The Coinbase Seed Round Pitch Deck

Last week Coinbase announced its Series D fundraise. We’ve now raised about $216M over the past five years and created a company valued at $1.6B.

Adam Draper, one of our first seed investors, forwarded me this email from five years ago when we first met, with the attached pitch deck. What a great reminder of just how far we’ve come.

From: Brian Armstrong <xxxxxxx@coinbase.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: Demo Day
To: Adam Draper <xxxxxxx@boostfunder.com>

Hi Adam,

We don’t have a deck but here are my slides from demo day (please keep confidential). Tim Draper invested in xxxxxxx right? Didn’t realize the connection when we met. We have $320k committed already and will close it at $1M for this round. What can I do to help you make a decision to invest in Coinbase? (happy to meet in person or chat by phone)

—

Brian Armstrong
Founder, CEO
Coinbase
San Francisco, CA, USA
C: 415–xxx–xxxx

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 5:38 PM, Adam Draper <xxxxxxx@boostfunder.com> wrote:

Great presentation at demo day, it was also great to meet you. I am interested in the market you are going after and want to learn some more. Can you send me a deck if you have one?

Just some background on me, I have invested in about a dozen startups including Path, Airtime and Mino Monsters.

thanks,
Adam

Here is the attached pitch deck (which was really just the slides I used to present at YCombinator’s demo day).

And a grainy photo if me presenting those slides at demo day in summer 2012.

If there is a lesson here, I think it is this:

Great things start from humble beginnings. Most of what you see around you started as nothing more than a simple idea and a crude prototype. It’ll take 5 to 10 years to turn it into an “overnight success”, with dozens of setbacks and course corrections along the way. So pick something you’re passionate about and get started.