Sorare Pitch Deck (2020)

The very first slide (cover) uses a striking hero photo of a well-known player and a bold, simple headline — “Global Fantasy Soccer.” This instantly tells the audience who the product is for (soccer fans) and positions the company as global and mainstream, not niche blockchain jargon. The aesthetic is professional and sports-centric, which helps the deck appeal to both investors and potential licensing partners.

The slide’s simplicity is effective: no clutter, clear logo placement, and emotional imagery that connects to the target user. Founders can learn how an opening visual can set tone and audience expectations — use one clear message and an evocative image rather than trying to say everything up front.

Slide 3 frames the problem clearly: mainstream digital goods (games like FIFA, Fortnite, etc.) offer no real ownership — no tradability or portability. The slide uses familiar logos to anchor the problem in recognizable examples and then states the core pain point: "You do not own your digital goods." The approach makes an abstract blockchain benefit concrete for a broad audience by contrasting expectations (collectibles) with reality (vendor-locked assets).

This is an instructive example of problem-first storytelling: start with user pain and industry context before jumping into technology. Founders should model this slide: use well-known comparators, state the pain in plain language, and avoid technical jargon when describing why existing solutions fall short.

The "Huge Market Opportunity" slide (slide 7) lists clear market buckets ($20B fantasy sports, $25B sport licensing, $250B sports betting) to communicate large TAM and relevant adjacent markets. Using three large, round numbers helps investors quickly understand why the category can support a substantial business. The dark background with high-contrast numbers makes the figures the visual focal point.

This slide avoids overstating precision and instead chooses plausible, segmented markets that map to the product’s use cases (fantasy mechanics, licensing partnerships, and betting adjacencies). Founders should emulate the clarity: present segmented TAMs tied to your business model instead of a single, overreaching number that’s hard to justify.

Slide 6 lays out the product mechanics in three steps: collect player cards, play fantasy matches, and earn weekly rewards. This describes a tight, repeatable user loop that drives engagement and secondary-market activity (collecting + competition + rewards). The visual cards and minimal copy make the mechanics easy to grasp for both gamers and non-gamers, which is critical when introducing blockchain-enabled features to mainstream users.

The emphasis on a straightforward user flow — no crypto knowledge required, intuitive payments, official licenses — is a deliberate product-to-market fit decision. Founders should ensure their product slides show the end-to-end user journey and highlight how retention is driven (weekly cadence, rewards), not just the underlying tech.

Slide 11 showcases Sorare’s licensing traction — branded club logos and the claim of 70 clubs represented. For a platform dependent on real-world players and teams, these partnerships function as both product differentiation and distribution channels. Featuring recognizable club badges and calling out leagues/associations signals legitimacy to investors and helps reduce partnership risk in the eyes of licensors.

This slide is a good lesson in social proof: when your product relies on partnerships, make them prominent. It also implies a defensible moat — exclusive or early licensing relationships that competitors face high barriers to replicate — and reinforces the narrative that Sorare is building an industry-standard product.

Slide 10 contains a monthly sales growth chart that communicates steep, recent revenue acceleration and club launches over time. The area chart and the annotated club icons give viewers a sense of momentum and correlation between partnership rollouts and sales spikes. The slide also supports claims elsewhere in the deck (e.g., €1M sales) with a visual trend rather than raw bullet points.

For investors the visual trajectory matters more than a single month’s number — it suggests product-market fit and scalable demand. Founders should use simple charts to show growth inflection points, annotate key drivers (partnerships, launches), and avoid clutter so the trend is unmistakable.

Slide 2 profiles the founding team with photos and concise bios: CEO and CTO with prior VP roles, blockchain engineering experience, and operational credibility. The slide balances technical and business strengths, which is essential for a product that sits at the intersection of gaming, licensing, and blockchain. The brief bios emphasize outcomes (deals signed, scaled ops, managed engineering teams) rather than long resumes.

Investors bet on teams — and this slide signals the right mix of executional experience and domain knowledge. Founders putting together team slides should prioritize short, outcome-focused blurbs, clear roles (CEO/CTO), and evidence of prior, relevant success that maps to the current opportunity.

Slide 18 lists lead and participating investors (e.ventures, Partech, Seedcamp, Kima Ventures) and frames the round as 'full' and closing on a date. The inclusion of well-known VC logos provides immediate validation and helps with future recruiting, business development, and licensing conversations. For startups, showcasing investor quality is often as persuasive as top-line traction because it signals due diligence by sophisticated firms.

This slide also communicates fundraising readiness and scarcity (closing date), which creates urgency among prospective investors reading the deck. Founders should include clear investor logos and the round status to translate back-channel credibility into front-page validation, but avoid making fundraising the primary narrative — it should support product and traction claims.