WayRay’s $80M Series C deck – Nob6

We now have fairly a novel pitch deck on our palms in the present day.

A couple of years in the past, AR automotive {hardware} firm WayRay raised $80 million at a half-a-billion valuation in a Sequence C spherical led by Porsche, and I’m tremendous excited to indicate off their pitch deck in the present day! Sure, it’s slightly bit older than a number of the decks we often tear down, however it’s uncommon that I get my palms on a 100% unedited, unabridged deck that resulted in a half-unicorn valuation.

WayRay’s deck consists of a whopping 75 slides — round 50 greater than I’d usually advocate for a deck like this — and it’s clear that the founders took a special tack than what we’re used to seeing nowadays. Nonetheless, you may’t argue with a profitable fundraise of this caliber.

We’re on the lookout for extra distinctive pitch decks to tear down, so if you wish to submit your personal, right here’s how you are able to do that. 

Slides within the deck

Usually, I listing all the slides in a deck right here so you will get an outline. However as I discussed above, this deck accommodates 75 slides, and lots of of them aren’t notably clear when it comes to what they’re really for. Simply flicking by means of the deck leaves me actually confused on the whole, however I’ll get to why that’s a foul factor in a bit.

Let’s begin by outlining what’s within the deck, after which check out the way it all comes collectively, what works and what wants enchancment.

1. Cowl slide
2. “What makes us stand out” — USP slide
3. Our Mission — Mission slide
4. Graphic slide
5. Previous investor slide
6. “Management in holography” — Platform description slide
7. Cowl slide — “Our Fundamental Focus”
8. “We consider that the automotive windshield is essentially the most pure medium for delivering AR content material.”
9. Expertise layers — Tech stack
10.   Expertise layers — Tech implementation
11.   AR Market — Instance use case 1
12.   AR Market — Instance use case 2
13.   AR Market — Instance use case 3
14.   AR Market — For the driving force
15.   AR Market — For the passenger
16.   Expertise benefits
17.   “Benefits of WayRay’s AR HUD” product options slide
18.   “Expertise comparability” — Evaluate head-up shows with rivals
19.   “Expertise comparability” — Evaluate head-up shows with rivals
20.   “For us, standard HUDs are not any competitors” — Positioning slide
21.   “Deep Actuality Show” — Product overview slide
22.   “Standard HUD” — Reveals what the competitors does
23.   “Breakthrough in Quantity” — Reveals how WayRay HUDs take up a smaller footprint in vehicles
24.   Cowl slide — “The place we at the moment are”
25.   “We’re set as much as signal business contracts” — Traction slide
26.   “True AR HUD: from the idea to commercialization” — Product roadmap slide
27.   “When launched right into a car mannequin” — Explains “stickiness” of the product between mannequin years
28.   Enterprise Mannequin slide
29.   Cowl slide — “How we work”
30.   Graphic slide: “Do Deep Tech”
31.   Graphic slide: “Do Deep Tech”
32.   “Vertical Integration” — Aggressive benefit slide
33.   Graphic slide: “Holography”
34.   Graphic slide: “Holography”
35.   “Groundbreaking developments in holography” — Tech overview
36.   Graphic slide: “Customized Lasers”
37.   “PGU optical design” — Reveals how the HUD is designed
38.   “Superior engineering strategies” — Reveals how the merchandise are designed
39.   “AR Rendering Engine” — Product slide
40.   “True AR SDK” — Third-party app developer slide
41.   Cowl slide — “WayRay Overview”
42.   WayRay Workforce — Workforce slide 1
43.   WayRay Workforce — Workforce slide 2
44.   WayRay Workforce — Workforce slide 3
45.   WayRay Workforce — R&D departments org chart
46.   WayRay Workforce — Chemistry group slide
47.   WayRay Workforce — Design group slide
48.   WayRay Workforce — Electronics Engineering group slide
49.   WayRay Workforce — {Hardware} Engineering group slide
50.   WayRay Workforce — Optics & Holography group slide
51.   WayRay Workforce — Platform Options group slide
52.   WayRay Workforce — High quality Assurance group slide
53.   WayRay Workforce — Software program Engineering slide
54.   WayRay Workforce — Swiss Expertise Heart group slide
55.   WayRay Labs — Laser Lab slide
56.   WayRay Labs — Holography Lab slide
57.   WayRay Labs — Experimental manufacturing slide
58.   WayRay Labs — PCB meeting facility slide
59.   WayRay Labs — Check lab slide
60.   WayRay Labs — CNC workshop slide
61.   WayRay Labs — Metrology gear slide
62.   Cowl slide — “The place we’re headed”
63.   New Markets/Radical Improvements — Positioning slide
64.   Add-on holographic AR show — Future product slide
65.   “Utility throughout a number of industries” — Go-to-market brainstorm
66.   Development Gear — Instance use case slide
67.  “AR Aspect Window Options in trains” — Instance use case slide
68.   “AR Aspect Window Options in Cabs” — Instance use case slide
69.   “AR sensible glass” — Instance use case slide
70.   Awards — Awards acquired slide
71.   Occasions — CES 2017
72.   Occasions — CES 2018
73.   Occasions — CES Asia 2018
74.   Media Protection slide
75.   Thanks slide

Three issues to like

There’s quite a lot of unimaginable stuff to get my tooth into with these many slides. To begin off, these slides have been designed terribly nicely.

WayRay operates within the OEM automotive area. In different phrases, for its merchandise to be seen out on this planet, they must be examined and accepted by automotive producers, who then have so as to add the product to a future model of the automotive.

It’s a frightening prospect as a result of all these offers can drag on eternally. I’ve labored with startups which have needed to watch for greater than a decade from their first conversations with a automotive producer till the tech turned obtainable in a automotive you should purchase. It stands to cause that such an endeavor is capital-intensive, but it surely additionally signifies that when you recover from sure hurdles, you’re on a reasonably clear path to market.

There’s proof of each on this deck.

Tremendous clear street map

[Slide 26] The WayRay street map reveals its plans clearly. Picture Credit: WayRay (opens in a brand new window)

I cherished the way in which the corporate presents its plans and its milestones to this point in a very easy street map (pun meant). The corporate attracts a transparent image of the place it’s and what it’s making an attempt to do.

I’d have quite a lot of questions on this timeline (a Q2 2022 RFQ to manufacturing in 2023 doesn’t appear practical in my expertise), however I do recognize the readability and the outlined targets the corporate has set.

One of many deepest moats I’ve seen shortly

[Slide 32] Vertical integration all the way in which. Picture Credit: WayRay

I usually advocate younger firms do solely what is totally core to their enterprise and outsource or use platforms for the whole lot else. WayRay takes a special strategy — it has in-house personnel for each facet of its product improvement and manufacturing course of.

The corporate particularly lists Optics and Holography, {Hardware}, Software program and Electronics Engineering, High quality Assurance, Design and Chemistry. For some {hardware} firms, I wouldn’t have anticipated the rest, however on this case, it’s useful to spell out that WayRay is taking fairly a broad strategy. Each right here, and elsewhere within the deck, it turns into unwaveringly clear that the corporate has an actual curiosity in, and penchant for, analysis and improvement.

Notably, the corporate doesn’t say if it has a military of IP legal professionals ensuring that its belongings are protected. In reality, the phrase “patent” doesn’t seem anyplace within the pitch deck, which appears like an oversight.

Nonetheless, the corporate says: “The underlying mental property of our deep tech improvements is well-protected and arduous to breed.” As an investor, I’d have cherished to listen to a bit extra about what number of patents the corporate is producing, by which components of the world and what number of patents have been permitted.

Portray an image of a really totally different world

[Slide 67] One factor the founders acquired very proper: They assist buyers think about a special world. Picture Credit: WayRay (opens in a brand new window)

Being a founder is a lonely, wild journey right into a future which you could see clearly however doesn’t exist but. Storytelling is a crucial a part of turning that story into actuality, and WayRay does an amazing job at exhibiting off the world it desires to stay in.

This deck has numerous slides exhibiting potential use circumstances — such because the augmented actuality prepare window mockup above — like vacationer locations with overlays of roads and cities you could be seeing that add info. Is it essential? Who is aware of. However it’s so cool that it makes me excited to think about what it could be wish to stay on this world.

As a founder, if you happen to’re capable of encourage daydreams of the world you’re describing, you’re doing an unimaginable job. I wouldn’t be in any respect stunned if these visions — fantastically rendered and proven off all through the pitch deck — are some nice alternatives for that to occur.

In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll have a look at three issues WayRay might have improved or achieved otherwise, together with its full, 75-slide, unedited, unabridged pitch deck.

Three issues that may very well be improved

Ho boy! OK, so let’s get this out of the way in which: 75 slides is manner, manner, manner, manner too many slides.

What’s worse, a few of these slides make me surprise who they’re for. It appears as if whoever put these slides collectively was actually excited by the know-how (and that’s fantastic), however then they shout about a number of the flawed issues from the rooftops, which throws the pitch off the monitor, one way or the other.