IndexCase study · Deeptech · Industrial AI
A bridge that didn't feel like one.
Eighteen months post-A, a deeptech team needed twelve more months of runway to hit the milestone that mattered. The existing investors were cautiously in. The new money wasn't biting.
Stage
Bridge to Series B
Engagement
Refine
Duration
11 weeks to close
Outcome
$6M extension
01 · Diagnosis
What was broken on arrival.
Every page of the deck implied 'we need more time.' True, but unfundable. The actual story — that the technical risk was now retired and the next chapter was commercial — wasn't being told.
Signals
- —Deck opened with the roadmap, not the proof
- —No clear before/after technical milestone narrative
- —Use-of-funds slide read as 'survival' instead of 'inflection'
02 · Rewrite
What we changed.
Reframed the bridge as a pre-Series-B, with the de-risking already done as the story's spine. Past tense for the hard part, future tense for the obvious part.
- Opened with the proof
- Slide one was the result of the eighteen months of R&D, not a logo and a tagline.
- Renamed the round
- Stopped calling it a bridge in conversation. Called it a pre-B. Investors followed the framing.
- Tight ask
- Twelve months, three named commercial milestones, one slide.
03 · Outcome
What closed.
Round oversubscribed by 1.4x. Two new institutional investors joined. Existing investors took their full pro-rata for the first time.
New leads engaged
9
Pro-rata uptake
100%
Round size
$6M
Oversubscription
1.4x