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Example of a Series D launch pad: Honeycomb’s $50 million pad


Honeycomb raised $50 million to make the new landscape of platforms and services more observable. Their long-term goal is to make life easier for people who run large software platforms.

“What we saw in 2015 and 2016 is that the world was moving in a direction where that complexity was inevitable, whether it was an increased interest in being able to do things like breakdown by customer ID or this explosive complexity that was about to to enter the scene powered by Kubernetes, microservices and containers. Us [believed] the world [was] you are going to need a tool like this that allows users to have speed and flexibility,” Christine Yen, co-founder and CEO of Honeycomb, told TechCrunch in a previous interview.

I find this fascinating and was excited to check out the company’s pitch deck for more information.

We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you’d like to submit yours, this is how you can do that.

Slides in this deck

The company did not remove any slides from its 18-slide deck, but redacted revenue figures and blurred out customer and competitor logos.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the honey Honeycomb used to raise $50 million in the hive:

  1. deck slide
  2. Data Summary Snapshot Slide
  3. problem slide
  4. solution slide
  5. Competitive Landscape Slide
  6. Product Category Summary Slide
  7. Client Overview Slide Part 1 (Mostly Redacted)
  8. Client Horizontal Slide Part 2 (Mostly Redacted)
  9. Market positioning slide
  10. Value Proposition Slide
  11. Story/Product Timeline Slide
  12. Go to the market interstitial slide
  13. GTM: approach slide land and expand
  14. GTM: Vertical slide for games
  15. Going Forward Interstitial Slide
  16. team slide
  17. The Ask Slide
  18. closing slide

three things to love

Honeycomb is building a product that, based on its traction alone, is clearly needed and does a good job of weaving its story.

This is how you do a “ask” slide!

[Slide 17] Check it out! Yeah!! Image Credits: Honeycomb

[Slide 17] Check it out! Yeah!! Image Credits: Honeycomb

One of the things that annoys me most about slides is that the vast majority of founders get this slide wrong. It’s a breath of honey-scented air to see a company do it so well. Honeycomb clarifies the need ($50 million) and precisely what it will do with the money: Runway to 2026, a specific ARR target, and the option to focus on growth or stabilize at a profitable, running business. You also set IPO readiness as a goal (which is a bit confusing; does that mean you want to be IPO ready and then raise another round to do the IPO, or does the $50 million include all the maintenance that is needed to complete an IPO? initial public offering?), along with some slightly ambiguous, but clear enough goals around channels and product.

You would use this as your baseline for a “ask” slide. Be clear, be focused. Show what your fundraiser will accomplish. (While the company mentions 2026, the clue is not the main focus of the slide, which is exactly as it should be.)

I wish more team slides looked like this, but…

Okay, for a team slide, this isn’t great: it doesn’t explain because all of these people have a founder/market fit, and it doesn’t show why this team is uniquely positioned to take Honeycomb to the next level. Specifically, for a round that suggests an IPO might be imminent, I want to know that at least some of the people in leadership know how to pull it off or at least have the support of people who have IPO experience.

[Slide 16] Team slip! Image Credits: Honeycomb

And yet this team is refreshing in how diverse it is, which is sadly quite rare in the startup world, and especially in B2B enterprise SaaS businesses. Having a diverse leadership team doesn’t happen by accident; it is a concerted effort in recruiting and building teams. Investors, take note.

Of course, this is not an easy “fix”. If you’re putting together a slide deck to ramp up your next round, and that’s the first time you’ve noticed your team slide is full of Stanford-educated white dudes, well, no amount of creative storytelling can save you. It is essential to think about the type of company you want to build and put into the world. As a startup founder, you can choose the type of organization you want to create.

So who needs this anyway?

To people who aren’t deep into development and software, a software engineering observability platform might seem very special. To hell with blurry logos, this slide does a great job of telling the story:

[Slide 7] Great storytelling means you don’t even need to see the logo. The point is made. Image Credits: Honeycomb

Trust me when I say that there are some serious, well-known brands on this slide. But even with the logos faded out, this slide does a great job of telling the company story – showing the variety of companies and industries that work with Honeycomb. “Who is this product for?” It’s a question every investor will ask, and with this slide, it’s clear that the answer is: almost everyone.



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