Fractional CFO for High-Growth UK startups
Fundraising support, financial modelling, and finance operations for ambitious founders from Seed to Series A.
Fundraising support, financial modelling, and finance operations for ambitious founders from Seed to Series A.
I support founders through the financial side of growing a business — from understanding the numbers to preparing for major milestones like fundraising and scaling operations.
With deep experience across high growth startups and multi-entity groups, I build the models, processes, and financial structure that give leadership clarity and control. My approach is hands on, calm, and commercially focused, ensuring you get clear insights and a finance function that actually supports better decisions.
My goal is simple: free up founder and CEO time, improve financial confidence, and build the foundations that help your business scale.
Expert finance leadership, fundraising, and operations for high-growth startups.
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Senior finance leadership for scaling startups, including modelling, investor preparation, and strategic guidance for debt and equity raises.
Month end, controls, automation, and system improvements that create a reliable finance engine as your business grows.
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Clear models, cashflow forecasts, and board ready insights that help founders make confident, data driven decisions.
I start by understanding your goals, challenges, and the current state of your numbers. This includes a review of your model, cash position, finance operations, and upcoming milestones. The aim is to quickly identify what’s working, what’s missing, and what needs to be prioritised.
Once the key issues are clear, I build the core foundations: accurate models, clean reporting, and reliable finance processes. This usually includes cashflow forecasting, system improvements, automation, and creating clarity around runway and performance. The outcome is a finance function that you can trust.
With the foundations in place, I support you through funding rounds, strategic decisions, and operational scaling. This may include building investor materials, managing data rooms, or acting as your CFO for ongoing reporting and planning. The goal is to help you grow confidently, backed by numbers you can rely on.
Typically:
Developed a complete Series A financial framework — forecasting, investor materials, data room setup, and hands-on support through diligence. Built a clear, investor-ready model aligned to strategic growth.
Outcome: Enabled a smooth and successful Series A close, improving investor conviction and strengthening the founders' position in negotiations.
Created structured scenarios across revenue, cost, hiring, and cashflow to show the financial impact of strategic decisions. Delivered clear, board-ready insights that highlighted risks and opportunities.
Outcome: Leadership aligned quickly, made faster decisions, and reduced uncertainty during a critical scaling phase.
Designed and implemented the entire finance operating model: month-end processes, controls, reporting, forecasting, and audit readiness. Turned fragmented data into reliable financial structure.
Outcome: Demonstrated financial maturity to investors, supported the Series A raise, and delivered a clean first-year audit.
Led the end-to-end refinancing process, from preparing the data room to managing corporate finance advisors, engaging lenders, and overseeing investor relations. Built a clear financial case for improved debt structure and long term affordability.
Outcome: Successfully refinanced the business onto materially better terms, strengthening liquidity, extending runway, and reducing financial pressure.
Developed a robust, multi-scenario financial model covering revenue, delivery capacity, margins, hiring, and cashflow. Ensured full alignment between strategy, operations, and financial outcomes.
Outcome: Provided a single source of truth for planning, pricing decisions, and investor conversations, enabling sharper and more confident leadership decisions.
Designed a future-state finance operating model built on automation, intelligent workflows, and streamlined controls. Reimagined processes to eliminate manual effort and improve accuracy and speed.
Outcome: Created a clear roadmap to a modern, scalable, AI-enabled finance function — freeing leadership time and reducing operational risk.
"In a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, Seref led with clarity, integrity, and deep financial expertise."
"Seref's ability to switch lenses between being detail oriented as well as thinking about the macro business, paired with asking insightful questions, allowed him to contribute to both leadership and team settings.."
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"Seref is always able to find solutions that fit and continuously develops the company infrastructure in a way that best supports the business today while also having a longer-term vision..
... it is easy to recommend him for any ambitious company that aims to impact the world positively"
