lot of alphabet soup to throw at an early slide.
I’m going off stage now, but attention to detail is important!
Setting the context for the near and medium term
I rarely see startups do this, which is unfortunate, because it helps build the narrative very well:
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pdt-72-10.15m-series-b-phospholutions-slide-3-of-21.png)
[Slide 3] “What will happen if we don’t address this problem?” Image credits: Phosphorus
The market opportunity segment continues where the problem segment ends. Again, there it is a lot From the text here, but it works. Key points are established with graphics, matters are further broken down and supported by claims with little reference to the crisis.
Dividing content into “Today,” “Short Term,” and “Long Term” groups allows the reader to understand how market dynamics will change over time. It’s good storytelling, but it also does something more important: it signals that the founders have an eye on the future and are looking toward where the ball is going rather than where it is now. Investors love to see founders who have an eye on the future.
The other advantage of the storytelling here is that even though it’s not obvious on this slide, it sets the stage for action: action which Phospholutions can provide, of course.
Real impact
The deck spends too much time on the product, in my opinion. But the flip side is that he gets a lot of things very right. This chip, in particular, does a lot of the heavy lifting:
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pdt-72-10.15m-series-b-phospholutions-slide-7-of-21.png)
[Slide 7] Backed by data. Tasty. Image credits: Phosphorus
Phospholutions’ RhizoSorb is more expensive than alternatives and the presentation addresses this in two ways: by showing that the product is more effective and, therefore, you have to use smaller amounts to get better yields. The deck spends a lot of time at this point. I assume this is a result of the team getting a lot of pushback over the pricing.
But the thing I like about this set of slides is that it delves into proven effectiveness. If the investor requests more information, there a lot from him.
In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll take a look at three things Phospholutions could have improved or done differently, along with its full presentation!