Fundraising: Share a Pitch Deck with Investors
Set up a Peony data room for a pre-seed to Series C raise. Watermarked pitch decks, per-investor links, and analytics that tell you who is actually reading.
Last updated September 27, 2026
For founders raising pre-seed through Series C. Share a pitch deck, financial model, and supporting diligence with investors, and see which investors are actually reading it.
Setup takes under 10 minutes: drag a deck into a new data room, create one group per investor (each group gets its own share link), send. Every time an investor opens the deck, you see which pages they read and how long.
Raising $100M+ from a single lead with a law firm running process? The M&A Advisory workflow is closer to what you need.
Why Peony for Fundraising
- Live in minutes. A new room takes under 5 minutes to set up, and AI auto-indexing processes every uploaded file in the background, with no manual tagging.
- You see who is actually reading. Page-level analytics show which pages each investor read and for how long, where Google Drive, Dropbox or email only tell you a link was opened. AI Q&A lets investors ask questions against your documents and get cited answers with page numbers.
- Investors are free, protection is built in. Viewers are unlimited on every plan, unlike per-seat data rooms such as Datasite, where 30 investors can cost thousands a month. Every link offers NDA gates and screenshot protection Business+, plus dynamic watermarks and Screenshield mobile screenshot protection Data Room+.
Quick Setup (5 Steps)
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Create the data room. Click Create data room (top bar) or Create new data room on the Quickstart page. Name it so the investor understands it ("Peony Series A" beats "Internal fundraise v3 FINAL").
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Upload and organize. Drag in the deck, model, cap table, and anything else you're comfortable sharing. Standard early-stage structure:
01 Deck,02 Financials,03 Team,04 Customers,05 Legal. AI auto-indexes everything in under three minutes. -
Turn on watermarks and screenshot protection. In each group's security settings, toggle Dynamic watermark on (Data Room plan and up) and Screenshot protection on (Business and up). Legal deterrent plus a technical block on the most common leak vector.
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Create one group per investor. The single most important habit for fundraising. Open the Permissions tab and click Create new group — one group per investor or firm. Peony uses groups so you can give different permissions to different recipients, and each group generates its own share link (Copy access link), watermark, analytics, and active/revoke toggle. Creating a group walks you through a two-step wizard: Visitors (who gets access) and Document permissions (what they can see).
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Share and watch the Analytics tab. Send each investor their group's link. Within minutes of the first open, you see dwell time per page, total session length, and which sections they went deep on.
Stuck? Book a 15-minute walkthrough at lunacal.ai/team/peony-data-room.
Recommended Security Stack
Fundraising balances protection with politeness. Too much friction and investors ghost. For a first-touch deck: watermark + email verification is usually enough. Add screenshot protection and NDA gates for financials and customer lists. The full on/off stack for a pitch deck is in Recommended stacks by use case; the fundraising-specific calls:
- Email verification — always on. Forwarded links don't work.
- NDA gate — optional. Only if the deck has material financial data, customer names, or IP. A hard NDA will cool casual angel interest — think twice on first-touch shares.
- Downloads — off by default. Enable per-investor for trusted LPs who need a PDF.
See NDA Gates and Dynamic Watermarks.
What Analytics Tell You
- Per-page dwell time. An investor who spent 90 seconds on traction and 5 on the team slide is telling you something different than one who did the reverse.
- Total session length. 3 minutes = skim. 8 minutes = read. 25 minutes = opened the model too. Partners rarely session 25 minutes unless they're seriously considering a call.
- Return visits. First open is a signal; second and third are much stronger. Return visits within 72 hours often precede a "let's talk" email.
- Per-viewer segmentation. Because you used one group per investor, sort by dwell time and your follow-up list writes itself.
- Attempted screenshots. Useful intelligence about which investors are building their own files on you.
- Q&A questions asked. Often more revealing than which pages they read.
Click into any investor's name to see their total view time, average session length, device, location, and full activity timeline.
See Page-Level Analytics.
Investor Updates
Many founders use Peony for monthly or quarterly investor updates too. One "Investor Updates" room (or a new room per update), upload the letter and supporting docs, share with your cap table, and see per-investor engagement. Finding out which investors are engaged between rounds makes the next raise easier to sequence.
Pricing
Most solo founders and small teams run a first-touch raise on Business+. Data Room+ adds dynamic watermarks, Advanced NDA, a custom domain and Screenshield, worth it for a Series A/B where you want the share to look hosted by you; Deal Team+ adds the advanced Q&A module and redaction for a competitive process or larger round. Viewers are unlimited on every tier, so pricing scales with admins, not investors: see Plans and Pricing.
Common Questions
Which settings should I turn on for a Business seed round?
For a basic seed VDR, the Business plan is enough. Remember that more granular security means more investor friction — a first-touch deck rarely needs the full stack. If you want the room to read as a professional narrative rather than a bare file list, lean on customization: your logo and background images (available on Business), plus a custom domain and sections with narrative text (these are on the Data Room tier). Turn security up only as the material gets more sensitive.
Can I share different levels of access from one room?
Yes. Instead of spinning up separate rooms, use one data room with several groups at different access levels — for example a teaser group, a full-diligence group, and a finalist group. Each group has its own share link, permissions, and analytics, so you control exactly what each investor sees without duplicating the room.
What happens to my data if I ever need to leave Peony?
You are never locked in. Whole-room archive download is included on Deal Team and Enterprise. Peony is GDPR-aligned and CCPA-compliant, and is SOC 2- and ISO 27001-ready, with both audits underway.
Do investors need a paid account to view or ask questions?
No. Viewers are free and unlimited on every plan. Investors open their group's link, verify their email, and read — no Peony account required. They can also use AI document Q&A to ask questions against your documents without signing up.
Can I customize the watermark on the deck?
Yes, on the Data Room plan and up. Each group carries its own dynamic watermark, and there's a Customize watermark control for the text. The watermark renders across four lines (for example viewer email, date, and IP), so a leaked screenshot traces straight back to the investor who took it.