Pitch your startup to a real room.
Every Startup Valley night has a live pitch session: founders on stage, investors and operators asking questions, and a room full of people who can actually move your startup forward, in 25 cities worldwide.
Four moments, and how to be ready.
Nobody pitches well by accident. This is the evening from where you will be standing, with the advice we give every founder before they take the mic.
Built for a screen people read across a room
One idea per slide, type large enough to read from the back, no dense appendix. We go through the deck with you before the night, so this is the version that has already been cut down.
Lead with the most surprising true thing
Five minutes is enough to be remembered for one idea, not ten. Open with the line that makes a stranger look up, and let the slides support you rather than narrate you.
People film the part that works
If you have something live, show it. Demos are what get held up on phones and passed around afterwards, and they travel further than the deck ever does.
The first question is free market research
Whatever an investor probes first is the thing your pitch failed to settle. Write it down on the night. Most founders fix their deck off that one question and never need to be told twice.
Four steps to the mic.
Two of these are on you and two are on us. The part founders most often miss is step three: a pitch ticket reserves your place at the event, but the application form is what books you a slot on stage.
Choose an upcoming event in your city. Every standard night includes the pitch session. See what's on →
On the event's ticket page, pick "Pitch at the event", the dedicated ticket for pitching founders. Slots per night are limited and the earliest tickets are the cheapest, so the night can sell out of pitch slots well before it sells out of seats.
This is the step that actually books your slot. The pitch application form asks what you are building, who it is for, your stage and what you are looking for on the night. It takes a few minutes. Without it we have your ticket but no company to put on the running order.
We come back to confirm your slot, send you our pitching guide, go through your deck with you, and make sure the right investors are in the room. On the night you get five minutes and the Q&A, and afterwards a permanent listing in the startup directory.
Five minutes, and what comes back.
Questions from people who invest
VCs and angels attend by approval, and the Q&A after your five minutes is theirs. You find out which part of the business a professional probes first, which is usually the part your deck is thinnest on. That read normally costs you a month of meetings to get.
A blunt read from operators
Most of the room has built something adjacent to what you are building. Their feedback arrives all evening, in the conversations after you step down, and it is franker than anything you will get by email.
A deck someone senior has been through
Before the night we send you our pitching guide and go through your deck with you: what to cut, what to lead with, what will get asked. You are not finding out on stage.
Exposure that outlasts the evening
Five minutes in front of a full room, and then a permanent listing in our public startup directory: your one-liner, city, stage and sector, linkable long after the night is over.
Some founders leave with more than feedback.
Every company that pitches lands in the public startup directory. Beyond that it is selective: each fortnight our editorial team picks a handful of companies from across our events to feature on our social channels and in the biweekly investor newsletter that goes out to a verified investor list. It is curated on merit, and there is no way to buy a place in it. Pitch well and you are in front of the people who choose.
How do I get a pitch slot?
Two steps: buy the "Pitch at the event" ticket for an upcoming night in your city, then fill in the pitch application form so we know what you're building. Slots are confirmed in order, and pitch tickets are limited per night to keep the session focused.
What does pitching look like on the night?
A short live pitch covering your idea, business model and target market, followed by direct Q&A from the investors and operators in the room. No projector theatrics required; clarity beats slides.
Who will hear my pitch?
The room is a curated mix of founders, VCs and angel investors, engineers and operators. Investors attend by approval, so the people asking questions are the people you want asking questions.
Will pitching help me raise?
It might, and we will not promise it. We are an events and community company, not a fund, broker or placement agent, and we take no fee or carry on anything that happens afterwards. What we control is the room, the feedback, the directory listing and the chance of being featured. Whether that turns into a check is between you and the people you meet.
How do the features work?
Every fortnight our editorial team picks a handful of companies from across our events for our social channels and the biweekly investor newsletter. It is curated on merit, there is no way to pay for a place, and pitching is how you get in front of the people choosing.
What should I prepare?
A tight few minutes: what you're building, for whom, how it makes money, and what you're looking for (funding, pilots, hires, feedback). Practice the one-sentence version too, you'll use it all night in the networking.
Take the mic anywhere.
The same format runs in every city. Pitch where you are, or where your customers are, and remember that pitch slots per night are limited, so the sooner you claim one the better.
The stage is yours.
Ticket first, form second, mic third. We'll take care of the room.