Local creative marketing firm Blonde and Giant has been making waves in the world of venture capital with a unique service offering pitch-deck consultancy and design. One of their most recent clients, the German grocery start-up Flink raised over €200 million with a pitch deck produced by the local agency.

“We’ve helped start-ups and venture capital funds to raise money, in industries as far apart as fashion, tele-medicine and cryptocurrency,” co-founder Beppe Coleiro says.

“Creating a great investor pitch deck is a challenging process but the pay-off for our clients is often huge. As we’ve seen, a good pitch deck can help raise hundreds of millions of euro. Of course, what investors are really looking for is the right product, the right team and a killer business concept ­‒ but a good deck can put all those things front and centre, while a bad deck can make a great company look un-investable. When the stakes are high, start-ups and funds need every edge they can get in the quest for investment.”

After a period of quiet inactivity during 2020, the venture capital scene is now being revitalised with a wealth of new funds and plenty of capital ready to back innovative start-ups, with particular focus on those that address environmental or sustainability- related issues.

Blonde and Giant managing partner Mark Galea says that Malta needs to do more to capitalise on the opportunities of venture capital.

“We need more local businesses to start looking abroad both in terms of expansion and funding. This is already happening thanks to a number of local visionaries who are driving up the quality of local innovation and start-ups − but much more could be done,” Galea notes.

“We envision a future where Maltese entrepreneurs and investors have much greater access to international funding, partners and buyers. And I believe that we should look to places like Estonia and Israel as examples of small nations that have cultivated a towering international stature by being innovators in the scalable world of tech.”