Simba Chain’s $25M Series A Deck – businesskinda.com

Grab a cup of coffee and tie up as this pitch deck breaking down is quite different from most I’ve done so far.

Why? Let me count the ways. (Okay, fine, there are only two ways.) But let’s take a closer look:

1. This is a blockchain pitch. The pitch deck is for Simba Necklace, a blockchain company that has raised $25 million in a Series A. It is very brave of them to submit their deck for a teardown. like you follow me on twitteryou probably noticed that out of every three or four tweets, one makes me laugh about blockchain technology.

It’s not that I hate the people building blockchains, but in the decade or so that I’ve been following the industry, I’ve only come across a small handful of companies that make sense to me (Arkive is one, and I broke the deck too). Usually I conclude that it is a shame that people this one talented people waste their time and talent building something in this space.

I know these are harsh words, and I hasten to add that those are my personal views, not businesskinda.com’s in general. (Besides, you wouldn’t want to) me writing about this as we have an incredible crypto/blockchain/web3 team covering it.) I did want to mention it because as much as I will try to be neutral, my disdain for blockchain technology will almost certainly show in this teardown .

2. businesskinda.com didn’t cover the round! I know, I know, that’s pretty much one of the rules here for breaking down the pitch deck. having said that, The Wall Street Journal reported on the roundjust as CoinDesk.

Suffice it to say that I am stretching my knowledge to the limit here, but I invite you to consider two things:

1. Not me to have to have a deep understanding of blockchain technology to be able to critique the field. In fact, many of the people who buy my book and who work with me as a pitch coach, run companies in spaces I know nothing about.
2. Storytelling is universal, and as long as the founders know what they’re talking about, I can help with the pitch side of things.

So here’s an invitation: let’s see this as an adventure we can embark on together, and if you have any feedback, thoughts or comments feel free to write them on a piece of paper and put it on fi… I mean feel free to nice of me on twitter. I promise to be open minded.

With all that out of the way, let’s learn some things together!

We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to break down, so if you’d like to submit your own pitch decks, here’s how.

Slides in this deck

Simba Chain’s slide deck is incredibly impressive and covers a lot of ground. It consists of 19 slides, some of which sneak up on you with a surprise, and others that might leave you scratching your head.

1. cover slip
2. problem slide
3. Solution slide
4. Market slide (TAM/SAM)
5. Market slide (SUM)
6. Vision slide
7. Traction slider
8. awards
9. team slide
10. board slide
11. Scale Simba Slide
12. Positioning Slider
13. Match slide
14. canal slide
15. Competition product comparison slide
16. Slide ‘Call smart contract method’
17. Supported blockchains slide
18. Current investors slide
19. Thank you/contact slide

Three things to love

There are two ways to make money in a gold rush: one is by digging out a giant honking gold nugget of heavy, yellow metal; the other is to provide the miners with picks, shovels and TNT.

I love how explicit Simba Chain makes it do the latter – and not just for everyone, either. The company has worked with an incredible list of clients, including clients (such as the US Navy) who are notoriously difficult to contract. In the pitch and storytelling, Simba Chain leans on his clients’ family tree to bring his story to life.

Crystal clear view

[Slide 7] I like the clarity of view here. Image Credits: Simba Necklace

Many companies find it surprisingly difficult to figure out their raison d’être. When you’re a startup startup that needs a blue ocean strategy, a thousand opportunities come your way at every turn. Breaking through the noise with a clear, strategic vision, followed by implementable tactics and repeatable operations, is the way to build a fast-growing, successful business.

This vision slide has an abundance of clarity: “‘Picks and shovels’ of the blockchain rush” is ChefsKiss.gif, and “What Stripe is to payments, Simba will be to blockchain” nails it harder. I wish this was the second slide because it gives even a chain skeptic like me a reason to nod my head and mutter under his breath, “I see what you’ve been doing there”.

There are a few head-scratchers here, so I’ll give them a quick name: I have no idea what traction or investors do on a vision slide — it dilutes the message and obscures the story. If the last two bullets on this slide were placed elsewhere, it would be a perfect tone for this pitch.

As it is, it’s just extremely good, so let’s get the founders off the hook here.

Holy team, Batman!

[Slide 10] First impression: God, that’s a lot of whites. Second impression: God, that’s a great team. Image Credits: Simba Necklace

In a world where diversity matters, this slide got a hold of me. But then I started reading the descriptions.

I’ve never seen anything like “Bryan has been involved in 380 startups and 17 exits” on a slideshow. It looks like he was withdrew as part of Series A after serving as chairman of the company’s board of directors since the late 2019 seed round. Any investor will have a claim like “380 startups and 17 exits” Look up Ritchie’s LinkedIn page.

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect there, and I suspect the founding team has had an interesting time in due diligence. Still, the company raised the money successfully, so they passed the due diligence, and if the company can back up the claim, it certainly speaks of a lot of experience.

The rest of the team is also full of veterans. The CTO had been to the IT academy for a decade before co-founding the company, spending the COO 25 years at Microsoft before joining Simba Chain (although it looks like he recently switched to Google).

The co-founder and ex-CEO, Joel Neidig, also has an impressive resume, although “addressed by the president’s economic council on blockchain” is somewhat vague – I don’t know what that means. In any case, it looks like he left Simbla Chain in July, along with COO Joe Matz.

This slide is pretty wild. I haven’t spoken to the company, as I’m trying to do these pitch deck teardowns as best I can, but there seems to be more going on than meets the eye.

Had I come across this deck as the company ramped up its round in 2021, I would have said, “There’s a lot of veteran talent here.” Looking at it through August 2022, the picture is interesting: the CEO was not there when the fundraiser took place (he was promoted from chairman to CEO as part of this round), and two of the other seven people on the deck have moved on.

I read that the company brought in veteran leadership, which caused a stir. That’s not a bad thing — fast-growing companies often outgrow their founding team and early hires — but it would certainly take me more due diligence than usual to make sure there isn’t a cultural issue here.

In any case, the company currently has 91 employees on LinkedIn, so it looks like it has come a long way since its early days.

A beast of a competition slide

[Slide 14] Check check check check check this out. Image Credits: Simba Necklace

Blockchains and web3 are rapidly evolving spaces, both in terms of market adoption and technology. It helps that Simba Chain was originally created out of a DARPA contract and has accumulated credibility from being associated with established, respected academic organizations. This means it has an edge in making itself palatable to governments and corporate customers alike.

Of course, the company wouldn’t add anything to its own contest slide that doesn’t show it came out on top. Still, this is a rather impressive way to start a conversation. Follow-up discussions would focus on why these points are so important to government customers and how that translates into overall competitive advantages.

Of course, investors will want to check that Simba is really way ahead of everyone else and that there really isn’t any competition for no-code options. That said, this slide does something very elegant: by mapping the competitive landscape in this way, you’re able to steer the first pass of the competitive conversation in your direction. Very smart and undoubtedly elegant.

In the rest of this teardown, we’ll take a look at three things Simba Chain could have improved or done differently, along with the full pitch deck!