A finance leader who has raised and structured early-stage capital for three decades, on a fractional basis. SEIS and EIS, the model, the round, and the controls to scale. By the operator who still runs the HMRC process end to end.
Early-stage founders carry the product, the hiring, and the raise at the same time. The finance work that decides whether the round closes sits in the gaps. A model investors will actually interrogate. SEIS and EIS done to HMRC’s standard. A cap table that stays clean. Payment flows that do not become a compliance problem later.
A full-time CFO is premature and expensive at this stage. So the model gets built the night before a meeting, the advance assurance is rushed, and the numbers do not survive the first hard question from an investor. The result is a slower raise, or a worse one.
A model that holds up: the revenue build, the unit economics, and the runway. Not a spreadsheet dressed for a pitch, but the live view that tells you when cash turns negative and which assumptions the plan actually rests on. Investors take it apart. It has to answer.
Advance assurance, compliance statements, and investor certificates. Eligibility checked, the covering letter and statutory forms prepared, the submission filed with HMRC and tracked. This is the day job, run through Seisly, our advance assurance practice.
The data room, the model, and the investor materials, run as one process so approaches do not clash or duplicate. Introductions where they help, and the discipline to keep the round moving to a close rather than drifting.
A clean cap table from the first round, so the next one is not spent untangling the last. Share issues, option arrangements, and the records investors and their lawyers expect to find already in order.
Marketplaces and platforms handle other people’s money early. The flow of funds, the client-money question, and the safeguarding rules that holding deposits can trigger, reviewed before they become a problem rather than after.
Runway, forecasting, KPIs, and a board pack the board can trust. The financial controls a scaling company needs, put in at the point they start to matter, not retrofitted after something has gone wrong.
An AI-first company carries risk where private data, untrusted content and payments meet. Oversight of that from someone who ships and governs production AI across a studio of live ventures, not someone reviewing it from a deck. The Fractional CAIO offer →
This is for founders raising now, where the finance work decides the outcome but a full-time CFO would be premature. Especially useful for:
Most relationships begin with the advance assurance and the model: the SEIS and EIS deck and a thirty-six month cash flow, filed with HMRC, which then become the factual basis for the raise. Where a company already has assurance and a working model, we start narrower and move straight to the round.
Take the current round to subscription: investor materials and data room, SEIS compliance statements and investor certificates, and the basic reporting and controls. About a day a week, cash light while the round is raising, aligned through equity where that fits the stage.
As launch and the next round arrive, the commitment steps up with them. The full model and KPI framework, unit-economics tracking, board reporting, and payments compliance. We agree the exact phase-two commitment when phase one closes.
Three decades in corporate finance and deal-making. The first SEIS fund in the UK, launched in 2012 on the day the scheme went live. A £150m venture fund managed at Ingenious, and a $200m exit advised on, the sale of 19 Entertainment. The HMRC process known from the inside, not read about.
Most fractional finance help is a model and a monthly close. This is the person who has raised and structured the capital, run the fund, and sat across the table from investors. And who still runs SEIS and EIS advance assurance end to end through Seisly, and ships and governs production AI across a studio of live ventures. The advice comes from the operator, not the deck.
The bias is practical and tied to the stage. Do not over-engineer the model before there is a business to model. Get the advance assurance right the first time. Keep cash light while the round is raising, and align through equity where it fits. Say when a full-time CFO is not needed yet. A closed round, not more finance activity.
We don’t advise on finance in the abstract. We run the parts where a wrong answer has a consequence: SEIS and EIS filed with HMRC, a cap table that lawyers will read, payment flows that regulators care about.
That means working inside the constraints that define each one. HMRC eligibility and the advance assurance process. Client money and safeguarding where a platform holds deposits. FCA and conduct rules where they apply. The model an investor’s analyst will take apart line by line.
In each, the spreadsheet is the cheap part. The judgement about what the numbers rest on, and who answers for them when an investor pushes, is the work. That is the layer a template cannot do.
A thirty-minute call. We will ask what you are raising, where the round is, what is already in place, and whether the right next step is the advance assurance, a fractional CFO relationship for the raise, or something narrower.
If we think we can help, we will explain what the engagement should look like and how it scales with the round. If not, we will say so and point you somewhere useful.
Thirty minutes. No obligation. Direct conversation with the founder.