Frostline Series A
Hardware startup pitch deck that shows margin at volume
Frostline makes a $79 sensor that rides inside refrigerated freight and reports temperature breaches by satellite. The deck gives the bill of materials its own slide, costed at 1,000 and 10,000 units, because a hardware investor wants to know the margin exists before they hear about the market.
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
- A blunt neobrutalist cover: hardware companies earn trust by being concrete.
- Slide 2intro
- The spoilage number leads, and four shifts explain why satellite sensing works now.
- Slide 3pillars
- The device explained in three panels rather than a render: sensor, link, mount.
- Slide 4metrics
- The BOM slide: cost per unit at 1k and 10k builds beside the headline margin numbers.
- Slide 5metrics
- Demand proof in three numbers: pre-orders, deposits and pilots.
- Slide 6pricing
- Two ways to buy: own the hardware with a data plan, or lease everything monthly.
- Slide 7timeline
- The manufacturing ramp as a Gantt: EVT, DVT and PVT with unit counts, over five months.
- Slide 8metrics
- Units shipped and recurring data revenue on one chart, with the recurring line as the story.
- Slide 9comparison
- Frostline against cellular and USB loggers on the four things a cold chain manager checks.
- Slide 10pillars
- Two founders and the advisor who runs the contract manufacturer, each with their receipt.
- Slide 11investment
- A $5M ask with tooling and the first 10k units taking almost half, stated plainly.
- Slide 12closing
- Contact card with the sample kit as the ask, because hardware sells itself in the hand.
How to adapt this deck
Consumer hardware replaces the operator pilots with retail or crowdfunding proof and moves the comparison slide earlier, because a consumer investor asks who else first. Robotics and other long cycle categories stretch the Gantt to quarters and add a certification row, and the BOM slide often needs a third column for the cost the design team is engineering toward. Before EVT, do not fake the ramp: show the prototype status honestly and size the ask to reaching DVT, which is the milestone that reprices the company.
Which pitch deck do you need?
The investor pitch deck example holds the general arc. The climate tech example suits hardware whose buyer is an emissions line, the ecommerce example covers selling a physical product without owning the factory problem, and the product launch presentation is the internal cousin for teams shipping hardware into an existing company. If the raise happens after the first production run rather than before it, the Series B example carries the cohort and margin slides a manufacturer needs once volume is real.
What makes this deck work
The BOM reconciles to the margin claims
Slide four charts five component costs at both build volumes and prints the totals beside them: $49.80 at 1,000 units and $31.40 at 10,000, which against the $79 price is exactly the 37% and 60% shown on the cards. An investor can audit the margin story with the slide alone.
The ramp is a Gantt with unit counts
Six phases run across five months: DFM sign off, tooling, EVT at 200 units, DVT at 1,000, PVT at 3,000 and mass production at a stated line rate. Naming the build quantities turns the scariest part of hardware diligence, the ramp, into a checkable schedule.
Recurring revenue is visible by slide eight
The $6 per device monthly data plan appears in the pricing split and then compounds on the growth chart to a $2.2M data run rate. Hardware investors discount one time unit sales heavily; showing the recurring line early is what moves the company out of the gadget bucket.
Questions people ask
What goes in a hardware pitch deck?
The standard arc plus three hardware specific slides: a bill of materials at two volumes, a manufacturing ramp with build phases and unit counts, and pricing that separates hardware from recurring revenue. This example carries all three between the product and the ask.
How do I show BOM cost without leaking secrets?
Group components into five or six lines the way this deck does: sensor board, modem, battery, enclosure, assembly and test. That is enough for an investor to believe the totals and the volume curve without publishing supplier pricing. The totals and the sale price are the slide; the line detail is diligence material.
What are EVT, DVT and PVT, and why show them?
Engineering, design and production validation builds: the standard gates between a working prototype and a production line. Showing them with unit counts, 200 then 1,000 then 3,000 here, tells investors you know the road, and the phase you are in tells them exactly what their money de-risks.
Should hardware startups show recurring revenue?
If any exists, prominently. Frostline pairs a $79 device with a $6 monthly data plan at 74% margin, and the forecast slide leads with the data run rate rather than units. Hardware plus a service line is valued differently from hardware alone, and the deck should force that comparison early.
How many pre-orders are enough to show?
Enough to name alongside deposits and pilots: this deck shows 2,400 binding units, $190k of deposits held and three operators running live pilots. Deposits matter more than the count, because paid intent is the only kind an investor can not argue with.
Does the Gantt survive export to PowerPoint?
As artwork with live labels. In the editable PPTX export, the Gantt bar artwork stays a picture while every text label on it becomes a native, editable text box. The charts and tables elsewhere in this deck export as fully native PowerPoint objects you can retype in place.
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