Most of the presentations I design are to support a 30 minute discussion with an investor. The hardest part of the fund raising effort is often to get to that 30 minute meeting. Some thoughts on elevator pitches via email.
Most people understand that these emails should be short. But people make the mistake of making the email short by cramming in the entire pitch in as few words possible. The full story gets put on a boiler plate, but the fire is left on too long until there is nothing left: big market, great team, strong user traction, multiple business models.
You don't need to put the entire pitch in 2 lines, your objective is not to land the investment, it is to be invited to a phone call. You want to intrigue enough that it is worth 15 minutes on the phone.
Start with a strong connection. "Your portfolio company CEO [x] thought you might be interested in this." "We are in a complementary field to your other investment"
Bring a new insight, or a surprising fact, without going into the details. "In 2017, nobody pays for dating sites anymore, but 90% of our users do". "Everyone knows that electrical cars will only sell if you can get 500 miles on a charge, our batteries could just enable that". "Google just spent $400m on acquiring a company that we can beat easily"
Avoid empty buzzwords, generic statements, superlative adjectives (300% month-on-month user growth). Keep it human and surprising.