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Metacert Seed Stage

Pitch Deck Collection

Here’s the Metacert Pitch deck the founder Paul Walsh used to raise a $1.2m seed round, led by Moneta Ventures, with participation from Shaked Ventures, Sierra Angel Network, Monta Vista Capital, and angel investors like Terry Jones, founding chair of Kayak.com. Ventures. In total, they have raised $1.94M in 2 Rounds from 4 Investors.

Metacert is the first security company in the world to build security tools for companies that use messaging apps. Their security apps and bots for Slack, HipChat and Skype protect businesses from malicious web links. They see a world where people aren’t afraid of clicking on the wrong link.

With just six lines of code, we also provide credible intelligence on 10 Billion + URLs and IP addresses so app developers can protect users from cyber attacks with a simple, super fast API.

“The problem is that phishing is typically thought of as a problem in email…But if a lot of people are using [messaging] instead of email, then it stands to reason that the future of malware and phishing attacks is also going to take place inside these messaging services, and that’s why Metacert exists”

The problem

Messenger Platforms such as Slack, HipChat, Cisco Spark and more recently Microsoft for Teams, do not protect their customers from malicious web links. Skype, Facebook Messenger, Kik, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat et al., are no different. They also allow the spread of malicious links to be sent across their services.
So, when people use a mobile app to share and open web links, companies are completely exposed to malware and phishing attacks that lead to the theft of personal information and sensitive corporate data. Their network-based security is not being utilised when employees are mobile. Not everyone cares about security or the lack of it. But many do. And should. BTW if you think there’s no need for security when links are being shared internally in say, HipChat, think again…

The solution

MetaCert is used by public and private companies that use Messenger Platforms to help prevent data loss, by protecting their employees from malicious and inappropriate web links such as ‘Malware & Phishing’ and ‘Pornography’. It takes 30 seconds to install a MetaCert chatbot/integration. And it runs silently in the background. The only time you hear from the bot is when a bad link is shared. And then you get an alert in the channel/room.

Deck review

The founder Paul has kindly made both the detailed and presentation versions of his pitch deck available. I will review the detailed version.

The deck is very well done and professional feeling. This is a good template for the founder to follow and take note of. My fundamental issue is I don’t really see a problem or business model here.

Positive

Very clean and consistent formatting. Highly polished and professional. There is no reason an investor would not take this deck seriously
The opening slide is best practice. The tagline “Security for mobile apps” gives you a flavour for what is coming. It’s also super useful for VCs to be able to filter. Not everyone understands security
The first body slide explains what they are doing and how they intend to expand, but leveraging a contemporary trend. This is well done
In a similar manner, the next problem slide on slide 2 uses great use of images in a clean manner to explain the present and future of what they are building. Slide 3 then builds on this to explain the difference. Slide 4 finishes a series of 3 problem slides by explaining things simply
How it works slide is good looking and not boring
Their strategic partnership and go to market strategy slides are solid. Not sure I necessarily buy into all the points, but they show a good level of thought
The market sizing slide on page 17 is really good in some ways. I rarely see a bottom up analysis like this. It’s far better in many ways than just quoting a top down stat. I don’t really buy the numbers and think the addressable market is smaller
The core backend technology slide is decent – gives the impression there is proprietary tech here, which investors of course love
The competition landscape slide is decent. On slide 25 they provide a matrix which gets into the details of the offering
The milestones slide is nicely structured and clear

Negative

The length of the deck may indicate the business is hard to explain. One reason for this could be… are they really solving a problem?
On slide 6 where Paul is explaining ‘why’ I don’t really understand why there would be malicious links within a team collaboration tool in the first place. Sure, Skype gets jacked with some weird Baidu link daily now, but why will their Slack? One would think that is secure in the first place. Also, I think it’s weird that people would be sharing porn in Slack. That’s what WhatsApp groups are for…
The solution slides could make the point they want to make better. Sure, the slides are pretty and formatted, and the text isn’t bad – but the points could be made more evident
The revenue model is decent. They could emphasise the key points more. I just don’t see people paying it though 😉
The team slide is a little wordy, but this is the detailed version which is finding and likely worthwhile
The investment opportunity slide could be formatted a bit better to provide more details. The use of funds isn’t that great