Lanternread Series A

Edtech pitch deck example with outcomes on slide four

Lanternread is a decodable reading platform for Years 1 to 3 that schools buy per student per year. The deck shows the 31 school outcome data before the market, and it puts the school buying calendar on its own slide, because every edtech investor has been burned by a sales cycle that was never explained.

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LANTERNREAD

SERIES A · SEPTEMBER 2026

Decode.

Read.

Measure.

THE COMPANY

Lanternread is a decodable reading platform for Years 1 to 3. Schools buy it per student per year, teachers run it inside the literacy block, and the reading gain is measured every term against matched schools.

Decodable reading for Years 1 to 3

Iris Kalani

Founder, former literacy coach

Slide 1 · cover · A stacked manifesto cover: the three words are the product promise.

THE PROBLEM

One in four Year 3 students reads below the minimum standard, and the gap opens in the first three years of school.

FOUR FACTS

Decodables win

State curricula now mandate systematic phonics, and decodable texts are the consumable.

Teacher time

Levelling and marking readers by hand costs teachers hours every single week.

9,600 schools

Primary schools in our first market, each buying reading resources every year.

Proof matters

Principals now ask vendors for outcome data before a pilot, not after it.

02

Slide 2 · intro · The problem in one national number, then four facts that make it a market.

The product

Four pieces that run the literacy block end to end.

01
Decodable library

640 levelled decodable texts mapped to the three major phonics scopes, in print matched digital form.

02
Teacher dashboard

Every student placed by a two minute check, with regrouping suggested each fortnight from real reading.

03
Home reader

The same book goes home on any phone, so home practice matches the classroom scope instead of fighting it.

04
Assessment

Termly reading age measures, recorded reads and error analysis, exportable for reviews and funding cases.

03

Slide 3 · pillars · The product in four text tiles: library, dashboard, home reader, assessment.

Measured outcomes

Reading age gain in months over a 20 week term. n = 31 schools, 2,840 students, matched comparisons.

Lanternread schools
Comparison schools
02468
Reading age gain (months)

04

Slide 4 · metrics · The outcome slide: reading gain with n, cohort and duration on the same slide as the bars.

THE BUYING YEAR

How Schools Buy

Term 1 → Term 4

Terms 1 and 2

PILOTS

Wk 2: Pilot requests from January PD days
Wk 5: 40 pilot classrooms placed and reading
Wk 8: First fortnight regrouping data lands
Wk 10: Mid pilot check ins with literacy leads
Wk 18: Pilot outcome packs sent to principals

Term 3

BUDGETS

Wk 1: Outcome packs briefed to school boards
Wk 3: Quotes priced per student for next year
Wk 5: District briefings for 5+ school deals
Wk 8: Budget line confirmed at most schools
Wk 10: Renewal notices for existing schools

Term 4

PURCHASE ORDERS

Wk 2: Purchase orders arrive with budgets
Wk 4: Licences provisioned for January
Wk 6: Teacher onboarding booked into PD days
Wk 8: Summer reading packs sent home
Wk 10: Year closes; revenue recognised

05

Slide 5 · calendar · The school buying calendar, because edtech revenue lands when terms say it can.

Schools live by term

Growth steps each Term 4 as purchase orders land, exactly as the calendar predicts.

T1 25
T2 25
T3 25
T4 25
T1 26
T2 26
T3 26
T4 26
020406080
Schools live

06

Slide 6 · metrics · Schools live by term: 3 to 61 in eight terms, the curve the calendar produces.

Pricing

One unit everywhere: per student, per year. Teacher training is always included.

School

$14

per student / year

For a single school of any size

Full decodable library

Teacher dashboard

Termly assessment

Start a Pilot

District

$11

per student / year

For groups of five schools or more

Everything in School

District outcome reports

Shared PD program

Talk to Us

07

Slide 7 · pricing · One unit for the whole deck: dollars per student per year, school or district.

PIPELINE

Next year, by stage

Stage
Schools
Student seats
Status
Pilot running
40
4,200
Outcome packs due T3
Proposal with board
26
3,900
Priced, awaiting budget
PO pending
12
2,100
Confirmed, paperwork
Renewals due
61
9,400
97% renewed last year
Seats are contracted rather than enrolled, and enrolment runs about 8% below seats.

08

Slide 8 · metrics · The pipeline by stage in schools and seats, so next Term 4 is a number, not a hope.

Print Sets vs Generic Apps vs Lanternread

What schools actually compare when the reading budget is set each Term 3.

Print sets

WHAT
Boxed decodable readers levelled by hand.
COST
About $22 per student a year with replacement.
GAP
No measurement, and the home copies never come back.

Generic apps

WHAT
Reading games with levelled but not decodable texts.
COST
$8 to $15 per student a year.
GAP
Off scope for phonics, so teachers run it beside the real program.

Lanternread

WHAT
Decodables on the school scope, measured each term.
COST
$14 per student a year, training included.
FITS WHEN
The school runs systematic phonics and wants the gain measured.

09

Slide 9 · comparison · The three options a literacy lead weighs, with cost per student on every card.

The founder

Iris Kalani taught Year 1 for nine years and then coached literacy across 40 schools as a regional advisor.

She built the first Lanternread library as printed sheets for her own struggling readers, and the 31 school study exists because she would not sell the product to former colleagues without proof it worked.

The founding team now includes a phonics author, two engineers from a school systems vendor, and a research lead running the measurement partnership with a university education faculty.

Advisors: a professor of reading instruction and a former state curriculum director.

10

Slide 10 · content · The founder in a paragraph: the deck has one storyteller and she taught the method.

THE ASK

Use of funds

$4M

to reach 200 schools and 3 districts

Category
Amount
%
Purpose
District sales
$1.4M
35%
Three district leads and the board level outcome packs
Content
$1.2M
30%
280 new decodables and two additional phonics scopes
Product
$1.0M
25%
Assessment engine and the home reader offline mode
Research partnership
$400k
10%
The 100 school randomised study with the university
Percentages are of the raise on slide eleven and cover 24 months.

11

Slide 11 · investment · A $4M ask with district sales taking the largest share, because that is where seats compound.

Thank You

The 31 school outcome dataset and the study protocol are available under NDA.

12

Slide 12 · closing · A quiet close that offers the study data, because evidence is the brand.

The structure

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

Slide 1cover
A stacked manifesto cover: the three words are the product promise.
Slide 2intro
The problem in one national number, then four facts that make it a market.
Slide 3pillars
The product in four text tiles: library, dashboard, home reader, assessment.
Slide 4metrics
The outcome slide: reading gain with n, cohort and duration on the same slide as the bars.
Slide 5calendar
The school buying calendar, because edtech revenue lands when terms say it can.
Slide 6metrics
Schools live by term: 3 to 61 in eight terms, the curve the calendar produces.
Slide 7pricing
One unit for the whole deck: dollars per student per year, school or district.
Slide 8metrics
The pipeline by stage in schools and seats, so next Term 4 is a number, not a hope.
Slide 9comparison
The three options a literacy lead weighs, with cost per student on every card.
Slide 10content
The founder in a paragraph: the deck has one storyteller and she taught the method.
Slide 11investment
A $4M ask with district sales taking the largest share, because that is where seats compound.
Slide 12closing
A quiet close that offers the study data, because evidence is the brand.

How to adapt this deck

Higher education keeps the shape but the calendar becomes semester procurement and the buyer becomes a faculty or a teaching and learning committee, which usually adds a governance slide. A consumer learning product drops the calendar entirely and replaces the pipeline table with retention cohorts, because parents buy in days, not terms. With no outcome data yet, put the planned study where the outcome slide sits and fund it visibly in the ask; in education, promising measurement is credible, implying it is not. US readers can translate terms to semesters without changing any slide order.

Which pitch deck do you need?

The investor pitch deck example is the hub, and the Series A deck example shows the same round organised by stage. Within the industry set, the SaaS example is closest in mechanics since school licences behave like seats, while the healthtech example shares the evidence first spine this page uses.

What makes this deck work

The outcome bars carry their sample

Slide four shows 7.9 months of reading age gain against 4.6 in comparison schools, with n = 31 schools and 2,840 students stated in the framing line. Education buyers and education investors have seen too many unmeasured claims; a stated sample turns the bars from marketing into a study.

The calendar slide explains the revenue curve

The buying year runs pilots in Terms 1 and 2, budgets in Term 3 and purchase orders in Term 4, and the very next slide shows schools stepping from 3 to 61 with the jumps landing each Term 4. Two slides that predict each other are worth ten slides of narrative about long sales cycles.

One unit prices the whole deck

Everything is quoted per student per year: $14 on the school licence, $11 for districts, and a pipeline measured in student seats as well as school counts. When the pricing, pipeline and ask all share a unit, an investor can model the business without asking a single clarifying question.

Questions people ask

What goes in an edtech pitch deck?

The standard arc plus three slides the category demands: measured learning outcomes, the school or district buying calendar, and pricing in the unit schools actually budget in. This example places outcomes fourth, the calendar fifth and pricing seventh across its twelve slides.

How do I show learning outcomes credibly?

Report a measured gain against a comparison group, state the sample and the duration on the slide, and resist converting everything to percentages. Lanternread shows months of reading age gain over a 20 week term across 31 schools. If your only data is engagement minutes, say so and show the study you will fund.

Why does the deck spend a slide on a calendar?

Because school revenue lands when terms allow, not when product ships. The calendar shows pilots converting to budget lines in Term 3 and purchase orders in Term 4, which is why the growth chart looks like stairs. Explaining that rhythm up front is the difference between a long sales cycle and a broken one.

Should pricing be per student or per school?

Whichever your buyers budget in, used consistently everywhere. Lanternread quotes $14 per student per year, drops to $11 for five school districts and even sizes its pipeline in student seats. Mixed units across slides are the fastest way to make an education investor recheck every number.

How is this different from the accelerator application deck?

The accelerator application deck on this site is an edtech company applying to a program: shorter, lighter on evidence and shaped to a form. This is a priced fundraising deck with outcome data and a district sales plan. Same industry, different reader, and nearly every slide changes as a result.

What does the pipeline table actually show?

Four stages with school counts and student seats: 40 schools piloting, 26 with proposals, 12 with purchase orders pending and 61 renewals. Reporting seats beside schools matters because a 2,000 student district and a 200 student school are the same row count and a very different year.

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Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .