[Slide 8] Financials they ain\u2019t, but helpful they are. Image Credits:<\/strong> Northspyre<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I would probably label this slide \u201ctraction,\u201d or \u201ckey performance indicators,\u201d or perhaps even \u201cour story in numbers.\u201d Whatever the right label is, these numbers aren\u2019t kidding around: Six hundred percent growth since 2020 is awesome<\/em> (although it would be good to know how it measures its growth \u2014 number of customers? Revenue? Number of projects?).<\/p>\n

Gross margins of 91% are SaaS-level returns, and 130% net revenue retention is beyond impressive. It means that, on average, customers increase their spend with Northspyre instead of churning away. A customer count of 130 is less impressive \u2014 presumably, some of those aren\u2019t the most important customers \u2014 but it shows that the company at least has a pipeline for acquiring customers that is scalable up to a point. Those are all positive.<\/p>\n

The other great thing is that it shows that Northspyre knows what the important KPIs are: gross margin, NRR, growth and number of customers are all worth tracking.<\/p>\n

The $1.61 of ARR for every $1 invested is a little fuzzier, and I\u2019m less sure why this particular number is on this slide. If this is a historical number, I\u2019d be eager to understand how confident the company is that it can continue along this trajectory. How sure is it that if it raises $20 million, it will have an additional $32.2 million added to its ARR figure by the end of the 12-month period? If that confidence is low (or comes with caveats), it means the company is peddling numbers that are a little on the vanity side of things.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not going to give Northspyre a hard time here. It has additional slides on financials that are removed from this deck, so it\u2019s possible there\u2019s other helpful data elsewhere.<\/p>\n

But as a startup, what you can learn from this example is to ensure that you signal to your investors that you know what the most important metrics are within your business. Pair that with a \u201cgo to market\u201d or \u201cgrowth\u201d slide to draw the historical lines into the future, and you\u2019ve gone a long way toward highlighting why you\u2019re worth the investment.<\/p>\n

In the rest of this teardown, we\u2019ll take a look at three things Northspyre could have improved or done differently \u2014 including how its product slide isn\u2019t, in fact, a product slide \u2014 along with its full pitch deck!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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