Decode

Chronicle’s Deck that Raised $7.5M from Accel

Breakdown of Chronicle’s 9-slide pitch deck.

Chase Ballard

Mar 1, 2023 • 3 min read

Background

Company: Chronicle, founded in 2021, is building modern presentation and storytelling tools for impressive, interactive stories.
Problem: Presentations are time consuming and deliver output that is not engaging.
Solution: Chronicle’s interactive presentation design tool uses “blocks” that can be turned into compelling visuals for storytelling.
Most Recent Funding: $7.5M seed round on February 21, 2023
Total Funding: $7.5M
Notable Investors: Accel

Bottom Line

Team and vision are the two most important variables for early-stage investors. Chronicle has both. Their first slide beautifully encompasses a world-class team and a bold vision.
Chronicle’s flywheel is nothing new in the product-led growth space — but it’s proven to work. This combined with hyper-focus gives them a leg up in a chaotic venture market.

The Deck

Cover

Vision

Take a page from Chronicle’s book. Almost every seed stage company should have the team on their first slide. The Chronicle founders have incorporated two variables for early stage companies: team + vision.

Friction

Solution

A demo is worth it’s weight in gold. It seems harder to convince investors of a new, interactive future with static slides. Simple answer: include a great demo.

By the way: The demo is the first thing you see on Chronicle’s website.

Solution Continued

Go-to-Market Strategy

Two things to steal from this slide:

The flywheel: Product-led growth is inherent in the product and model. Chronicle signs up a user —> the user needs to collaborate —> they invite more users —> and those users create more presentations.
- Even if this isn’t your exact flywheel, figure yours out. A flywheel can be an easy way for investors to build a mental model of your business and sell the vision to their LP’s.
Focus: Chronicle isn’t boiling the ocean. They’re hyper focused on two use-cases: pitch decks and all hands presentations.

Competitive Landscape

Chronicle’s layout isn’t the best, but it works (see here). Chronicle doesn’t do a feature-by-feature comparison. Instead they frame their product as “purpose built for storytelling” and a novel approach to creating content.