Translate an Investor Pitch Deck in PowerPoint into German

What German does to a pitch deck

Pitch decks live on short, punchy headlines, often a single word per slide. That is exactly where German needs room: text typically runs 20 to 35 % longer than English, and compound nouns stretch further still. "Competition" becomes Wettbewerbsumfeld, "Customer acquisition cost" becomes Kundenakquisitionskosten, "Funding round" becomes Finanzierungsrunde. A title that fitted on one line at 40 pt may wrap onto two.

• Every noun is capitalised: Marktpotenzial, Geschäftsmodell, Umsatzprognose.
• The expected register with investors is the formal Sie, even though German start-up culture is often on first-name terms in person.
• Much venture vocabulary stays in English in German decks: Seed, Series A, Burn Rate, Churn. Mixing is normal; consistency across slides is what matters.

Figures and currency: German formatting traps

Investors read your numbers first, and German conventions differ from English ones:

• Decimal and thousands separators are swapped: €1,250,000 becomes 1.250.000 €, and €2.5m becomes 2,5 Mio. €, with the currency symbol after the number.
• Abbreviations: Tsd. for thousand, Mio. for million, Mrd. for billion.
• The billion trap: an English "4 billion" market is 4 Mrd. in German. A German Billion is a million million, a costly slip on a TAM slide.
• Dates are written 31.12.2025; quarters usually stay Q1 2026.

Many of these figures sit inside charts (TAM/SAM/SOM, revenue curves), which are not translated; see below.

What Manuce returns, and what it leaves alone

The deck goes to Métis, the finance-specialist engine. It translates titles, placeholders, text boxes, shapes, shapes inside groups and tables, such as your use-of-funds or cap table slide.

You get your original .pptx back: theme, images, shape positions, animations and transitions are those of your file; only the text changes. You also receive a Word version, a PDF and plain text, handy for a German-speaking adviser to review the wording without PowerPoint.

What is not done at present:

• Speaker notes are not translated, so your talk track stays in the source language.
• Text in charts, SmartArt (roadmap, team chart), slide masters (a "Confidential" footer) and text embedded in images stays in the source language.
• A paragraph mixing formats takes the formatting of its start: in "We reached €1.2m ARR", the bold on the figure will not stay in place.
• Text box sizes are not recalculated: a longer German headline may overflow a fixed box; any autofit set in PowerPoint still applies.

This is not a sworn or certified translation, which a pitch deck does not normally require.

Preparing the deck before upload

• Pull key figures out of charts. If market size or the five-year forecast only appears in a chart, repeat it in a text box or table so it gets translated.
• Isolate bold figures. Put "€1.2m ARR" in its own text box rather than mid-sentence, and its formatting will hold.
• Turn on autofit for headlines and tight boxes (team slide, competitor grid), or leave spare width.
• Replace simple SmartArt such as a roadmap with grouped shapes, which are translated.
• Copy your speaker notes into a separate Word file and have it translated if you will pitch in German.

Checking the German version before you send it

Start with the free sample: one paragraph of your deck translated at your chosen level, before you pay. Check the Sie register, your company and product names, and any term you want kept as is, such as Marketplace or SaaS.

Once the file arrives, go through it slide by slide:

• headlines that now wrap or are cut off at the box edge;
• amounts in German format (Mio., Mrd., full stop for thousands);
• charts and footers still in the source language, to fix by hand;
• consistency of repeated terms, for instance Umsatz on one slide and Erlöse on another.

When sending to a fund, the PDF avoids any font substitution on the investor's side.

In practice

1. Move key figures out of charts and put bold amounts in their own text boxes.
2. Upload the .pptx and choose German: the quote appears instantly, based on the exact word count.
3. Check the free sample: Sie register, proper names, terms to keep in English.
4. After payment, download the .pptx, Word, PDF and plain text from your client area.
5. Review every slide for overflow, number formats, and charts or footers to fix.