Salt Cove Shellfish Angel Pitch

Angel investor pitch deck

Twelve slides and twelve minutes, in front of a room of individuals who each write their own cheque. Salt Cove Shellfish is an invented Massachusetts hatchery that breeds oyster seed and licenses the line to other hatcheries. This deck carries the three things a venture deck leaves out and an angel committee insists on: projections with the assumption printed beside them, a slide listing what could go wrong, and the deal terms with a target closing date.

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Wide landscape photograph of an oyster farm at low tide on the New England coast, rows of black mesh grow bags on trestles in shallow water, a small aluminium work skiff, soft grey morning light, documentary style, the scene fills the frame edge to edge, no people, no text, no logos
Wide landscape photograph of an oyster farm at low tide on the New England coast, rows of black mesh grow bags on trestles in shallow water, a small aluminium work skiff, soft grey morning light, documentary style, the scene fills the frame edge to edge, no people, no text, no logos

ANGEL ROUND, NOVEMBER 2026

Salt Cove Shellfish

We breed and sell the oyster seed that east coast growers plant.

Nell Draycott, Founder

WELLFLEET, MASSACHUSETTS · $1.2M AT $4.8M PRE

Slide 1 · cover · One line on what the business is, in the words a non specialist angel will use.

THE PROBLEM

Who buys seed, and what goes wrong

The grower

A working oyster farm plants between two and twenty million seed every spring.

Seed is ordered in January for an April delivery, and paid for before it exists.

A bad batch is not discovered until June, by which time the season is gone.

Most growers buy from two or three hatcheries purely to spread that risk.

Nobody tells them which line they received or how it performed last year.

What goes wrong

Warming water has pushed Dermo and MSX further north every year since 2019.

Mortality on unselected seed in a bad year runs between 40 and 60 percent.

Hatcheries breed for hatchery yield, not for survival on a grower lease.

Only four hatcheries north of Virginia sell more than 100 million seed a year.

Seed shortages in 2024 and 2025 left growers buying whatever they could get.

02

Slide 2 · content · The customer and their problem, stated as ten specifics rather than one generality.
Tall portrait photograph inside a shellfish hatchery

What Salt Cove sells

A bred line, not a batch

Wellfleet Select is in its ninth breeding generation. On our growers leases it survives at 82 percent against a regional average of 54.

Runs to plan

260 million seed a year from one site, delivered inside the promised fortnight in eleven of the last twelve seasons.

The protectable part

Nine years of pedigree and survival records on 41 families. That data set is the moat, and it cannot be bought or shortcut.

Licences, not just sales

Two hatcheries in Virginia and Washington now grow Wellfleet Select under licence and pay us a royalty per million seed set.

03

Slide 3 · pillars · The solution and, because angels ask, exactly what is protectable about it.

What the grower gets

SURVIVAL

82% survival on lease
Dermo tolerant to 28C
Ninth generation line
Recorded per family

RELIABILITY

Delivery window of 14 days
11 of 12 seasons on time
Order confirmed in January
Split deliveries allowed

UNIFORMITY

Graded to three sizes
Under 8% size spread
Counted, not weighed
Rejects credited, not argued

RECORDS

Family named on the invoice
Survival reported back
Lease level history kept
Shared with the grower

Bred · Counted · Recorded

04

Slide 4 · pillars · Features tied to the benefit each one produces for a grower, in four groups.

How we make money

Three products, one hatchery. Prices are per thousand seed unless stated.

Line
Eyed larvae
Set seed
Licence
Price
$1.10
$4.50
$0.55
Unit
per thousand
per thousand
per thousand set
Gross margin
71%
48%
94%
FY26 volume
84 million
260 million
112 million
FY26 revenue
$92K
$1.17M
$62K
Who buys it
Other hatcheries
Growers
Licensed hatcheries
Paid
On order
50% January
Quarterly
Capacity limit
Tank hall one
Tank hall one
None
FY26 revenue was $1.42M: $1.17M set seed, $92K larvae, $62K licences and $96K of hatchery consulting.

05

Slide 5 · pricing · The unit economics of a single sale, which is what an angel group asks for first.

Market and reach

There are about 1,900 licensed shellfish growers between Maine and Virginia, and they plant roughly 14 billion seed a year between them. We supply 61 of them, all within a day of the hatchery by refrigerated van, and that radius covers 780 growers. Beyond it we sell the line rather than the seed, because a licence travels and a live animal does not. Every new grower to date has come from a neighbour, a shellfish constable or a state extension officer.

1,900

Licensed growers, Maine to Virginia

780

Inside our delivery radius

61

Buying from us today

06

Slide 6 · metrics · The market and how we reach it, sized by the growers we can physically deliver to.

COMPETITION

The four hatcheries a grower can call

What a grower asks
Regional hatcheries
Salt Cove
Selectively bred line
Two of four
Nine generations
Survival reported back
No
Per lease, per year
Delivery window promised
Season, not fortnight
14 days
Licences the line out
No
Two hatcheries
Sells to other hatcheries
Rarely
Eyed larvae, 84M
Years of pedigree data
0 to 3
9
The four hatcheries north of Virginia selling more than 100 million seed a year, and us.

07

Slide 7 · comparison · The competition as a matrix, with the barriers to entry named in the last row.

PROJECTIONS

FY26 to FY29

FY26
FY27
FY28
FY29
0M0.85M1.7M2.55M3.4M
Set seed
Licences
Larvae and services

FY29 REVENUE

$7.1M

From $1.42M in FY26. EBITDA positive in FY28

SET SEED

$3.36M

700M seed at $4.80, needs tank hall two

LARVAE AND SERVICES

$1.90M

Larvae need no tank space, so this scales first

LICENCES

$1.85M

Six partners by FY29, from two today

08

Slide 8 · metrics · Four years of projections with the assumption behind each one written on the slide.

Who runs it

Eleven people through the season, six year round. Two advisors who are paid in equity only.

Founder

Nell Draycott

Nineteen years in shellfish, eight of them running the state hatchery at Cotuit. Started the breeding line in 2017.

Owns

The breeding programme, the grower relationships and, until this round, 92 percent of the company.

Operations

Marcus Ibbotson

Hatchery manager since 2021. Came from a salmon smolt operation in Maine where he ran three times our volume.

Owns

Algae culture, larval rearing and the delivery window that eleven of twelve seasons have hit.

Science

Dr Anwen Poole

Quantitative geneticist, part time since 2023, previously on a university oyster breeding programme in Virginia.

Owns

Family selection, the pedigree database and the survival trials run on eleven grower leases.

Advisors

Ray Bellamy

Former chair of a shellfish growers association. Opens doors to state extension officers we cannot reach cold.

Sofia Krantz

Sold an aquaculture equipment business to a Norwegian buyer in 2022. Advises on the licensing model and the exit.

09

Slide 9 · framework · The people and the advisors, each with the specific gap they were brought in to fill.

Plan to exit

Six dated steps, including when we would need money again and when we would sell.

Q1 2027

Tank hall two poured and plumbed. Capacity goes from 260 to 480 million seed.

Q3 2027

Tenth breeding generation selected. Two more licence partners signed.

FY28

First EBITDA positive year at about $4.4M of revenue, on this round alone.

FY29

A growth round of $4M to $6M, or debt against the tank halls. Not needed to survive.

FY30

Licence revenue passes seed revenue. The business stops being geographic.

FY31

Exit window. Aquaculture genetics buyers have paid 2.8 to 4.1 times revenue since 2021.

10

Slide 10 · timeline · The build plan, the next funding need and the exit window, on one line together.

What could go wrong

Sorted by likelihood and impact. The two on the right are the ones this round is meant to reduce.

Low
Likelihood
High
High
Impact
Low
Monitor
  • A licence partner breeds off our line
  • Norovirus closure of the bay for a season
  • A competitor buys a breeding programme
Mitigate immediately
  • One hatchery site is our only production
  • A disease event in Wellfleet Harbor
  • Nell holds every grower relationship
Accept
  • Fuel and freight cost swings
  • Seasonal labour availability
  • Algae feed price rises
Prepare
  • State lease renewals fall due in 2029
  • Shellfish sanitation rules tighten
  • A warm winter shifts the spawning window

11

Slide 11 · framework · The risks, volunteered rather than waited for, sorted by what we would actually do.

THE ASK

Terms and use of funds

$1.2M

at a $4.8M pre-money, 20% of the company

Category
Amount
%
Purpose
Tank hall two
$520K
43%
Doubles capacity to 480 million seed by Q1 2027
Breeding programme
$280K
23%
Two more generations and eleven more grower trials
Licensing and sales
$260K
22%
One salesperson and the four new licence partners
Working capital
$140K
12%
January deposits sit as inventory until April
Priced equity round, $6.0M post. Minimum ticket $25,000. One board seat for the lead. Target close 30 November 2026.

12

Slide 12 · investment · The terms and the closing date, which an angel group expects the founder to set.

The structure

What each slide is doing, so you can reuse the order even with different content.

Slide 1cover
One line on what the business is, in the words a non specialist angel will use.
Slide 2content
The customer and their problem, stated as ten specifics rather than one generality.
Slide 3pillars
The solution and, because angels ask, exactly what is protectable about it.
Slide 4pillars
Features tied to the benefit each one produces for a grower, in four groups.
Slide 5pricing
The unit economics of a single sale, which is what an angel group asks for first.
Slide 6metrics
The market and how we reach it, sized by the growers we can physically deliver to.
Slide 7comparison
The competition as a matrix, with the barriers to entry named in the last row.
Slide 8metrics
Four years of projections with the assumption behind each one written on the slide.
Slide 9framework
The people and the advisors, each with the specific gap they were brought in to fill.
Slide 10timeline
The build plan, the next funding need and the exit window, on one line together.
Slide 11framework
The risks, volunteered rather than waited for, sorted by what we would actually do.
Slide 12investment
The terms and the closing date, which an angel group expects the founder to set.

What makes this deck work

The projections show their assumptions

Four years of revenue split by product line, with the number that drives it printed on the card beside the chart: 700 million seed a year, which needs the second tank hall this round pays for. Angels fund the assumption, not the total.

It volunteers what could go wrong

A risk matrix with a single site, a disease event and a founder who holds every customer relationship all sitting in the mitigate quadrant. Naming your own weak points before the room does is the fastest way to earn the diligence meeting.

The terms are on the slide

Amount, pre money, post money, minimum ticket, one board seat and a closing date. An angel group expects the founder to price the round, so leaving it to the conversation reads as either evasive or unprepared.

Questions people ask

How is an angel pitch different from a VC pitch?

You set the terms rather than receive them, you volunteer the risks, you show financial projections with the assumptions behind them, and you say what a realistic exit looks like. Tech Coast Angels asks for all four in its published outline.

How many slides and how long?

Twelve slides and about twelve minutes, then roughly the same again in questions. Most angel groups run a screening slot of ten to fifteen minutes with equal question time, so the answers matter as much as the deck.

Do I need an exit slide?

Yes. Angel groups look for a path to a meaningful return and expect named comparable acquisitions and a realistic multiple range. This deck puts the exit window on the same timeline as the build plan rather than on its own slide.

Should I send this deck or present it?

Both, but not the same file. Keep a spare version for the room and a denser version to email, plus a one page summary, because that page is what members forward to each other between meetings.

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