It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s a slide deck! Haiku Deck uses $3M to create appealing presentations

With all the interactive, photo, and video technology out there, many people are still attached at the hip to PowerPoint presentations. Under the motto “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” Haiku Deck has pulled in $3 million in a first round of funding today for a presentation-creator iPad app.

Haiku Deck seems to understand two things: that people just can’t let go of slide presentations, and that they don’t know how to make them interesting or visually appealing. (Sorry, PowerPoint, your cool transitions just aren’t doing the trick.) So they created an iPad app that restricts the text you can have on a page and focuses you on one topic per slide. The slides are much more visual, often creating a focal point around a large background image, rather than the text, forcing you to explain yourself in a presentation and not lean on the deck.

This might not, however, be good for those presentations that are simply meant to be sent around as a source of data — which could be a good thing. You know those thick PowerPoint presentations that have chart after chart of information that you just wind up glazing over? A slide deck like Haiku’s might force conversation.

The funding was led by Trilogy Partnership with participation from Madrona Venture Group, Founders Co-op, and angel investors.

Slide decks are still a main way people in many businesses share information. Though the technology to create really cool infographics, organize videos, and set up webinars exists, it’s often time-consuming and sometimes costly. Slide presentations are a quick, cheap hit, but also static and boring. So the new app certainly fulfills a need.

Haiku Deck launched its iPad app in 2012 and is based in Seattle. Techstars previously invested in the company.

Are you creative image via Haiku Deck