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For investors
Every inbound deck gets a real screen. None of them on your calendar.
Totem talks to every founder who sends a deck this week. Walks through the slides on screen, watches the live numbers, and tells you which two are worth the partner hour, with the slide and the line.
Silent betaFully free in beta
Inbound pitch cohort, week 19
Inbound pitch screening. Totem ran this conversation across 11 founders and synthesized what came back into the takeaway below.
Key findingsAI-synthesized from 11 founders
3 of 11 showed live traction the deck didn't, in numbers I could verify on screen. Five had no answer for the moat question. Two are worth the partner hour next week, flagged with the exact slide and the exact line. The others are passes with a real reason you can paste into the no-thanks email.
- Live traction beats deck
- No moat answer
- Worth partner hour
- Pass with reason
- Deck mismatch on screen
- 40%Positive
- 40%Friction
- 20%Focus
- Responses
- 0
- Fully completed
- 0/0
- Avg. completion
- 0%
- Avg. length
- 0m
From silent-beta calls
“I used to do a 30-minute call with every founder I owed one to. Now Totem does the first thirty for me, with their deck on screen. I take the meeting when there's a meeting worth taking.”
— a partner at a Series-A fund
What investors ask first
“But founders will game it.”
They'll try. Then they'll trip on the same cross-cohort pattern. Totem watches the deck while it's pitched, asks about the slide they skipped, and notes when the traction number is shared on screen versus claimed verbally. Five founders glossing the same gap becomes the question your next meeting opens with, that's the alpha. The pitches that survive the screen are the ones you'd want to take anyway.
What investors start with
The diligence that doesn't scale, until it does.
Investor reference checks
Investor reference checks
What past customers say off the record.
Portfolio company check-in
Portfolio company check-in
What founders won't put in the investor update, said directly.
LP sentiment check
LP sentiment check
What LPs say to other GPs about you. Now you hear it first.
Why investors pick Totem
- 01
Live deck, live screen, live numbers. Founders share the deck during the pitch. Totem watches, asks about the slide they skipped, and verifies the traction claim against the dashboard they actually shared.
- 02
Partner hour, only when earned. The two-out-of-eleven that survive the screen reach you with the slide flagged and the line quoted. The other nine get a real pass, with a real reason.
- 03
Diligence patterns surface across cohorts. What three founders glossed over this month becomes visible when it's hosted by the same listener. The pattern is the alpha.
What changes
What changes for investors.
- 01
Screen-share + live deck analysis
Totem watches the deck while the founder walks through it, asks about the slide they skipped, and cross-checks the traction claim against the live dashboard they share.
- 02
Pass with a real reason
The nine you don't take get a specific decline, anchored to the slide and the founder's words. They respect it; they remember it; they bring you the next one.
- 03
Cross-cohort diligence
Patterns across pitches surface when one host runs them all. The honest gap five of eleven hit becomes the question your next meeting opens with.
Common questions
What investors ask before they try Totem.
- How can investors screen inbound deals at scale?
- By moving the first screen from a partner's calendar to an AI-moderated walkthrough. Totem talks to every founder who sends a deck, walks through the slides on screen, watches the live traction dashboard they share, and surfaces the two worth the partner hour with the slide flagged and the line quoted.
- What's the best tool for pitch screening?
- Specialised inbound-deal-flow tools (Affinity, Visible, OpenLP) track relationships and notes; they don't talk to founders. Totem talks to founders. The output is a screened list with the deck-anchored reasoning behind each pass or pursue, ready to inform what your next partner hour decides.
- Can AI replace founder pitch meetings?
- Not the meetings worth taking. Totem replaces the first 30-minute screen, the ones you'd otherwise skip or delay or punt to an associate. The founders that survive the screen reach you with the partner-hour-justifying signal already collected; the others get a real pass with a real reason.
- How does AI-moderated due diligence compare to human-led screens?
- Human screens cost partner time linearly. AI-moderated screens don't. Quality-wise, AI can verify deck claims against shared dashboards in real time, ask about the slide the founder skipped, and run the same screen with every founder. Pattern-finding across many decks is something one host can do better than ten different humans.
- How is Totem different from Affinity or Visible?
- Affinity and Visible track relationships, notes, and CRM-style deal flow. Totem runs the actual conversation that informs the deal flow record. They're complementary: Totem produces the screen, your CRM stores the outcome.
- What does an AI-moderated pitch screen look like?
- The founder shares the deck on screen. Totem walks them through it, asks for a quick traction summary, asks about the slide they skipped, and verifies a claim against a live dashboard if they share one. The output is a slide-anchored summary with the patterns that show up across this week's pitches surfaced for the partner.
Your turn
Describe the thesis. Meet only the founders worth meeting.
One prompt seeds the screen. Totem walks through every deck, watches the live numbers, and wakes you with the two worth the partner hour. The others get a real pass.
Drop your promptFree during the betaNo cardYour prompt, your data