An anonymised case description from an actual interim CFO mandate. Sector, scale and type of shareholder are stated; the company name is not. All details come from the mandate description on the interim CFO references page. Results are not broken down by date there, so they are given here for the mandate as a whole.
Starting position
A SaaS company with more than 300 employees and entities in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, backed by an international growth investor. The company was growing fast and heading into a Series C round. Mandate type: scaling, consolidation and transition.
At that size and spread a familiar problem arises: each country entity closes according to its own practice, on its own rhythm and by its own rules. As long as that holds, there is no group figure that will stand up in a funding round.
Brief
Interim CFO responsible for the funding round and for building group-wide closing processes.
Scope
- Preparing and leading the process for a Series C round of USD 23 million
- Building new closing processes for consolidating all entities in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom
Approach
The two strands are connected: a round of that size is reviewed at group level, not entity by entity. Setting up new closing processes therefore means a shared closing calendar, aligned valuation rules, orderly intercompany relationships and a reporting format that comes back from all three countries in the same structure.
Only on that basis can a round be prepared – with a financial model that reflects the group, and a data room that answers investors' questions in the order they arrive. How such a data room is built is covered under data room.
Result
- Series C round of USD 23 million prepared and the process led
- New closing processes built for consolidating all entities in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom
Duration
26 months, April 2019 to May 2021.
Does this match your situation?
As soon as several country entities are involved, consolidation becomes a precondition for any financing and any sale. Background: consolidated accounts after buy-and-build. All mandates at a glance: interim CFO references.
