From no investor replies to two meetings in the first week

SmartGridGo develops devices that read data from high-voltage electricity lines and help operators understand what is happening across their grids. Pavel and his team had been focused on building the hardware and software. They expected to develop the product, run pilots and cover their costs from there. “Well, we realized that it wasn’t that simple,” Pavel says. They needed investment, and to raise it they needed a good pitch deck.

First, make the product easier to pitch

The team knew the technology in detail. An investor needed to understand the product and the opportunity much faster. Pavel found Utopia Pitch online (“They had really, really good reviews”) and came to us for help with the pitch deck. We worked with the team to simplify the explanation and present the investment story more clearly.

“I definitely felt like it was more of a partnership because we had, first of all, great communication,” Pavel says. That held across time zones, while he was travelling all over the world to talk about the product.

Then, solve the stalled outreach

Pavel later came back when connecting with investors proved difficult. Before this next stage of work, his outreach was not getting replies. The planned raise amount and wider investment strategy still made sense, so we focused on how the opportunity was positioned, the messages he sent and the investors he approached.

We refined the positioning, developed outreach messages for Pavel to send and researched investors whose focus matched SmartGridGo’s industry, geography and business. Pavel used the revised materials to approach those investors.

“You guys were very helpful and went above and beyond actually what was needed to help us out.”Pavel Nayyer

What happened next

In the first week after starting the revised outreach, Pavel booked two investor meetings. We also helped open other conversations for the company, beyond the investment process: “You guys actually helped… open the doors, not just from standpoint of investment, but just networking in general.”

Asked whether working with us had been a good decision, Pavel said: “I wouldn’t say it was a good decision. I would say it was a great decision.”