Pitch decks represent a critical first touchpoint for startups seeking funding, often shaping whether investors will engage further. While extensive prior research has focused on the effects of substantive quality cues like team experience and market potential, the way and form of how the information is presented to the investors—the visual design—has received less attention. This oversight is noteworthy, as extant research from neighboring disciplines has shown the significant impact visual impressions have across various decision-making contexts. Drawing on processing fluency theory, which posits that visual stimuli that are more easily processed elicit positive affect, our study examines and quantifies how visual fluency in pitch decks may influence early-stage investors’ decision-making in the screening process beyond substantive quality. Through a pre-registered, randomized controlled trial involving nearly 34,000 investors and three online experiments, we found that both visual fluency and substantive quality independently boost investor engagement almost to the same extent in terms of time spent (+34% and +35%), slides viewed (+12% and +12), and positive reactions (+111% and +121%). In contrast, only substantive quality increased investors’ commitment as measured by the likelihood to invest, suggesting that commitment is less affected by affective processes and more cognitively driven. By illuminating the effects of and interplay between affective and deliberate drivers, we demonstrate that fluency serves not just as a complementary element but as a pivotal factor in shaping initial investor reactions, advancing theoretical perspectives on processing fluency and investor cognition while offering practical insights into crafting compelling presentations.
