This free eBook goes over the 10 slides every startup pitch deck has to include, based on what we learned from analyzing 500+ pitch decks, including those from Airbnb, Uber and Spotify.
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Square is an American FinTech company that deals with digital payments and financial services. It was founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in San Francisco, CA, in 2009, and, since then, it has become available in Canada, Australia, Japan, and the UK.
Its first product was the Square Reader - a device that connects to a smartphone through the headphones’ jack and allows users to accept credit card payments. The company’s target is small to medium-sized businesses since many of them can experience various technical and financial difficulties with setting up credit card payment systems. Square’s devices and later financial services, such as payroll and appointment tools, financing options for merchants, and more, allow small businesses to compete adequately on the market.
The pitch deck presented is the one Square used for its Series C funding in 2011. Back then, the company had two previous funding rounds in 2009 and January 2011, for $10M and $27.5M, respectively. That had led to the business being valued at $240M. In the deck, Square announces 100K merchants being added to their client base monthly. The company also processed $1 million in payments daily during that time.
The pitch deck is well structured and easy to follow. The company has concisely presented its level of development and its goals for the next four years. The deck also addresses possible concerns future investors may have.
It’s important to note that there have been some claims about the deck’s authorship. According to Bryan Landers and his Medium article, the deck has been built as part of a UC Berkeley students’ project. We couldn’t find more information about the validity of these claims since Square tends to keep its pitch decks private.
Regardless of the authenticity of the deck, Square’s Series C was successful and collected $100M from the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in June 2011. Following funding rounds have also seen the company grow, with $200M being raised in 2012, $250M in 2014, and $10.7M in 2021.
