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Fundraise-Readiness CFO Services for UK Consumer Brands

A six-week sprint that takes a UK consumer brand from messy data room to fundable. Integrated three-year model, investor narrative, and diligence-ready financials for SEIS, EIS, and Series A rounds.

What investors actually look at

A UK consumer brand fundraise is won and lost on three pages of the data room. The first is the historical P&L, reconciled to bank, with contribution margin by channel and by SKU. The second is the unit economics page: CAC, payback, LTV, contribution margin per order, return rate, and the operating leverage assumption that gets the brand to profit. The third is the forecast model, integrated through the balance sheet and the cash flow, with sensitivity around the two or three assumptions the round depends on.

Everything else — the deck, the narrative, the team page, the market sizing — gets a brand into the meeting. The three pages above decide whether the meeting becomes a term sheet. Fundraise readiness is the discipline of making those three pages defensible before the first investor sees them.

The six-week shape

  • Week 1 — Diagnostic. Full access. Reconciliation of last three years where available. Honest read on whether the brand is ready to raise, and on what timeline.
  • Week 2 — Unit economics rebuild. CAC, LTV, payback, contribution margin by SKU and channel. Cohort retention. Returns priced into the maths.
  • Week 3 — Integrated three-year model. P&L, cash flow, balance sheet, KPI build. Driver-based, editable by the founder. Sensitivities on the assumptions the round actually rests on.
  • Week 4 — Narrative. Deck reviewed against ten current consumer-brand pitches. The story told in the order an investor wants to hear it.
  • Week 5 — Data room. Indexed to the standard request list: historicals, model, contracts, IP, capitalisation table, due diligence Q&A.
  • Week 6 — Q&A bank and rehearsal. The forty questions the brand will be asked. The answers, with the numbers behind them. Two live rehearsals with the founder.

What we will not do

We will not take a commission on capital raised. We will not push a round that should not happen. We will not disguise unit economics that do not work. The output of week one is sometimes "wait six months, fix these three things, come back". That is the right answer when it is the right answer.

Price

Fixed-price project fee, payable in three tranches against milestones. £18,000 for a brand with clean historicals and a focused round (typically SEIS / EIS / pre-seed up to £1.5m). £25,000 for a Seed or early Series A through roughly £5m. £35,000 for a Series A through roughly £10m or where the financials need material reconstruction.

6 wks
From kickoff to a fundable data room and rehearsal-ready founder, for a brand with broadly clean historicals.
£18k–£35k
Fixed project fee. No commission on capital raised.
0%
Of capital raised. Our incentive is the brand getting funded on the right terms, not on a closed round.

Frequently asked questions

How long does fundraise readiness actually take?
Six weeks of focused work for a brand whose accounts are broadly clean. Eight to ten weeks if there are material accounting issues to unwind. The work runs alongside, not instead of, ongoing operations.
What does the deliverable list look like?
A three-year integrated model (P&L, cash flow, balance sheet, KPI build); an investor narrative deck reviewed against ten current consumer-brand pitches; a clean historical financial pack covering the last three years where available; a data room indexed to the standard investor request list; and a Q&A bank pre-empting the diligence calls.
Do you raise the money?
No. We prepare the brand. Introductions to investors are made informally when the fit is obvious; the formal capital raise is the founder's, sometimes assisted by a placement agent or corporate finance house we can recommend.
What does it cost?
A fixed-price project fee from £18,000 to £35,000 depending on the state of the financials and the round size. Existing retainer clients pay the lower end and a portion is credited against the retainer.
Will you stay on after the round closes?
Most clients move to a fractional CFO retainer post-close. It is the right cadence for the first 12 to 18 months of post-investment operating, before the next round triggers another sprint.
What if the brand is too early or too messy to raise yet?
We will say so. Sometimes the most useful output of week one is "you are six months too early — fix these three things and come back". That is a saved fundraise, not a lost project.
Written by William Smithwhite, Founder and Fractional CFO.
Last updated 2026-05-22.