What is the core technology behind Makoo?

Makoo uses a digital interface to capture voice recordings, which are then translated into a 3D model. This model is essentially a physical representation of the sound wave, which is then 3D printed into a ring. The process is described as 'materializing your emotions' by turning an intangible audio message into a tangible piece of jewelry.

How does Makoo handle manufacturing?

Makoo follows a 'fab-less' manufacturing model. According to Slide 5, the company handles the 3D modeling internally, but the actual '3D printing production' is outsourced to Shapeways. This allows the startup to scale production without investing in expensive industrial 3D printing hardware or managing a physical factory.

Who is the primary target audience for this product?

The deck identifies a very specific early adopter profile on Slide 6: women between the ages of 25 and 30. These individuals are characterized as having a graduate education, living in urban areas, and being active online buyers who gather information via the web.

What is the current stage of the company based on the deck?

Based on the roadmap on Slide 8, the company was in its early stages during the creation of this deck. It had received investment from H-FARM in late 2013 and was working toward a '1st release' in September 2014. The final slide's call for a Lead Developer suggests the product was still in active development.

What key business information is missing from the deck?

The deck is missing several critical components for a professional investment round. There are no slides detailing unit economics (cost to produce vs. retail price), market size (TAM/SAM/SOM), or a specific financial 'ask.' It functions more as a product vision and recruitment deck than a comprehensive business plan.

Makoo Pitch Deck (2014): 18-Slide Seed Deck

See all 18 slides of the Makoo pitch deck — a 2014 Seed / Early deck — with a slide-by-slide teardown of what the deck does well and where it falls short.

Makoo is a consumer technology startup that translates voice recordings into physical jewelry designs. By leveraging 3D printing, the company aims to provide high emotional value through mass customization. The deck highlights a lean operational model that offloads manufacturing to Shapeways, focusing the internal team on the digital interface and algorithmic design. While the presentation excels at conveying the 'magic' of the product and identifying a specific early adopter persona, it lacks critical financial data, unit economics, and a clear capital ask. The roadmap indicates a transition…

Key takeaways

The product core is a web application that converts voice input into a 3D ring model (Slide 3).
Makoo utilizes Shapeways for 3D printing production, eliminating the need for in-house manufacturing infrastructure (Slide 5).
The target early adopter is defined as urban women aged 25-30 with graduate educations (Slide 6).
Competitive positioning places Makoo at the top-right of the 'Personalization' and 'Emotional Value' axes (Slide 7).
The company secured its first investment from H-FARM in October 2013 (Slide 8).
The roadmap planned for a beta in April 2014 and a first release in September 2014 (Slide 8).
The deck concludes with a recruitment call for a Lead Developer skilled in HTML5 and Javascript (Slide 9).
There is no mention of pricing, revenue targets, or the specific amount of funding being sought in the provided slides.

The Vision: Materializing Emotions

Makoo enters the market with a highly evocative premise: taking the ephemeral nature of a voice recording and turning it into a permanent, wearable object. The tagline, "materialize your emotions," sets a tone that is more lifestyle-oriented than purely technical. The deck is visually clean, utilizing a dark, sophisticated palette that mirrors the luxury jewelry industry rather than a typical tech startup.

Slide 1: Title Slide

The cover slide introduces Federico De Simone as the CEO and Co-founder. The branding is minimalist, featuring a geometric circular logo that hints at the 3D-printed patterns the company produces. The focus here is entirely on the brand identity and the emotional hook of the tagline.

Slide 2: The Solution

Slide 2 defines the product: "Create and buy customized jewelry with an high emotional value, generated just using your voice." The visual shows a sound wave transitioning into the physical ridges of a silver ring. This is a critical slide because it explains the 'magic' of the product without requiring a technical deep dive. It bridges the gap between a digital input (voice) and a physical output (jewelry).

Slide 3: How it Works

This slide features a mockup of the web application on a MacBook Pro. The interface is sparse, showing a microphone icon and a 3D rendering of a gold ring. The URL in the browser bar, "app.makoojewels.com/create," suggests that the platform was intended to be browser-based, likely using WebGL or similar technology to render the 3D models in real-time as the user speaks. This reinforces the ease of use for the consumer.

Slide 4: Discover Your Message

Slide 4 shows a close-up of a ring with the letters "ABCDE" engraved on the inside. This suggests that the customization isn't limited just to the exterior form of the sound wave, but also includes traditional personalization like text engraving. The high-quality product photography aims to validate the quality of the final physical good.

Slide 5: Step by Step Production

This is the most important operational slide in the deck. It breaks the process into three stages: 1. 3D model, 2. 3D printing production (explicitly naming Shapeways), and 3. International shipping. By naming Shapeways, Makoo signals to investors that they are not trying to reinvent the manufacturing supply chain. They are a software and design layer sitting on top of an existing industrial 3D printing infrastructure. This makes the business significantly more scalable and less capital-intensive than a traditional jeweler.

Slide 6: Customer Profile

The "Early Adopters" slide provides a specific demographic target: Women, 25-30 years old, with graduate educations, living in urban areas. While it is good to have a target, the slide lacks data on why this specific group was chosen or the size of this market segment. It describes a persona rather than a market opportunity.

Slide 7: Competitive Landscape

The competitors slide uses a standard 2x2 matrix, plotting "Personalization" against "Emotional Value." Makoo places itself in the top-right quadrant. Competitors listed include traditional brands like Pandora and DoDo, as well as tech-forward design firms like Nervous System and Meshu. By placing Goldsmiths high on personalization but lower on emotional value compared to themselves, Makoo is arguing that a voice-generated shape is more meaningful than a hand-crafted one.

Slide 8: The Roadmap

The roadmap provides a timeline from June 2013 to September 2014. Key milestones include:

June 2013: 3rd place at InnovActionLab. · October 2013: 1st investment from H-FARM. · Late 2013: Appearances at Maker Faire and Web Summit. · January 2014: Formal company formation. · April 2014: Beta launch. · September 2014: 1st release.

This timeline shows steady momentum and validation from reputable accelerators and events.

Slide 9: Recruitment

The final slide is a "Looking for You" call for a Lead Developer. It specifies a need for HTML5 and Javascript (both client and server-side). This indicates that at the time of this pitch, the core technical team was still being built out, and the product was likely in a prototype or MVP stage.

What Works in the Makoo Deck

Clear Value Proposition: The deck does an excellent job of explaining a complex technical process (voice-to-3D-print) in a way that feels romantic and simple. The visual of the sound wave becoming a ring is a powerful piece of communication.

Operational Efficiency: By highlighting the partnership with Shapeways, the founders demonstrate that they understand how to leverage existing platforms to minimize overhead. This is a "software-first" approach to a hardware product.

Design Aesthetic: The deck is professionally designed and consistent. For a company selling jewelry, the visual quality of the pitch deck serves as a proxy for the quality of the product itself.

What is Missing from the Makoo Deck

Financials and Unit Economics: There is no information on the cost of goods sold (COGS), the retail price point, or the margins. Investors need to know if a $200 ring costs $20 or $150 to produce via Shapeways.

Market Size: While the deck identifies a target customer, it fails to quantify the Total Addressable Market (TAM). How many women fit this profile? What is the annual spend on personalized jewelry?

The Ask: The deck ends with a job posting rather than a funding request. If this was intended for investors, it fails to state how much money is being raised, what the valuation is, or how the funds will be allocated to reach the next milestone.

Team Slide: While the CEO is mentioned on the first slide, there is no slide detailing the backgrounds of the founders or advisors. In early-stage investing, the team is often more important than the idea.

Founder's Summary

The Makoo deck is a strong example of a "Product Vision" deck. It excels at storytelling and brand positioning. However, as a fundraising tool, it is incomplete. Founders should copy the clear, step-by-step explanation of their production process (Slide 5) and the clean visual style. However, they should ensure they include the 'missing' business fundamentals—specifically the team's pedigree, the market size, and the financial mechanics of the business—to move from a product pitch to a business investment pitch.

Frequently asked questions

What is the core technology behind Makoo?: Makoo uses a digital interface to capture voice recordings, which are then translated into a 3D model. This model is essentially a physical representation of the sound wave, which is then 3D printed into a ring. The process is described as 'materializing your emotions' by turning an intangible audio message into a tangible piece of jewelry.
How does Makoo handle manufacturing?: Makoo follows a 'fab-less' manufacturing model. According to Slide 5, the company handles the 3D modeling internally, but the actual '3D printing production' is outsourced to Shapeways. This allows the startup to scale production without investing in expensive industrial 3D printing hardware or managing a physical factory.
Who is the primary target audience for this product?: The deck identifies a very specific early adopter profile on Slide 6: women between the ages of 25 and 30. These individuals are characterized as having a graduate education, living in urban areas, and being active online buyers who gather information via the web.
What is the current stage of the company based on the deck?: Based on the roadmap on Slide 8, the company was in its early stages during the creation of this deck. It had received investment from H-FARM in late 2013 and was working toward a '1st release' in September 2014. The final slide's call for a Lead Developer suggests the product was still in active development.
What key business information is missing from the deck?: The deck is missing several critical components for a professional investment round. There are no slides detailing unit economics (cost to produce vs. retail price), market size (TAM/SAM/SOM), or a specific financial 'ask.' It functions more as a product vision and recruitment deck than a comprehensive business plan.

Cover slide of the Makoo pitch deck — Seed / Early Stage 2014 — Makoo pitch deck, slide 1 (2014)

Makoo pitch deck: the facts

Company: Makoo
Year: 2014
Stage: Seed / Early Stage
Slides: 18
Sector: Consumer Goods / 3D Printing
Deck type: Recruitment / Early Pitch
Outcome: Received investment from H-FARM (Oct 2013)
Headquarters: Rome, Italy (per Slide 3 footer)

Makoo pitch deck PDF

The full Makoo deck is embedded on this page and can be read slide by slide in the browser — no download or account required. Each slide is covered in the breakdown above.

What the Makoo pitch deck was used for

This is an 18-slide 2014 seed/early-stage pitch deck for Makoo, a company presenting voice-driven customization for jewelry with 3D printing as the production layer. The deck’s stated concept was to let users “materialize emotions” into bespoke jewelry, and the surrounding article excerpt says the company relied on a production partnership with Shapeways. Based on the deck metadata and available external traces, it was being used to raise early-stage capital around the startup’s initial commercialization and product validation phase.

Business model: A web app and consumer jewelry service that lets users create customized jewelry using their voice; the company 3D-prints the designs and ships them internationally.

Round: Seed / Early Stage
Year: 2014
Investors: H-Farm Ventures
Founded: 2013
Founders: Federico De Simone, Giulio Galassi
Headquarters: Italy
Industry: Consumer goods / jewelry / 3D printing

What the Makoo deck got right

Clear, memorable product hook. The concept is immediately legible and consumer-friendly: users create jewelry by voice, turning an abstract interaction into a physical product.
Compelling trend convergence. The deck sits at the intersection of two understandable trends in 2014: voice interfaces and 3D printing, which helps explain why the idea was timely.
Product and production are aligned. Using 3D printing for customized jewelry aligns the product promise with the manufacturing method, which is a strong narrative fit.
Operational leverage through partnership. The article excerpt indicates a production partnership with Shapeways, suggesting the team was not trying to build manufacturing infrastructure from scratch.
Visible founding team. External traces identify named founders and an early team, which gives the company more credibility than an anonymous concept pitch.

What could have been stronger

Fundraise details are unverified. No verified amount, valuation, or closing outcome is available from the retrieved sources, so the raise itself cannot be reconstructed beyond the deck’s seed-stage context.
Deck content is only partially observable. The OCR text from the deck is unreadable, so the analysis cannot confirm slide-by-slide claims, traction metrics, or use-of-funds language from the presentation itself.
Post-deck outcome is unclear. The publicly surfaced external traces are fragmented and secondary, making it hard to verify whether the company later became inactive, pivoted, or continued operating under the same brand.

How an investor would read this deck

What draws attention

A consumer-facing jewelry concept with a differentiated mechanism: voice as the input for personalization, paired with 3D-print manufacturing.
A clear early-market fit narrative around emotionally expressive, customized accessories rather than generic mass-market jewelry.
The deck appears to lean on an outsourced production partner (Shapeways), which can reduce upfront manufacturing complexity.

Risks that stand out

The core novelty is experiential, but the sources retrieved do not verify durable demand or a scalable acquisition channel.
Customization-heavy consumer goods can face margin pressure from production and fulfillment costs.
Without verified fundraise data, it is difficult to assess investor conviction or the company’s ability to execute after the deck.

Questions this deck invites

What exact traction existed at the time of the raise: users, orders, conversion, or repeat purchase behavior?
What were the unit economics for custom 3D-printed jewelry, including margins after production, shipping, and customer acquisition?
How dependent was Makoo on Shapeways or any other external manufacturing partner, and what would switching costs look like?
What was the actual round structure, amount sought, and who committed capital, if anyone?

What founders can take from the Makoo deck

A memorable consumer pitch can be built by combining a simple input method, voice, with a tangible output, bespoke jewelry.
Early-stage decks can benefit from showing a production partnership when the product depends on specialized manufacturing.
For obscure startups, external traces may be too sparse to verify round mechanics; a deck analysis library should preserve uncertainty rather than infer missing facts.
A strong concept does not substitute for proof of demand; this deck’s public footprint does not let us verify traction or post-raise momentum.

Makoo pitch deck: common questions

Who founded Makoo?

Makoo was a 2013 Italian startup founded by Federico De Simone and Giulio Galassi, and external references also describe four early team members including Arianna Notari and Dario De Angelis.

What did Makoo actually sell?

The company’s product let users customize jewelry with voice input and then have the pieces 3D printed and shipped internationally.

When was this deck used?

The deck is from 2014 and was positioned as a seed / early-stage fundraising deck.

How much money did Makoo raise in this round?

No credible external source retrieved here confirms the exact amount raised, valuation, or a completed financing outcome for this specific deck.

Who invested in Makoo?

An external Slideshare-associated description says Makoo had support from H-Farm Ventures, but this does not by itself confirm the full round structure or all investors.