Sebastian Janus – Interim CFO and founder of nugrow

Sebastian Janus is the founder and managing director of nugrow GmbH in Bochum and works as an interim CFO. He takes on finance leadership for companies backed by private equity and venture capital investors – covering CFO vacancies, funding rounds, transactions and the build-out of the finance function.

Book an intro call with Sebastian · See the documented mandates

Role and focus

As an interim CFO, Sebastian takes over finance leadership for a fixed term with operational responsibility. That covers closing and reporting, integrated financial planning, cash management and communication with management, banks and investors. Through nugrow, CFO as a Service is also available for ongoing finance leadership at an agreed part-time scope.

  • Private equity: CFO transition, post-merger integration, consolidation and preparation for an exit.
  • Venture capital: building the CFO function, financing documents and scalable finance processes.
  • Operational delivery: leading the finance team, reliable reporting and introducing suitable finance systems.

Experience from entrepreneurship and finance leadership

In 2005 Sebastian founded the online shoe retailer Tredex in Bochum; 75 percent of the shares were later sold to Runners Point. From 2010 to 2013 he ran Tredex in Recklinghausen until the remaining 25 percent went to Foot Locker. From 2013 to 2017 he was CFO of Foot Locker Europe.com GmbH and Director of E-Commerce Finance, leading a team of 20 across nine countries. In July 2018 he founded nugrow in Bochum, which he has led as managing partner ever since. Since 2019 the reference overview has documented twelve mandates, mostly in B2B software and SaaS companies with 30 to 500 employees owned by private equity and venture capital investors – as CFO transition, bridge, post-merger integration, exit preparation or restructuring.

Selected mandates in PE and VC settings

  • Gingco Systems, 2026: Interim CFO for CFO transition and post-merger integration in the portfolio of Main Capital Partners.
  • Cropster, 2025: Interim CFO for CFO transition and post-merger integration in the portfolio of Verdane; leading a five-person finance team.
  • Unicepta, 2023: Interim CFO for exit preparation and restructuring in the portfolio of Paragon Partners; factbook with KPMG and a LucaNet consolidation covering nine entities.
  • Staffbase, 2019–2021: Interim CFO for scaling, consolidation and transition around a Series C financing with Insight Partners.

Brief, period, scope and results for all twelve mandates are set out in the interim CFO references. The investors named describe the ownership or financing context of the companies.

Services and publications

Interim CFO · Fractional CFO · CFO as a Service and Finance as a Service · Finance for private equity · Pricing and day rates

Sebastian's articles are in the nugrow blog. Further detail on his professional background is on his LinkedIn profile. More about the company: About nugrow.

Profiles of Sebastian Janus: LinkedIn · Malt · OMR Daily · Qonto blog. Not to be confused with other people of the same name: this Sebastian Janus is an interim CFO and the founder of nugrow GmbH in Bochum.

Teaching, qualifications and voluntary work

Since August 2018 Sebastian has taught finance and management as a lecturer at the International School of Management (ISM) in Dortmund. He is a Certified Controller (IHK) of IHK Bochum and studied finance and accounting at FOM University in Essen and management and economics at Ruhr University Bochum alongside his work. German is his native language; he speaks English fluently (Business English Certificate C1).

Since 2020 he has been a mentor at the Berlin early-stage investor APX and since 2021 at the WHU Accelerator, in both cases focused on fundraising. He also holds 14 voluntary roles, among them in education and science.

Publications, talks and community

Sebastian writes as an author for OMR Daily and for the Qonto blog, among other things on the financial mistakes small and mid-sized companies typically make. As a speaker he has appeared at the Finance Summit and at Bits & Pretzels.

With derStartupCFO he runs a platform for startup finance with resources, workshops and one of the largest publicly analysed pitch deck databases in the German-speaking market. Around 40,000 people follow him on LinkedIn. In parallel he has been CFO and co-founder of BEAUTYSELF since 2019, which won the beauty tech category of the Douglas #ForwardBeautyChallenge in 2019.

Intro call with Sebastian Janus

The intro call is free of obligation and covers your situation, the role you need and the right scope. You can pick a slot directly in the calendar below.

Termin im Kalender wählen