%PDF-1.4 %âãÏÓ 1 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 2 0 R >> endobj 2 0 obj << /Type /Pages /Count 3 /Kids [5 0 R 7 0 R 9 0 R] >> endobj 3 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /BaseFont /Helvetica >> endobj 4 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /BaseFont /Helvetica-Bold >> endobj 5 0 obj << /Type /Page /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595.28 841.89] /Resources << /Font << /F1 3 0 R /F2 4 0 R >> >> /Contents 6 0 R >> endobj 6 0 obj << /Length 5147 >> stream BT /F2 22 Tf 0.06 0.08 0.12 rg 1 0 0 1 46 789.89 Tm (Why Investors Care About Your Login Screen, Not) Tj ET BT /F2 22 Tf 0.06 0.08 0.12 rg 1 0 0 1 46 762.89 Tm (Just Your Pitch Deck) Tj ET BT /F2 11 Tf 0.72 0.14 0.18 rg 1 0 0 1 46 725.89 Tm (TechRounder PDF Edition) Tj ET BT /F1 9.5 Tf 0.36 0.39 0.46 rg 1 0 0 1 46 709.89 Tm (Live article:) Tj ET BT /F1 9.5 Tf 0.36 0.39 0.46 rg 1 0 0 1 46 697.39 Tm (https://www.techrounder.com/business/why-investors-care-about-your-login-screen-not-just-your-pitch-deck/) Tj ET q 0.82 0.85 0.9 RG 1 w 46 678.89 m 549.28 678.89 l S Q BT /F1 10 Tf 0.24 0.27 0.32 rg 1 0 0 1 46 666.89 Tm (By Vipin PG | Published August 5, 2026 | Updated August 5, 2026 | Format: Explainer | 4 min read) Tj ET BT /F2 13 Tf 0.72 0.14 0.18 rg 1 0 0 1 46 643.89 Tm (In brief) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 623.89 Tm (While a strong pitch deck attracts investors, startups must prioritize foundational cybersecurity) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 608.89 Tm (practices to avoid stalling during due diligence. Investors increasingly view preventable security) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 593.89 Tm (failures as significant financial risks that can bankrupt early-stage companies, making a structured) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 578.89 Tm (security plan as critical as growth metrics.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 553.89 Tm (Founders spend months polishing a pitch deck - refining the market size slide, tightening the growth) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 538.89 Tm (projections, rehearsing the story behind the product. Far less attention usually goes to something) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 523.89 Tm (investors increasingly care about just as much: whether the company's basic technology practices) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 508.89 Tm (would survive a serious security incident. A great pitch can get a founder in the room. It won't stop a) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 493.89 Tm (due diligence process from stalling over a security gap nobody thought to prepare for.) Tj ET BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 465.89 Tm (Why This Has Become a Real Part of the Process) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 441.89 Tm (This shift isn't happening in a vacuum. Small and medium-sized businesses experience) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 426.89 Tm (ransomware-related data breaches at more than double the rate of large enterprises, according to) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 411.89 Tm (Verizon's 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report - and early-stage startups, with limited resources) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 396.89 Tm (and immature security practices, sit squarely in that higher-risk category. Investors evaluating a) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 381.89 Tm (potential portfolio company aren't just underwriting the product and the market; they're underwriting) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 366.89 Tm (the risk that a preventable security failure could wipe out a meaningful share of the value they're) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 351.89 Tm (about to fund.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 329.89 Tm (The financial stakes behind that risk are substantial. The global average cost of a data breach reached) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 314.89 Tm ($4.44 million in 2025, and organizations that detect and contain a breach faster consistently face) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 299.89 Tm (significantly lower costs than those that don't, according to IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 284.89 Tm (For a seed or Series A company, an incident anywhere near that scale isn't a bad quarter - it's) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 269.89 Tm (potentially the end of the company, and investors have every reason to want assurance that isn't the) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 254.89 Tm (trajectory they're funding.) Tj ET BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 226.89 Tm (What Investors Are Actually Looking For) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 202.89 Tm (The good news for founders is that expectations at the early stage are calibrated to company size -) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 187.89 Tm (nobody expects a five-person startup to have an enterprise-grade security operations center. What) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 172.89 Tm (matters is whether the fundamentals are genuinely in place and whether the company has a credible) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 157.89 Tm (plan for how those fundamentals will scale alongside growth.) Tj ET q 0.86 0.88 0.92 RG 1 w 46 42 m 549.28 42 l S Q BT /F1 8.4 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 30 Tm (TechRounder | Page 1 of 3) Tj ET BT /F1 7.2 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 19 Tm (https://www.techrounder.com/pdf/blog/why-investors-care-about-your-login-screen-not-just-your-pitch-deck.pdf) Tj ET endstream endobj 7 0 obj << /Type /Page /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595.28 841.89] /Resources << /Font << /F1 3 0 R /F2 4 0 R >> >> /Contents 8 0 R >> endobj 8 0 obj << /Length 6240 >> stream BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 789.89 Tm (A structured way to think about this is through an established framework rather than an ad hoc) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 774.89 Tm (checklist. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework organizes security practices around core functions -) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 759.89 Tm (identifying assets and risks, protecting systems and data, detecting problems early, responding to) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 744.89 Tm (incidents, and recovering afterward - and has become a widely recognized way for organizations of) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 729.89 Tm (any size to demonstrate a credible, structured approach to security rather than a patchwork of) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 714.89 Tm (disconnected efforts. A founder who can speak to their company's practices in these terms, even) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 699.89 Tm (informally, signals something meaningfully different than one who can only say "we haven't had a) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 684.89 Tm (problem yet.") Tj ET BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 656.89 Tm (The Specific Gaps That Tend to Surface) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 632.89 Tm (A few categories show up repeatedly when a startup's security posture gets a closer look:) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 610.89 Tm (Access that isn't actually controlled. Multiple team members and former contractors with standing) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 595.89 Tm (access to core systems, without a clear process for reviewing or revoking that access as the team) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 580.89 Tm (changes.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 558.89 Tm (No real incident response plan. A vague sense that "we'd figure it out" if something went wrong,) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 543.89 Tm (rather than a documented plan for who does what in the first hours of a genuine incident.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 521.89 Tm (Customer data handled without clear boundaries. Especially relevant for companies in healthtech,) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 506.89 Tm (fintech, or any space touching regulated data, where investors will specifically look for evidence the) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 491.89 Tm (company understands its compliance obligations, not just its growth metrics.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 469.89 Tm (Security debt inherited from moving fast. Early technical decisions made purely for speed, without) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 454.89 Tm (any documented plan for revisiting them as the company scales - a pattern investors recognize) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 439.89 Tm (because they've seen it derail other portfolio companies before.) Tj ET BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 411.89 Tm (Why This Matters More in Durham's Startup Ecosystem Specifically) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 387.89 Tm (For founders building companies in the Research Triangle, this dynamic is particularly relevant. A) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 372.89 Tm (region with this much concentrated biotech, life sciences, and tech startup activity attracts investors) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 357.89 Tm (who've seen security gaps disrupt deals before, and who bring that pattern recognition into every) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 342.89 Tm (subsequent due diligence conversation. A founder who's proactively addressed the basics -) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 327.89 Tm (documented access controls, a real incident response plan, a credible story about how security scales) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 312.89 Tm (with the company - enters that conversation from a position of strength rather than scrambling to) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 297.89 Tm (explain a gap an investor's technical advisor just found.) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 275.89 Tm (This is exactly the kind of foundational work that's easy to defer when a founding team is focused) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 260.89 Tm (entirely on product and growth, but expensive to discover mid-diligence when a term sheet is on the) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 245.89 Tm (table. Working with managed IT services in Durham that understand both startup-stage constraints and) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 230.89 Tm (what investors are actually looking for can help a founding team build these fundamentals in) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 215.89 Tm (proportion to where the company actually is, rather than either ignoring security entirely or) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 200.89 Tm (over-investing in enterprise-grade infrastructure a five-person team doesn't yet need.) Tj ET BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 172.89 Tm (Building This In Before It's Tested) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 148.89 Tm (The founders who handle this well aren't the ones who wait for an investor's technical questionnaire) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 133.89 Tm (to think seriously about security for the first time. They're the ones who've already done the basic) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 118.89 Tm (work - documented access, a real incident plan, a clear story about scaling security alongside growth) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 103.89 Tm (- so that when the questions come, they're demonstrating existing practice rather than making) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 88.89 Tm (promises about what they'll build after the round closes.) Tj ET q 0.86 0.88 0.92 RG 1 w 46 42 m 549.28 42 l S Q BT /F1 8.4 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 30 Tm (TechRounder | Page 2 of 3) Tj ET BT /F1 7.2 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 19 Tm (https://www.techrounder.com/pdf/blog/why-investors-care-about-your-login-screen-not-just-your-pitch-deck.pdf) Tj ET endstream endobj 9 0 obj << /Type /Page /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595.28 841.89] /Resources << /Font << /F1 3 0 R /F2 4 0 R >> >> /Contents 10 0 R >> endobj 10 0 obj << /Length 1709 >> stream BT /F2 15 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 789.89 Tm (The Real Lesson for Founders) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 765.89 Tm (A polished pitch deck gets a founder into the room. What happens after that - the questions about) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 750.89 Tm (access controls, incident response, and data handling - is where investors are quietly evaluating) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 735.89 Tm (something the deck can't show them: whether the company's foundation is actually sound. Treating) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 720.89 Tm (that evaluation as an afterthought, rather than something to prepare for with the same seriousness as) Tj ET BT /F1 11 Tf 0.14 0.16 0.2 rg 1 0 0 1 46 705.89 Tm (the pitch itself, is one of the more avoidable ways a promising round gets complicated.) Tj ET BT /F2 13 Tf 0.08 0.1 0.14 rg 1 0 0 1 46 677.89 Tm (References) Tj ET BT /F1 10 Tf 0.18 0.2 0.24 rg 1 0 0 1 46 657.89 Tm (1. verizon.com - business / resources - https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/) Tj ET BT /F1 10 Tf 0.18 0.2 0.24 rg 1 0 0 1 46 640.39 Tm (2. ibm.com - think / x-force - https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/2025-cost-of-a-data-breach-navigating-ai) Tj ET BT /F1 10 Tf 0.18 0.2 0.24 rg 1 0 0 1 46 622.89 Tm (3. refreshtech.com - areas-we-serve / durham - https://www.refreshtech.com/areas-we-serve/durham/) Tj ET q 0.86 0.88 0.92 RG 1 w 46 42 m 549.28 42 l S Q BT /F1 8.4 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 30 Tm (TechRounder | Page 3 of 3) Tj ET BT /F1 7.2 Tf 0.42 0.45 0.5 rg 1 0 0 1 46 19 Tm (https://www.techrounder.com/pdf/blog/why-investors-care-about-your-login-screen-not-just-your-pitch-deck.pdf) Tj ET endstream endobj xref 0 11 0000000000 65535 f 0000000015 00000 n 0000000064 00000 n 0000000133 00000 n 0000000203 00000 n 0000000278 00000 n 0000000420 00000 n 0000005618 00000 n 0000005760 00000 n 0000012051 00000 n 0000012194 00000 n trailer << /Size 11 /Root 1 0 R >> startxref 13955 %%EOF