New York City-based Rogo, specializing in generative AI solutions for financial institutions, has successfully secured $7 million in seed funding to bolster its operations and expand its business reach.
The funding round was spearheaded by AlleyCorp, a prominent venture capital firm, with significant contributions from Company Ventures, BoxGroup, and ScOp Ventures.
Rogo’s proposition is simple yet revolutionary: to serve as an ‘AI consigliere’ for its clients, guiding them through the complexities of AI and data science in their business operations. By enabling users to ask questions and receive data-driven answers, Rogo is not just a tool but a partner in decision-making.
While at Princeton in 2019, co-founder Gabriel Stengel researched how to use AI in chatbot form to analyze financial and economic data. Later he joined Lazard as an investment banker. While at Lazard he was spending countless hours creating earnings summaries, benchmarking revenue multiples, and pulling together presentations.
Stengel knew there had to be a better way to get his work done. When he couldn’t build the tool himself internally at Lazard, he decided to leave his banking job and build the tech for the masses.
The result is a platform where users can ask questions like “what are big bank CEOs saying about inflation on recent earnings calls?” The platform returns an answer, which is informed by third-party data from sources, like the SEC, transcripts, and investor presentations, as well as a firm’s internal data.
Since launching commercially in September, the startup has nabbed clients, including asset managers, hedge funds, i nvestment banks, and private equity firms. Rogo charges a per-seat fee and has generated $1 million in revenue so far.
According to a company statement, the capital from this funding round will be used for hiring people across tech, product, and marketing; Stengel said he wants to grow the team to more than 50 people by the end of the year, from 16 today. Stengel declined to disclose a valuation.
Check out Rogo’s 9-slide pitch deck below:
What were the slides in the Rogo pitch deck?
Browse the exact example slides from the pitch deck that Rogo used to raise a $7M round led by AlleyCorp.
1. Demo Slide
The decision to include a demo in a pitch dec is a tough one. Conventional wisdom is that there’s too much that can go wrong in a demo, and it tends to disrupt the flow of the pitch deck. Howeveer, for younger startups that don’t have sufficient traction to showcase, a product demo can serve as a catalyst for instilling investor confidence.
It’s important to note that a product demo should not only showcase capabilities but also tell a compelling story. Craft a narrative around a problem faced by the target audience, demonstrating how your product provides a solution.
Rogo pitch deck’s demo slide is very straightforward, employing a captivating heading and an image of the product interface. The big button to initiate the demo is hard to miss. Simplicity is key when creating this type of slide, as its success hinges on effectively integrating the demo into your pitch.
2. Solution Slide
No pitch deck is complete without a slide articulating how your startup is going to addresses the problem. The solution slide should focus on a high-level explanation of the solution and the benefits it offers to potential customers. These benefits should be quantifiable, tangible, and easily communicable. A well-crafted solution slide aims to ensure that investors grasp the value proposition of the company, and why end-users will choose it over alternatievs.
Rogo pitch deck’s solution slide presents the solution by illustrating how Rogo utilizes data from diverse sources and the outcomes it can generate. One shortfalling of this slide makes is that if focuses on the technical feature set of the product, rather than diving deper into how the product solves the issue or benefits the potential customers.
As emphasized earlier, the slide should provide a broader perspective and offer a high-level overview of the solution, whereas a product slide later in the presentation can be used to highlight how your solution works.
3. Competitive Landscape Slide
To gain investor’s confidence and trust, it’s crucial to demonstrate a clear understanding of the competition in the market. Rather than downplaying the competition, acknowledge their strengths and articulate your strategy for dealing with them. A common mistake among founders is dismissing the relevance of competition, esp. for novel solutions in nascent markets (such as artificial intelligence and GenAI). Investors appreciate a proactive approach to competition and look for startups will a well-crafted plan for navigating and excelling in the competitive landscape.
If you look at the Rogo’s interface, similarities with ChatGPT are apparent. As such, it’s essential that the Rogo team clearly demonstrates how their platform stands out and surpasses ChatGPT. This distinction is thoughtfully presented in the Rogo’s competition slide. Rather than making exaggerated claims, the slide pragmatically displays both platforms in action and provides a brief yet informative explanation of the areas where ChatGPT has limitations. This approach stands out as one of the more effective ways to present a competitive landscape, as opposed to the usual features table or four-quadrant lanscape.
How-to create your own pitch deck like Rogo
We hope you learned something from the Rogo pitch deck, and that you are able to use these insights for your own business. If you’d like to, you can bookmark it at bestpitchdeck.com/rogo
Although it probably goes without saying that having a successful business (outside just their pitch deck) was integral to their success, it is critical for any startup to ensure your vision is portrayed properly. That’s where crafting the perfect pitch deck comes essential:Â
You might find our other resources on how-to create a pitch deck helpful, or benefit from using one of our expert-designed templates:
Our team has helped create decks that have closed over $100M+ in deals & funding for leading startups and even VC firms. You can leverage this experience and get a jumpstart on your pitch with one of our easy-to-use presentation templates, one-pagers, or financial models.
Creating a deck? Check out our pitch deck templates.
Every pitch requires a unique approach tailored to its audience. Our team of experts has created pitch decks for different industries, as well as funding stages:
You might be interested in the popular AI Pitch Deck Template template designed by our team of experts at VIP.graphics. This investor presentation template is built specifically for AI startups seeking to raise funding.
Accelerator Pitch Deck Template — The Accelerator Pitch Deck template was crafted for early-stage founders seeking to win funding &/or investment from pitch contests, accelerators, incubators, and angels or VC firms. Winning a pitch contest or being accepted to a prominent accelerator program requires a unique strategic approach to an investor pitch presentation.
Series A Pitch Deck Template — A pitch deck template for startups and founders raising funding: Smart, actionable slides that work. This is a pitch deck template built specifically for startups, entrepreneurs and founders raising their first seed or Series A round of institutional capital.
Mergers & Acquisitions Pitch Deck Template — Perfect Pitch Deck™ is a template crafted for later-stage businesses entering more sophisticated discussions such as mergers & acquisitions (M&A), late-stage investment (Series C+), or other partnerships & financing opportunities. Our team of experts created this presentation to empower founders to present with confidence to investment banks, private equity (PE) groups, and/or hedge funds (and vice versa).
Alternatively, feel free to browse our growing selection of pitch decks tailored for specific industries and businesses.