Under three minutes: that's how long an investor now spends on a pitch deck. What they look for, the eight slides that answer, and how to adapt your deck for Morocco and for diaspora investors.
An investor opens your pitch deck before meeting you, and often closes it before the last page. What they see in those few minutes decides whether there will be a meeting. So the deck has one job: make them want to know more, by answering the questions they're already asking.
Key points
- According to DocSend, investors now spend less than three minutes on a pitch deck. In 2020, they read decks that went on to raise money for over four minutes, and those that failed for a minute and a half (DocSend, 2025).
- At Tamwilcom, the Innov Invest fund's committees judge innovation potential, team quality, project maturity and the ability to scale (Finances News Hebdo, 2024).
- Eight slides are enough, as long as each one answers a single question.
How long does an investor spend on a pitch deck?
Not long, and less and less. In 2015, a DocSend study run with Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann measured an average of 3 minutes 44 seconds per deck (TechCrunch, 2015). By 2022, that time had fallen 24% from 2021, and investors gave up after 2 minutes 13 seconds on decks that didn't raise (TechCrunch, 2022).
These measurements mostly cover American startups, and TechCrunch itself noted the 2015 sample was small. They still say something that holds everywhere: a deck isn't there to explain everything. It's there to get you a meeting.
What do investors in Morocco look at?
Moroccan funders who speak publicly say much the same thing. Hicham Zanati Serghini, CEO of Tamwilcom, names four criteria: innovation, team, project maturity and the ability to scale. Shortlisted projects are then invited to pitch to selection committees (Finances News Hebdo, 2024).
Ghita Khaoulani, investment director at BMCE Capital Investments, spells out what she expects at each stage. At seed, the startup has already built a minimum viable product and gathered early market feedback. At the scaling stage, it generates revenue and has a clear view of its market (Boursenews, 2024).
A private diaspora investor adds a question funds ask less often: can I check what I'm reading, from a distance? A deck that gives the legal form, legal identifier, region and dated figures answers it before it's asked.
Which 8 slides do you need?
Each slide answers one question, in the order the investor asks it.
| Slide | The question | What goes on it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Problem | Who has this problem, and what does it cost them? | A typical customer, a figure, its source |
| 2. Solution | What exactly do you do? | The product or service, an image, no jargon |
| 3. Market | How many customers can pay? | The size of the target market, with its source |
| 4. Business model | How do you make money? | Price, margin, cost of winning a customer |
| 5. Traction | What have you already proved? | Revenue, customers, contracts, letters of intent |
| 6. Team | Why you? | Roles, backgrounds, and what's still missing |
| 7. Competition | Who else, and why you? | The real alternatives, including "doing nothing" |
| 8. Funding | How much, for what, to get where? | Amount, use item by item, minimum ticket, next milestone |
In the 2015 study, investors spent the most time on the financials, the team and the competition (TechCrunch, 2015). For seed decks, DocSend has more recently found the business model holds their attention most (DocSend, 2025). Slides 4, 6, 7 and 8 deserve the most care.
How do you adapt a pitch deck for Morocco and the diaspora?
Amounts in dirhams, with dates. "2025 revenue: MAD 1.2 million" can be checked. "Strongly growing revenue" can't.
The legal entity, in plain sight. Legal form, legal identifier, and ICE for a company. An investor abroad will check them against the register; we explain how in our method for verifying a Moroccan company.
The path of the money. An investor living abroad wonders how their money will come in, and how it can get back out. One line is enough to show you've thought about it. The rules are summarised in our guide to the convertible dirham account.
The region. Many diaspora investors look first for projects in their home region. Say where the business actually operates, not just where it's registered.
The deck doesn't travel alone
On the M Invest portal, the pitch deck sits in the project's data room, next to the business plan and the financial statements. By default it's the only document every member can see: the others wait until an investor has signed the project's confidentiality agreement. The deck is the shop window. Put in it what you're happy for every member to see, and keep the detail for the data room. We cover this kind of sharing in our guide to protecting a business idea.
Three parts of the file work alongside the deck.
The pitch line. At most 180 characters, it's the first thing a member reads on the project page. Treat it as slide zero.
The pitch video. A YouTube or Vimeo link, or an MP4 or WebM file of up to 50 MB, with its recording date and up to eight chapters. Match the chapters to your eight slides: the investor will jump straight to "Business model" or "Team".
The writing assistant. From your notes, it drafts the executive summary, description, market, objectives or financial section. Each generation uses one credit, and nothing is sent to Mistral AI before you agree. The text remains a draft to review; our five-pass business plan method explains how.
The "Prepare my file" checklist in your account recommends eight slides at most, and every document you add counts towards file completeness, one of the factors in the trust score.
Which mistakes get a deck closed?
Too many slides. Past eight or ten, the investor skims, and the numbers are exactly what gets skimmed.
A market without a source. "The market is worth billions" says nothing. A figure, a year and a publisher do.
A team without roles. Photos and degrees don't say who sells, who builds and who keeps the books.
An amount without a use. "We're raising MAD 3 million" immediately raises the question: for what? Answer it on the same slide.
A deck that says everything. Customer contracts, detailed margins, processes: anything that should wait for a confidentiality agreement has no place in a document everyone reads.
Prepare your file
A good deck opens the door. A complete file keeps it open. Submitting on the portal brings both together, with a check of your legal entity and access to diaspora investors. To see how a deck holds up in three minutes in front of them, read what twelve pitches taught us in Casablanca.
Choose my project-owner plan, with yearly prices shown in dirhams. Want an outside view of your deck before you show it? A 30-minute advisory call can be booked without membership, for MAD 599, cancellable free of charge up to 24 hours before.
Frequently asked questions
How many slides should a pitch deck have?
Eight to ten. Each answers one question: problem, solution, market, business model, traction, team, competition, funding. The "Prepare my file" checklist on the M Invest portal recommends eight slides at most. Whatever doesn't fit that format belongs in the business plan or the data room.
How long does an investor spend reading a pitch deck?
Less than three minutes on average, according to DocSend in 2025. In 2020, decks that went on to raise money were read for over four minutes, and those that failed for a minute and a half. A deck must make sense at a glance, with one message per slide.
Should you put your financial statements in the pitch deck?
A summary, yes: revenue, margin and funding need, with dates. The detail, no. On the M Invest portal, the pitch deck is visible to members, while financial statements are reserved by default for investors who have signed the project's confidentiality agreement.
Should you add a video to your pitch deck?
It helps with investors who can't meet you, especially from abroad. On the portal, the pitch video is added as a YouTube or Vimeo link, or as an MP4 or WebM file, with up to eight chapters so the investor can jump straight to the part that interests them.
Benjamin Benichou-Dorgan
Partner at M Invest, head of an international consulting firm
A partner at M Invest and head of an international consulting firm, Benjamin runs the club's network and the meetings between project owners and diaspora members.