Strategy & Planning

How to build an investor pitch deck as Asset Management Founders

Strategy & PlanningFor Asset Management Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

You're raising your second fund or preparing for an LP meeting in six weeks, and your pitch deck is a stale PowerPoint from the last close with the wrong vintage year in the footer. You have real data — fund performance, portfolio company metrics, scenario analysis you ran in Excel — but turning it into a coherent 15-slide deck takes a weekend. You don't have an IR associate. Your placement agent wants materials by Friday. And every time a portfolio company's numbers change, you're manually updating slides at 11pm. The tools that solve this for Blackstone cost $50k/year and assume a dedicated ops team. You need the deck out the door, not a new software implementation project.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

Strategy & PlanningFor Asset Management Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A pitch deck built from your actual fund data — performance, portfolio construction, LP terms — not a blank template you fill in manually

A scenario analysis layer that shows LPs exactly what the portfolio looks like under different deployment and exit assumptions, with numbers pulled from real connected sources

A repeatable investor reporting workflow so every LP update you send between now and the next close reinforces your track record narrative automatically

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Presentation Agent Scenario Analysis Investor Reporting

Data sources & config

Presentation Agent builds the deck from your description with no prior data connection required — describe the fund and paste in track record numbers directly. Scenario Analysis connects to Starch's Plaid and Stripe scheduled-sync providers so your baseline financials reflect actual fund-level cash flows and management fee revenue; you adjust the deployment and exit assumptions from there. Investor Reporting syncs your Plaid, Stripe, QuickBooks, or NetSuite data on a schedule so each quarterly LP update pulls live numbers rather than requiring you to re-enter them.

Prompts to copy

Build me a 14-slide fundraising pitch deck for a $75M emerging markets credit fund. Include: fund thesis, market opportunity, portfolio construction (target 20 positions, 3-5 year hold), team slide, track record from our last fund (I'll paste in the IRR and MOIC table), fee structure (1.5 and 15 with a 6% hurdle), and a Q&A appendix. Tone should be institutional but not stiff — we pitch family offices and smaller endowments, not pension funds.

Show me three deployment scenarios side-by-side: (1) deploy $75M over 24 months at current deal flow pace, (2) accelerate to 18 months if we close two deals in Q3, (3) slow to 36 months if credit markets tighten. For each scenario, show gross IRR, net IRR after fees, DPI at year 5, and runway on management fees assuming 1.5% on committed capital.

Draft my Q2 2026 LP update. Pull our current portfolio metrics and format a narrative update covering: capital deployed to date ($31M of $75M committed), portfolio company highlights, one realized exit at 2.1x, and our current pipeline. Email it to our LP list on the 15th of each quarter.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Open Presentation Agent and describe the deck you need — fund strategy, target fund size, number of slides, audience type (family office, endowment, UHNW), and any non-negotiables like a specific fee structure or co-investment carve-out. Paste your track record table directly into the prompt.

2 Review the generated deck structure. Starch will produce a full outline with slide titles, suggested content for each slide, and placeholder data visualizations. Approve the structure or ask for revisions in plain language: 'Move the team slide before the portfolio construction slide' or 'Add a fund comparison slide benchmarking us against direct lending peers.'

3 Connect your financial data sources. If you have management company financials in QuickBooks or Plaid, Starch syncs those on a schedule so the fee income and expense lines on your financials slide stay current. For portfolio company metrics, connect from Starch's integration catalog or paste data directly.

4 Open Scenario Analysis and connect Plaid and Stripe as scheduled-sync providers. Set your base case: committed capital, management fee rate, deployment pace, expected gross IRR, and fund expenses. This becomes the anchor all other scenarios compare against.

5 Build two or three alternative scenarios that reflect real decisions you're facing — what if the first close is $40M instead of $60M, or what if you deploy faster because a deal comes in early? Each scenario shows runway on management fees, projected net IRR, and DPI at the fund's expected end date.

6 Export the scenario comparison as a clean table or chart and drop it into your pitch deck via Presentation Agent: 'Add a slide showing these three scenarios side-by-side with gross IRR, net IRR, and DPI for each.'

7 Build your track record slide with granular deal-level data. If you have prior fund data in a spreadsheet, describe the format to Starch and ask it to structure the information into a clean realized and unrealized returns table. This is the slide LPs scrutinize most — get the formatting right before the first meeting.

8 Set up Investor Reporting with your LP email list and a quarterly cadence. Connect QuickBooks or NetSuite as a scheduled-sync provider so capital deployed, management fee income, and fund expenses pull automatically each quarter. Write a template narrative once — Starch will maintain consistent tone in every subsequent update.

9 Run a full dry-run of the LP update workflow before your next quarterly close date. Confirm the data pulled correctly, the narrative draft matches your voice, and the email lands in your test inbox without issues. Fix any formatting or data mapping problems now, not the night before it goes out.

10 Before every LP meeting, ask Starch to update the deck with the latest deployed capital figure and any new portfolio company developments: 'Refresh the portfolio construction slide with our current $38M deployed across 9 positions and add a note that we expect two new investments by Q4.' Export to PDF for the meeting.

11 After the close, archive the fundraising deck version and set up a post-close investor reporting cadence. Starch maintains consistent formatting and data sourcing so your LP communications during the investment period look as polished as your pitch materials did.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

Meridian Credit Opportunities Fund II — First Close Materials, June 2026

Sample numbers from a real run

Target fund size	75,000,000
First close target	40,000,000
Capital deployed (Fund I, realized)	48,000,000
Fund I net IRR (realized positions)	19
Fund I MOIC (realized positions)	218
Management fee income (trailing 12mo)	562,500
Fund II pipeline (LOIs outstanding)	22,000,000

Sarah runs a $48M credit fund that's 85% deployed and preparing to launch Fund II at $75M. She has a first close target of $40M and six existing LPs who've indicated they'll re-up, plus four new prospects from a placement agent relationship. Her pitch deck from Fund I is outdated — it shows the wrong team headcount and doesn't reflect the two exits she completed at 2.1x and 1.8x MOIC respectively. She opens Presentation Agent and types: 'Build me a 14-slide pitch deck for Meridian Credit Opportunities Fund II, a $75M direct lending fund targeting middle-market companies in Southeast Asia. Our Fund I was $48M, fully deployed, with a net IRR of 19% on realized positions and 2.18x MOIC. We've had two full exits. Current portfolio has 11 active positions. Fee structure is 1.5 and 15 with a 6% hurdle and a catch-up. Audience is family offices and one university endowment. Include a fund terms summary, team page, and Q&A appendix.' Starch produces a complete deck in under three minutes. Sarah then opens Scenario Analysis, connects Plaid as a scheduled-sync provider so her management company cash flows are live, and models three Fund II scenarios: deploy $75M over 24 months at current pace (projected net IRR 17%), deploy $40M first close only over 30 months if Fund II fundraising slows (net IRR 14%, runway on management fees 28 months), and accelerate to 18 months if she closes the two pipeline deals in Q3 (net IRR 21%, management fee runway tightens to 16 months — a risk worth flagging to LPs). She exports the scenario table and asks Presentation Agent to add it as slide 11 with a short narrative explaining why she built in the conservative case. Total time to first-draft deck: four hours, versus the two-day sprint she did for Fund I.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Net IRR and MOIC by vintage year and realization status (realized vs. unrealized)

Capital deployed as % of committed capital, by fund

Management fee runway in months (management fee income vs. fund expenses)

LP re-up rate from prior fund to current fund

Pipeline coverage ratio: total LOIs outstanding vs. remaining deployment capacity

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

PowerPoint + Excel (manual)

Full control over formatting but every data update is manual — you'll rebuild the deck from scratch for every LP meeting and still have stale numbers in the room.

Juniper Square or Addepar

Purpose-built for LP reporting and portfolio analytics but starts at $50k+/year, assumes a dedicated ops team, and won't build your pitch deck — you still need a separate presentation workflow.

Canva or Beautiful.ai

Fast for visual design but you're still sourcing every data point manually, and there's no scenario modeling or automated LP update cadence built in.

iLevel (Blackstone-owned)

Deep portfolio monitoring and LP portal features, but priced and structured for larger GPs — an emerging fund manager is not the target customer and will pay for capabilities they won't use for years.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — presentation agent, scenario planning, investor reporting all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can Starch pull my Fund I performance data automatically, or do I have to enter it manually?

It depends on where that data lives. If your fund-level financials are in QuickBooks or NetSuite, Starch syncs those on a schedule and can surface the relevant line items in your pitch materials. If your track record is in a spreadsheet or a legacy system, the fastest path is pasting the data directly into your Presentation Agent prompt — Starch will format it into a clean returns table from there. We're not going to pretend there's a magic connector to every fund admin's proprietary database.

Is Starch SOC 2 Type II certified? My LP compliance team will ask.

Not yet. Starch is not currently SOC 2 Type II certified. If your LP requires SOC 2 Type II for any vendor touching fund data, that's a real constraint you should factor in. We'd rather tell you upfront than have you find out during due diligence.

Can Starch post my LP update to a data room like iLevel or Allvue, or just email it?

Investor Reporting emails your LP update directly on whatever cadence you set. If your data room is web-accessible, Starch can automate posting through your browser — no API required. That said, deep bi-directional integrations with fund admin portals like iLevel or Allvue aren't scheduled-sync providers today, so the connection would be browser-based rather than a structured data sync.

The Presentation Agent is listed as in development. Can I use it now for my pitch deck?

Presentation Agent is currently in development — you can request beta access to get notified when it launches. In the meantime, you can build your deck workflow using Scenario Analysis for the financial modeling layer and Investor Reporting for the narrative update cadence, then assemble slides manually in PowerPoint or Google Slides. The scenario tables and narrative drafts Starch generates are exportable and drop cleanly into any presentation tool.

How does Scenario Analysis handle the hurdle rate and carried interest waterfall in my projections?

Scenario Analysis is built for operational and financial planning — it models runway, burn, revenue growth, and deployment pace well. For a precise carried interest waterfall calculation with a specific hurdle, catch-up, and clawback provision, you'll want to validate the math in a dedicated fund model or with your fund administrator. Starch is the right tool for the LP-facing scenario narrative and the headline projections; it's not a replacement for your fund admin's distribution waterfall model.

Can I use Starch to track which LPs have seen the deck and how engaged they are?

Not through native deck analytics — Starch doesn't track link opens or slide view time the way a tool like Docsend does. What Starch does well is keeping the LP relationship data organized: connect Gmail or Outlook as a scheduled-sync provider and Starch can surface which LP threads have gone quiet, which contacts opened your last update, and where follow-ups are overdue. For deck engagement analytics specifically, a tool like Docsend sits alongside Starch rather than being replaced by it.