Pitch Deck Breakdown #1: Infinited Fiber
Also, a rant about the EPA
Deck Breakdown: Infinited Fiber Company
So last week, we published our high-level thoughts after reading the pitch decks of 50 climate companies that raised money. The piece hit a nerve and became our most-read this year, as well as the one that’s generated the most comments and questions by far. This is delightful, keep them coming. Also, apparently fundraising is on everyone’s mind?
Today, in part 2 of an ongoing series, we’re going to dive deep on one of the decks, and see what lessons and learnings can be found for builders. We’ll do one of these every 2-3 weeks until we run out of decks or everyone gets bored, whichever comes first.
*One note. If you’re a founder and would be willing to have us write about your deck, whether the raise was successful or not, please email us. This is the hyper-tactical content we love writing and that our readers get the most value from. Obviously, we’ll redact anything you tell us to, and send you the piece for comment ahead of publication.
Let’s dive in, and go slide by slide starting here. The overall deck library here. The company; Infinited Fiber, based in Finland. The raise; ~$35m, completed March 2024. Have they raised again? It doesn’t appear so.
Now this is how you do it. Gorgeously designed, a great tag line, and we especially love the color highlighting of “technology.” This is a common issue for climate tech companies, which want to be mentally bucketed and valued as tech, despite being in industries that many SaaS-centric investors don’t see as such. Infinited Fiber isn’t dodging that question at all, and we love the maturity and confidence on display.
Intriguingly company-centric. The obvious move is to have a problem-sizing statistic or two, along the lines of “each year, X pounds of textiles go into landfills and incinerators…” It makes us curious as to the talk-track during the pitch. Is this problem well known enough that IF didn’t feel a need to hammer the point?
Worth noting that the company primarily raised from their industry rather than the VC markets, so it’s possible that the deck was written assuming more industry knowledge than one would in front of generalist investors.
Fine, although we didn’t find it compelling. Given that we’re 5-6 years after the start of pilot production, we expected a bit more about outputs of the two plants. Great investor list. “Preparing to open…” is a good teaser, but we’d love to see an actual date or indication of timeframe to really cement the narrative of huge commercial traction.
The entire deck is polished and elegantly designed, which helps obscure how little data is really on display. A good trick.
It looks like the company’s IP is really in the pre-treatment process to remove cellulose from the various additives used in traditional textile manufacturing. Curious that there’s no talk of a patent or other moat, which suggests a lack of defensibility that we’d expect investors to hammer. It may not be an issue raising from industry, but traditional VCs can be sticklers about this. Curious what happens to the other waste products.
Again, sort of… fine, but this is just repeating points previously covered. The biggest missing question to our eye; How Infinna compare to traditional materials on durability? We see again and again that climate companies reach inevitability when the product is simply better than historical competition. We don’t get the sense of that here. This isn’t a dig, if anyone is curious. Tech development takes time and this is a successful business that has raised a lot of cash. They’re doing everything right, including skillfully guiding narratives away from their potential weak points.
Very cool. Half of team Coral has impeccable fashion sense and could appreciate + intelligently comment on this slide. Unfortunately, the other one is writing the piece.
Excellent list, especially if coupled with a talk track about the scale or potential scale of the relationships. Climate startups, we’ve worked with a few of you that stay away from paid pilots and suchlike because they “make you feel dirty,” which is an actual quote. The value can be in the storytelling, especially for funding. Learn to love them.
Oof. It sucks to wrap up on a negative note, but we hate this slide. “Preparing,” “Planning to.” “Ongoing.” Barf. Everything here suggests a company with big dreams and no real deals or commercial traction. Which does not appear to be the case, given how the company has done since! If you have it, flaunt it. Brag. Tell the story. We’d also love to see more here about how the company plans to use capital, which would fit easily.
Whoever approved “We’ll be announcing the location for our planned factory soon!” should be fired for corporate malpractice. A terrible, passive, confidence-destroying fart of a sentence, and a bad way to end an otherwise good deck.
We think the test of a pitch deck is whether investors get most of the way to wiring funds based on the deck alone. So, would we invest in this one? Probably not. There’s a lot to admire. It’s a strong brand with clear vision and the hints of an actionable go-forward, but the lack of clear metrics, details on commercial relationships, and the bullshit about the production plan didn’t give us conviction.
What would we do differently? Lean into the story. More metrics, more proofpoints. The company raised successfully and appears to have grown since, although we see nothing online about groundbreaking or even final site selection for the production plant (there are some older stories about negotiations for factories in Finland, but all of them a year or more before the raise). It’s one of our constant themes; Find a key metric that points up and to the right, develop a story around it, shout from the rooftops. Repeat until rich. Cool company and we wish them immense success.
In other news….
It is difficult to imagine a bigger, stupider national self-own than throwing out an envy-of-the-world scientific research apparatus which does immense good at minimal (in government budget scale) cost. So, naturally, the Trump administration announced this week that it’s shuttering the scientific arm of the EPA, known as the Office of Research and Development, and will be laying off close to 2,000 associated researchers. Team Coral is not a news organization and is unconcerned with appearing impartial. We will not mince words; This is fucking bullshit, an inexplicable and malicious act of immolation that serves… Who, exactly?
The scientists deserve so much better. Research on Glassdoor and other platforms reveals salary ranges for their positions of between $88-140k annually, which is a fraction of what many of these folks could command in private enterprise. It seems likely that assorted big pharma, chemical, energy, and materials companies spent their weekends compiling lists of researchers and dispatching loaded Brinks trucks to their homes. Good. They sacrificed massive earnings potential in order to serve the public good, via a government that has spat in their faces. They should get paid.
All of us in the US deserve better, too. Our tax dollars paid for the assembly and maintenance of a scientific enterprise unparalleled in human history, with the aim of bettering the human condition and starting in our homes. The government claims that the cuts will save taxpayers $750m per year, which is about 0.01% of the 2024 federal budget. At what cost? Tens of thousands of avoidable early deaths and tens of billions of dollars in harm to real GDP and economic growth, both domestically and abroad. Oh well, at least those data-center hyperscalers don’t have to worry about regulation, pollution, or much of anything except cold hard profits. Fuck all of this.
Dear former EPA researchers; As we said above, we hope the hardest decision you have to make in the near future is between fuck-you-money comp packages from assorted BigCos clammering for your services. You’ve earned every dime. If, for any reason, corporate is not your path, we hope you consider joining or founding a climate startup. There is nobody more qualified, and tons (like, tons) of impactful companies that need CTOs and CPOs or whatever other title you want.
To peel back the curtain on one of our current projects; We’re seeking overseas investors who are interested in finding and building homes for American scientists who want out. We’ve made a half dozen placements into EIR-type roles over the past few months, and want to scale this up much larger. What it requires is a patient investment group that’s willing to hire researchers on guaranteed 2-5 year contracts, at modest salaries, with the opportunity to convert said money into dilution-protected equity in the startups they create while employed. We have a -lot- of incredible founders and future founders who would sign up for this program in a heartbeat, and are mostly being held in the US by the complexity and uncertainty of visa issues.
The US brain drain is likely the biggest arbitrage opportunity in global tech at the moment. Who should we talk to?
The recent crash and spill of a fuel tanker on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula is the best possible example of why we need a functioning EPA, most of the budget of which has historically been spent in giving grants to help states and communities recover after catastrophes like this. We are, of course, PNW people and wish safety and health to everyone in Port Angeles. It’s a lovely town and the Peninsula on which it sits is one of the world’s great natural wonders.
Request for startup; Home water quality testing and filtration, all in one. Yes, there are consumer options available, but it doesn’t feel like a solved space. We also think there’s a need for a new gold-standard measurement of water quality, probably coming from a private company. Think Brita, only if it lived up to its marketing. We could see SKUs for faucet installation, various pitchers and water bottles, and regionally-appropriate partnerships with passive solar filtration companies.
Coral recommends; Energy & Stuff, from Saul Griffith. Saul’s list of credentials and accomplishments in climate-centric enterprises would run longer than our entire archive, and he’s a wonderful and funny writer to boot. Go subscribe.
The first spinout from Coral Labs hits the interwebs in two weeks. Watch this space. 😀
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