Chalkline Accelerator Application
Accelerator application deck
The deck that goes in with an accelerator application, before anyone has met you. This one is for Chalkline, an invented Leeds company selling reading intervention software to primary schools. It follows the ten slide order 500 Global publishes for its own applicants, and it carries the two things no investor deck contains: progress since founding as its own slide, and a straight list of what the founders want out of the programme. There is no ask slide, because the terms are already public.
Every slide, in order
The whole deck as it renders, one slide after another. Read it the way the audience would.
The structure
What each slide is doing, so you can reuse the order even with different content.
- Slide 1cover
- The elevator pitch in one sentence, because a reviewer opens with no context at all.
- Slide 2pillars
- The problem stated from the school budget, not from the child, which is what a reviewer scores.
- Slide 3pillars
- What Chalkline is, in four pillars, tied back to each part of the problem above.
- Slide 4process
- How it actually works, which an accelerator asks for and an investor usually does not.
- Slide 5metrics
- One metric, one chart, exactly as an application deck is meant to show traction.
- Slide 6pricing
- The revenue model, ranked, with the free tier that gets Chalkline through the school door.
- Slide 7comparison
- The competition, named as the two things schools actually do instead of buying us.
- Slide 8metrics
- The market built from schools and price rather than from a global edtech figure.
- Slide 9timeline
- Progress since founding, kept separate from traction because velocity is what is being judged.
- Slide 10pillars
- The team framed as an unfair advantage, which is the only thing an accelerator scores here.
- Slide 11content
- What we want from the programme, which belongs in an application deck and nowhere else.
What makes this deck work
It reads without a presenter
A reviewer gives each application a few minutes on a screen, alone. Every slide here finishes its own thought, and the density is deliberate: this is a document, not a stage deck.
Progress is separated from traction
One slide shows the chart. A different slide shows five dated milestones since the founder left her classroom. Accelerators score velocity, and velocity is not visible in a single number.
It asks for specific help
The last slide is five real questions, including whether the company should raise at all. Naming what you do not know is the closest thing an application has to evidence that you are coachable.
Questions people ask
What goes in an accelerator application deck?
Elevator pitch, problem, solution, how it works, traction, business model, competition, market, progress to date and team. 500 Global publishes exactly that order in ten slides. Techstars asks the same things through its application form instead.
Should there be an ask slide?
No. The accelerator has a published offer, usually a fixed amount for a fixed percentage, so there is nothing to negotiate and nothing to ask for. Use the space for how the product works instead.
Is it a problem that we are very early?
No. A large share of every batch is funded on little more than an idea, and both Y Combinator and Techstars would rather read an honest pre revenue slide than a dressed up one. Show what you built and how fast you built it.
Do all accelerators want a deck?
No. Y Combinator takes a form plus two one minute videos and no deck at all. Techstars, 500 Global and most regional programmes accept or expect one, which is what this example is written for.
Who is an accelerator application deck written for?
A reviewer reading it alone, with no meeting and no context. That is why slide one is a single sentence elevator pitch rather than a logo, why the problem is stated from the school budget a reviewer scores against, and why the last slide simply lists what the founders want from the programme. Nothing in it depends on someone being in the room to explain it.
How should an early company size its market for an application?
From the customers it can actually reach. Slide eight builds the market from the number of primary schools and the price per school rather than quoting a global education technology figure, so the number can be checked by anyone who knows the sector. A reviewer scoring dozens of applications trusts arithmetic they can follow more than a headline someone else published.
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