Translate an investor pitch deck into English

What changes when a deck moves into English

A fifteen-slide deck typically holds around 1,800 words. Translated from French, Spanish or Italian, English text usually runs 10 to 15% shorter: overflowing text boxes breathe again, but a shortened bullet can leave an awkward gap beside a chart. Plan to check each slide.

Register shifts too. Many continental decks favour noun-heavy headings (« Accélération de la croissance à l’international »); English-speaking investors expect message headlines with a verb: We expand to three new markets in 2025. The translation follows your text, so if you want punchier headlines, tighten the source first.

• British or American English: a London fund will read organisation, programme; a Silicon Valley fund organization, program. Decide according to your audience and check consistency in the free sample.
• Headline capitalisation: US decks often use Title Case (Go-To-Market Strategy), UK decks tend towards sentence case (Go-to-market strategy). Pick one rule and keep to it.
• Plurals: English has only two forms, and only 1 takes the singular. French writes « 0 client », English needs 0 customers and 1.5 million users.

Figures, currencies and funding terms: the traps

Investors read the numbers first, so those are what you check first in the English version.

• Separators: many European languages write « 1 800 » or « 1.800 » and « 2,5 »; English writes 1,800 and 2.5. A misplaced comma turns €2.5m into something a thousand times larger.
• Currency units: « 2,5 M€ » becomes €2.5m in British usage, €2.5M for many Americans; « 800 K€ » becomes €800k. The symbol goes before the number.
• Percentages: no space, so « 12 % » becomes 12%.
• Quarters and dates: « T1 2025 » becomes Q1 2025; 03/04/2025 means 4 March in the UK and 3 April in the US. Write 3 April 2025 or April 3, 2025 instead.

Some funding terms have no exact equivalent:

• Revenue vs turnover: decks use revenue, even though British accounts often say turnover.
• Local operating metrics: the French « EBE » is close to EBITDA but not identical; « BFR » is working capital requirement.
• Local instruments: a French « BSA AIR » resembles a US SAFE but sits under different law. Keep the local name with a short gloss rather than a false equivalent.
• Local schemes: a foreign fund may not know the CIR or Bpifrance. A phrase such as French R&D tax credit (CIR) heads off the question in the meeting.

Metrics already in English (ARR, CAC, LTV, churn) stay as they are; just make sure your source does not mix them with local equivalents.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Your deck goes to Métis, Manuce’s finance specialist, which handles the vocabulary of funding rounds, cash-flow tables and projections. You upload the file, a quote appears straight away based on the exact word count, and one paragraph of your deck is translated free at the level you choose before any payment. For a deck going to investors, the Professional level is the one designed to be sent as is.

• Formats: PowerPoint, PDF, Word, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF and CSV. The file comes back in its original format with the layout intact: your .pptx stays a .pptx.
• Turnaround: for a deck of around fifteen slides, the translation is delivered within minutes and kept in your client area.

What Manuce does not do:

• It cannot read a scanned PDF (an image with no selectable text). If your deck was printed and scanned, go back to the PowerPoint file or an exported PDF.
• It does not produce certified translations. A deck does not need one, but if a fund’s due diligence calls for certified articles of association or company registration documents, you will need a sworn translator.
• It does not rewrite your pitch: it translates what each slide says, without changing your figures or structure.

Preparing the deck and checking the English version

Before uploading:

• Find text locked in images: a chart pasted as a screenshot, a cap table exported as a picture or a customer logo wall contain no text the file exposes. Rebuild them as live charts or tables if their labels need translating.
• Harmonise the source: one metric called « CA récurrent » on one slide and « ARR » on another will give you two different English terms.
• Write amounts consistently: one convention throughout the source gives a consistent translation.

After delivery:

1. Check every figure on the financials slide and on The Ask: amount raised, pre-money valuation, months of runway.
2. Check proper names: company, founders, products. If they must stay unchanged, confirm this in the free sample and again in the full translation.
3. View the deck in slideshow mode: headlines on one line, bullets aligned, no gaps left by shorter text.
4. If you are presenting live, open the speaker notes too and make sure they are in the language you will speak.

In practice

1. Export your deck as PowerPoint or a text-based PDF (not a scan).
2. Upload the file: the quote appears based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free sample paragraph and check figures, acronyms and British or American spelling.
4. Pay and download the translated deck from your client area within minutes.
5. Review the financial slides and adjust any layout gaps left by shorter English text.