How deck analysis works
Each deck is scanned for malware, read slide by slide and analysed. You get a brief, a deck quality score, and facts and claims cited to their slides.
Every pitch deck, whether a founder sent it through your portal or your team uploaded it, goes through the same four steps: Uploaded, Scanning, Extracting and Analysing. The file stays out of reach until a malware scan says it's clean. Then its slides are read and analysed: you get a brief, a Deck quality score, and facts and claims that each cite the slide and quote they came from. AI output is always lilac and labelled AI suggestion. A person at your fund makes every decision.
The steps
| Step | What happens | Status line |
|---|---|---|
| Uploaded | The PDF arrives in private storage | "Waiting for the upload to finish." |
| Scanning | A malware scan checks the file. Once it's clean, Delsivo checks that it really is a PDF of at most 50 MB | "Checking the file for malware before anyone opens it." |
| Extracting | The text and an image of every slide are read. Slides that are only pictures are read with OCR | "Reading the text and images of every slide." |
| Analysing | The brief, the deck quality score, and the facts and claims are written | "Writing the brief, scoring deck quality and pulling out facts and claims." |
| Done | The results are on the deal, with the number of slides read | "Analysis finished." |
You see the steps in three places:
- Deals list: the Deck column shows five dots and a status: No deck, Uploading, Scanning, Quarantined, Extracting, Analysing, Analysed or Failed.
- The deal's side sheet, under Deck.
- The deal page, on Brief and Evidence, as Deck v1 analysis while it runs. Updates on its own means you don't need to refresh. When the job ends, the page refreshes and you see Deck analysis finished.
What the analysis gives you
On the deal's Brief tab:
| Box | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Elevator pitch | What the company does, in a line, and which deck version it came from |
| Detected stage | Idea, pre revenue or post revenue, with how confident the reading is |
| Detected industry | The industry the deck reads as |
| Strengths and Risks | What stands out, for and against |
| Missing or weak | What an investor would expect that the deck doesn't cover well |
| Questions for the first call | Questions with a category, a difficulty and why to ask them |
| Deck quality | A score from 0 to 100 |
On the Evidence tab you get the deck viewer beside Facts and Claims:
- Facts: company name, website, headquarters, stage, sector, geography, round size, currency, revenue, customers and team, as the deck states them.
- Claims: up to 30 checkable statements, such as revenue, growth, customers, market size, partnerships and team credentials, each with its metric, value and period when there is one.
Slide citations and quote checks
Every fact and claim carries the slide it came from and a quote copied from that slide. Before anything is saved, Delsivo looks for the quote in that slide's extracted text. If it isn't there, the fact or claim is dropped. Where a claim states a number, the number is also compared with the numbers in the quote, and the result is kept with the claim.
On Evidence, each citation is a Slide 4 chip:
- Hover over it to preview the slide with the quote highlighted.
- Click it to open that slide in the viewer, with the quote marked in the text.
- A chip from an earlier deck version also shows the version, such as v1, and opens that version.
Today's numbers, projections and market size
Decks mix what a company has today with what it plans. The analysis reads each number with the slide it sits on and the words around it, and treats it as one of four kinds:
| Kind | Examples | Where it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Actual | "USD 410k ARR, Sep 2026", "45 enterprise customers" | Revenue and customers facts, and claims |
| Projected | "Path to $12M ARR in 3 years", a financial projections slide | Claims only, with Projected in the period |
| Target | "Achieve ~$360K ARR with this round", "Target gross margin 70-80%" | Claims only, with Target in the period |
| Market size | TAM, SAM and SOM, even when written as ARR | Claims only, with Market size in the period |
Numbers on the Market, Ask, Use of funds, Roadmap and Financial projections slides are almost never today's figures, so a revenue fact only ever comes from what the company has now. Each claim's wording follows its kind, for example "The company projects $12M ARR by Year 3."
In the viewer, use Previous slide and Next slide, the slide strip, or the left and right arrow keys. The slide number is kept in the address, so you can share a link to a slide.
Sample analysis without an AI model
If your workspace has no AI provider set up, for example on a test or development copy, the analysis still runs on simple text rules so every step can be tried. The deal then shows Sample analysis, no AI model ran. above its tabs. The brief, scores and suggested claims are not an assessment: check every claim against the deck. Live workspaces never use sample answers. If the AI is unavailable there, the deck goes to manual review instead.
Weak extraction
A slide is marked Weak extraction when its text was read with OCR, when fewer than 10 characters came out of it, or when only a text-only reading of the PDF was possible. You see a badge in the viewer and a dot on the slide's thumbnail. Hover over the badge for the reason, for example "This slide's text was read with OCR, so words may be wrong. Check the image." Check the slide image before you rely on facts from a weak slide.
AI suggestions and what a person accepts
Everything the analysis writes is marked AI suggestion in lilac. Each claim also has a state:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Founder reported | Only the founder's own material says this so far. Every new claim starts here |
| Corroborated | An independent source backs this up |
| Disputed | A source contradicts this |
| Unresolved | Checked, but no source settles it yet |
A claim someone on your team has accepted shows Accepted claim instead of the AI label. Review claims one by one, add sources and verify them on the deal's Claims tab. See Track and verify claims. When a founder corrects a fact, the correction sits next to the original. See Deck versions and founder corrections.
Run the analysis again
On a deal's Brief, the Deck quality card has Run the analysis again for anyone who can edit the deal. Use it after your fund switches on an AI provider, changes its model, or when a sample analysis ran. Click it, read what changes, then click Analyse again.
- The newest deck is read again with your fund's current AI model and rubric. It takes a minute or two, and the steps show on the Brief.
- The brief, the Deck quality score and the facts from that deck are replaced. The current brief stays on screen until the new one is ready.
- Suggested claims nobody has reviewed yet are replaced by the new run's suggestions.
- Accepted, dismissed and edited claims, their sources and tasks stay as they are, and the new run doesn't suggest them again.
A failed analysis has Retry instead. The Activity tab records who ran it again and when.
Deck quality is not thesis fit
Deck quality is how well the deck makes its case. The analysis scores each criterion for the detected stage from 0 to 10, such as problem clarity, traction or team. Delsivo then weights those scores for the stage and industry and blends in storytelling and clarity at 20% each. The arithmetic runs in code, never in the model.
It says nothing about whether the company fits your thesis. Once the analysis finishes, the deal is screened against your fund's default rubric. Thesis fit, Evidence quality and Diligence readiness then appear as cards on the Brief tab, next to deck quality and separate from it, and in full on the Fit tab. See Read a deal's fit report.
When a step fails
A failed step turns red with the reason, and the status line says "The job failed. You can retry it." Partners, Admins and the Analyst who owns the deal see Retry. You then see Retrying. The steps update here as the job runs.
| Reason | What to do |
|---|---|
| "The malware scan didn't finish in time. Upload the deck again." | Upload it again from Files |
| "The file isn't a real PDF (its content doesn't match its type)." | Ask the founder for a real PDF export |
| "The PDF couldn't be read. It may be damaged or password protected." | Ask for an unprotected PDF |
| "Slide extraction failed. Retry, or upload the deck again." | Click Retry |
| "The AI service didn't answer. Retry in a few minutes." | Delsivo retries on its own a few times first, and the step stays on Analysing meanwhile. If it still fails, click Retry. If it keeps failing, ask your admin to check the AI provider in Admin |
Quarantined is different: "Quarantined: the file didn't pass the malware scan and is kept out of reach." A quarantined file can't be opened, analysed or retried, and Delsivo's security team is alerted. Ask the founder for a clean copy and upload it as a new version.
How deck text is handled
Deck text is treated as data. Email addresses and phone numbers are replaced before any AI model sees it, and anything in a slide that reads like an instruction to the AI is ignored. If the same file is uploaded again in your fund, the earlier analysis is reused, with no new AI usage. Results are never shared between funds.
Who sees the analysis
Admins and Partners see every deal. Analysts see the deals they own. Committee members don't see the deals list. Founders never see the analysis or the score: they only see the facts read from their deck, which they can correct.
Frequently asked questions
Does Delsivo decide which companies move forward?
No. The analysis suggests and cites. A person at your fund decides.
Why is a fact I can see on the slide missing?
The analysis keeps a fact only when it can quote it from the slide's extracted text. If the slide is an image read with OCR, or the text came out garbled, the quote may not match. Look for the Weak extraction badge.
Can founders upload PowerPoint or Keynote files?
PowerPoint, yes: decks can be a PDF or a PowerPoint file (.pptx), up to 50 MB. A .pptx is turned into slide pictures and text the same way as a PDF. PowerPoint files with macros (.pptm) and the old .ppt format aren't accepted. Keynote decks need exporting as PDF or PowerPoint first.
Why does the brief show an earlier deck version?
The brief and the deck quality score come from the newest version that finished its analysis. While a new version is being processed, or if it failed, you keep seeing the last good one, marked From deck v2.
Something unclear or missing? Tell us