Evalyze scores your pitch deck and ranks investors for you to contact. SeedForge stress-tests the business behind the deck and turns the answer into a shareable profile investors read before the call. Choose Evalyze for a fast readiness number and a target list. Choose SeedForge when investors need proof.
Last updated: August 10, 2026. Pricing and product details were read from both vendors on that date; the score range reflects Evalyze's current 300 to 850 scale.
SeedForge publishes this comparison, so read the verdicts with that in mind. Every Evalyze figure below is linked to Evalyze's own pages, and a live example of the SeedForge output is here so you can judge the artifact rather than the adjectives.
The short answer: which tool fits which founder
If this is your situation | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
You want to know how your deck reads before you send it | Evalyze | A 300 to 850 score across six pillars, plus slide-level notes, in minutes |
You have no investor list and no idea who to contact | Either | Evalyze ranks matches from a database it lists at 10,000-plus investors for $10 a month; completing a SeedForge profile unlocks a matched list with a drafted introduction per partner at no charge |
Investors keep asking the same questions and you keep repeating yourself | SeedForge | One 30-minute session produces a Living Profile they read before you talk |
This is your first raise and you cannot tell what is weak | SeedForge | The session pushes on the business itself and names the gaps out loud |
You want outreach to run while you build | SeedForge | Matched outreach runs from your own LinkedIn with you approving every message |
You need the deck itself designed | Neither. Slidebean and similar deck builders do that job | Both tools here assume a deck already exists |
These tools answer different questions. Evalyze answers "how does my deck read, and who should I send it to?" SeedForge answers "what can an investor confirm is real before we talk?" A founder with no list benefits from the first. A founder whose second meetings go nowhere has the second problem. Our guide to investor-readiness tools maps the wider category.
What Evalyze actually does
Evalyze is an AI platform for two jobs: reading your pitch deck and matching you with investors. You upload a deck, it produces an Investment Readiness Score, and it returns a ranked shortlist of funds and angels with contact details.
The scoring is more structured than most tools in this category. Per Evalyze's own v2 release notes from December 2025, the score runs 300 to 850 and is a weighted average of six criteria: Team and Founders, Problem-Solution Fit, Traction and Metrics, Competitive Advantage, Market Size and Opportunity, and Scalability and Business Model. Each pillar is scored 0.0 to 10.0 "based solely on pitch-visible data," and the scale is calibrated against a Gaussian distribution drawn from a set of more than 8,000 pitch decks. That last detail is the one worth holding onto: the number tells you where your deck sits against other decks.
Vahid Fakhr, founder and CEO of Evalyze, described the problem the product targets when the matching engine launched in December 2025: "Founders should spend more of their time building and less of their time guessing which investors to contact next." He also named the audience precisely: "For many founders, the first serious round is also their first time going through a structured fundraising process."
That is a real problem and Evalyze solves a real part of it. Pricing, read from their pricing page on August 10, 2026: a free-forever Starter tier with up to three analyses and a 30-investor matching campaign, a Pro tier at $10 per month promotional against a $20 regular price, or $120 per year, and a Managed tier by quote that adds coaching, meeting scheduling and hand-picked introductions. At $10 a month, the deck feedback plus a ranked list is good value.
Its matching sits in a crowded field, compared here in investor matching platforms. Evalyze is among the stronger options for a founder starting with nothing.
Where it stops: the score reads your deck. It cannot tell an investor whether the pipeline number on slide six is a signed contract or a hopeful conversation, and it does not produce anything an investor can open and explore. Evalyze's own documentation says the pillars are scored on pitch-visible data. That is the honest boundary of the product.
Does a readiness score actually get you funded?
This is the question a comparison page owes you, and there is randomized evidence on it.
Ana Cusolito, Ernest Dautovic and David McKenzie ran a five-country randomized trial across Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics. The AEA registry entry records 346 firms, 174 of them randomly assigned to an investment readiness program of training, mentoring, master classes, networking and pitch preparation, with the other 172 given a cheap online course instead.
The program worked on the thing it was built to move. Judged investment readiness scores rose by 0.3 standard deviations. Two years later, though, the average effects on whether those firms actually took outside investment were "positive but small in magnitude and not statistically significant." The exception matters: the authors found larger and significant gains on receiving outside funding for smaller firms and for firms that were least likely to get funded otherwise.
Read that carefully, because it cuts both ways. Statistically insignificant here means the trial could not detect an effect at that sample size, and 346 firms leaves room for a moderate real one to hide. The setting also differs from a US seed round: this was a government program for small firms in emerging markets. What transfers is the shape of the result: coaching and scoring move the score a lot and move the funding outcome a little, and they help most when a founder is starting from the back of the queue. If you are a first-time founder with no network, that is you, and a readiness score is worth its $10 for that first structured read, with the proof problem still waiting on the other side of it.
If your deck is already decent and investors still stall after the first call, the score is measuring something you have fixed.
What investors do with the three minutes they give your deck
The reason a deck score has a ceiling is the deck's own economics. Papermark analyzed 3,000 pitch decks shared through its platform between January and December 2024, more than 8 million data points, and found an average total view time of 3.2 minutes per complete deck review. The first page held about 23 seconds. Pages two through ten averaged roughly 15 seconds each. (Those sessions include people who are not investors, and a tab left open inflates the number, so treat it as an order of magnitude: minutes, not hours.)
Fifteen seconds per slide is a triage pass rather than a decision. The decision happens afterwards, in the calls, and it turns on things the deck asserts but cannot demonstrate. A revenue line on a slide is a claim; the contracts, the cohort retention and the churn behind it are what turn the claim into something an investor can act on, as covered in proving traction before you have revenue.
Investors say as much about their own process. In the survey of 885 institutional venture capitalists at 681 firms by Paul Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven Kaplan and Ilya Strebulaev, the investors ranked deal selection above both sourcing and post-investment support as their most important contributor to value creation. Selection is the part where they decide whether what you claim holds up. They also reported weighing the management team above the product or the technology, which is the hardest thing in the world to score from a slide.
There is also less checking happening than founders assume. Xiaoyong Fu and Lucian Taylor used cell phone signal data to measure how long venture capitalists physically met startup teams before investing, in a 2025 NBER working paper. Thinner diligence showed up on hotter deals, in hotter markets, with busier investors and over longer distances, and thinner diligence came with more volatile investment performance. The measure catches in-person time only, so it undercounts calls and document review. The direction still matters to a founder: investors often commit on limited checking, so whatever an investor can confirm early carries more weight than whatever you plan to send later.
The score is also getting cheaper by the month. Waveup runs a free 19-question readiness assessment that returns a 0 to 100% result, and Startup Readiness Score gives a 0 to 150 composite across six pillars, free for the first two runs. When a number is available everywhere in 20 minutes, the number stops being evidence.
Meanwhile the people on the other side of the table have their own AI. Affinity's 2026 predictions survey of 275 private equity and venture professionals found the share using AI for investment decisions more than doubled in a year, from 13% to 28%. When both sides run the same class of model over the same deck, a polished deck stops being a differentiator. What an investor cannot generate on their own is confirmation that your numbers are real.
Why every new fund starts from zero
Here is the trap that no scoring tool touches. Conviction does not transfer between investors.
You explain the business to fund one. They get comfortable. They pass for a reason unrelated to you, a portfolio conflict or a fund cycle. Fund two starts from a blank page, and you explain it again. The information you built up with fund one is gone. Multiply that by twenty conversations and you have the months founders describe as the raise. Even a warm introduction, which gets you a faster reply than any cold list will, hands the next investor a recommendation rather than the evidence.
The market is not making this easier at the seed end. Crunchbase reported about $4.9 billion into North American seed and angel rounds in Q2 2026, down 15% from the prior quarter and down 27% year over year, even as total North American investment for the first half hit $392 billion. (Seed numbers revise upward for months as small rounds get reported late, so read the declines as direction rather than a final level.) The capital is concentrating: more than 70% of global startup capital in Q2 went to AI-focused companies, up from about 50% a year earlier, though two companies alone accounted for 43% of all first-half funding, so that headline is a mega-round story more than a seed-stage one.
Fewer seed dollars spread across more conversations means more repetition per dollar raised. Your score stays in your own account through all of it. The thing that cuts the repetition is an artifact each new investor can read before the call.
A brand-name accelerator does not shortcut it either. A study of 8,580 startups across 408 accelerators in 176 countries by Wharton's Valentina Assenova and Raphael Amit found accelerated startups were 3.4% more likely to raise venture capital and raised $1.8 million more in their first year out. Real, and smaller than accelerator marketing implies. The same study found those founders planned to raise $2.64 million more than their non-accelerated peers over the following year, well above the $1.8 million they actually raised. Plans and closed rounds are different numbers, and the distance between them is the work a signal cannot do for you. Assenova's own caution applies to tools as much as to programs: "there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach."
The proof layer: what changes when investors arrive already knowing
SeedForge starts one step behind the deck. A 30-minute AI session walks through the business the way a partner would in a first meeting, pushing on the traction you claim, the numbers underneath it, and the parts of the story that stop making sense when someone asks twice. The output is a Living Profile at a single seedforge.com link: what you said, the data behind it, and the documents that back it, in a form an investor can open and explore at their own pace. That is a different artifact from a tracked PDF, and we set out the reasoning in living profiles versus static data rooms. The blind spots surface while you can still act on them, and the profile keeps working after the first call instead of expiring with the meeting. When your traction changes, you update the profile once and every investor holding the link sees the current version rather than the version from six weeks ago.
The commercial terms are on the same page as the product. The first AI session is free. Additional sessions are $25. Completing your SeedForge profile unlocks the full matched-investor list with a drafted introduction per partner at no charge, and you approve every message before anything goes out. Connect your LinkedIn and SeedForge runs the outreach on your behalf, free for the first 30 days. After that you pay only when an investor engages: $10 per call secured, $10 per warm intro offered. The intro track works by asking founders already in a fund's portfolio to introduce you to that investor, so the charge lands on the intro being offered rather than on a message sent.
That is the difference in one line. Evalyze tells you how your paper reads. SeedForge gives investors something to read.
The verdict, stated plainly. For a first-time founder whose deck is already decent and whose problem is that investors go quiet after the first call, SeedForge is the better choice, because that founder has a proof problem and a higher deck score does nothing to it. For a founder who has never had a structured read on the deck and holds no investor list, Evalyze is the faster first $10. Those are different founders at different weeks of the same raise.
SeedForge vs Evalyze, side by side
Evalyze | SeedForge | |
|---|---|---|
Core job | Score the deck, rank investors | Establish what is real, then share it |
Input | Pitch deck upload | 30-minute AI session about the business |
Main output | Investment Readiness Score, 300 to 850, across six pillars | Living Profile at one shareable link |
What an investor sees | Your deck, sent by you | A profile they explore before the call |
Investor list | Ranked matches, database listed at 10,000-plus | Matched list free once your profile is complete |
Outreach | Campaigns and outreach features, some marked coming soon | Runs from your own LinkedIn, you approve each message |
Entry price | Free Starter tier, up to 3 analyses | First AI session free |
Paid tier | $10 per month promotional, $20 regular, or $120 per year | $25 per additional session; outreach free for 30 days, then $10 per call secured or warm intro offered |
Best for | Founders who need a readiness number and a target list fast | First-time founders who need investors to arrive already understanding the business |
Weakest at | Anything below the surface of the deck | Founders who only want a quick numeric score |
How to choose in five minutes
Answer these four questions.
Do you have a list of investors who fit your stage and sector? If no, Evalyze's matching solves that this week for $10. So does completing a SeedForge profile, which unlocks the matched list at no cost. Either way, stop hand-building lists.
Have investors seen your deck and gone quiet after the first call? That is a proof problem, and a higher deck score will not move it. Book the free session at seedforge.com.
Are you repeating the same explanation to every new fund? If yes, the fix is an artifact that carries the explanation for you, which is what the session produces.
Is this your first raise? The randomized evidence says structured readiness help does the most for founders furthest from funding. Take the free session, take the free score, use both.
Can you use both?
Yes, and for most first-time founders that is the sensible answer. Evalyze's Starter tier is free and the first SeedForge session is free.
Which one you start with depends on the problem you actually have.
Your deck has never had a structured read. Run it through Evalyze Starter, free, and fix what the six pillars flag. Then book the SeedForge session so investors get the business behind the corrected deck.
Your deck is fine and investors stall after the first call. Start with the free 30-minute SeedForge session, complete the profile to unlock the matched list, then add Evalyze later if you want a second read on the slides.
Either way, finish by approving your outreach messages and going back to building. The score tells you where you stand. The profile is what does the work while you are busy.
The first AI session at seedforge.com is free and takes 30 minutes. You finish it with a Living Profile link you can send to any investor and, once the profile is complete, the matched-investor list with a drafted introduction per partner.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best investor readiness tool for a first-time founder?
It depends on which problem you have. For a founder whose deck has never had a structured read, Evalyze gives a 300 to 850 score and a ranked investor list for $10 a month. For a founder whose deck is fine and whose calls stall, SeedForge fits better, because it produces a profile investors read before the meeting.
How much does Evalyze cost in 2026?
Evalyze lists three tiers as of August 2026: a free-forever Starter plan with up to three analyses and a 30-investor campaign, a Pro plan at $10 per month promotional against a $20 regular price or $120 per year, and a Managed plan by custom quote that adds coaching, meeting scheduling and hand-picked introductions.
What is the Evalyze Investment Readiness Score out of?
Evalyze's v2 release notes describe a 300 to 850 score, calculated as a weighted average of six criteria: team, problem-solution fit, traction, competitive advantage, market size and scalability. Each is scored 0.0 to 10.0 from pitch-visible data, calibrated against a distribution drawn from more than 8,000 pitch decks.
Is an investor readiness score worth it?
It is worth it when you are starting from the back of the queue. A randomized trial of 346 firms found readiness programs lifted judged scores by 0.3 standard deviations, with funding gains concentrated among firms least likely to be funded. It is worth less once your deck holds up, because the score reads the deck.
What are the alternatives to Evalyze?
Free instant scorers cover the scoring job: Waveup runs a 19-question assessment scored 0 to 100%, and Startup Readiness Score returns a 0 to 150 result across six pillars. SeedForge covers the different job of giving investors something to examine before a call. Slidebean and other deck builders handle layout.
Do I have to pay SeedForge to see my matched investors?
No. Completing your SeedForge profile unlocks the full matched-investor list with a drafted introduction per partner at no charge. Connecting your LinkedIn is a separate later step that launches the outreach, free for the first 30 days, then $10 per call secured or warm intro offered.