Skip to content
All cohorts
Cohort N° V Startups & Investment
N° V / VI · Cohort

Startups & Investment

Pre-seed to Series A founders, with the EIS / SEIS, R&D and Innovate UK plumbing that comes with the territory.

EIS / SEIS advance assurance R&D under merged scheme Innovate UK grants Investor reporting
Overview Overview

Pre-seed through Series A founders building genuinely novel products — software, hardware, biotech, climate tech. The financial machinery that comes with growth-stage funding is its own world: EIS / SEIS advance assurance, monthly investor reporting, R&D claims that survive HMRC scrutiny under the merged scheme, and grant accounting where the auditor reads every invoice. We’ve walked the route enough times to know which corners get cut and which never should be.

Working Rhythm

The shape of a
year with us.

Monthly: management accounts pitched at board level — runway, burn, headline KPIs, and the cash plot every investor will ask about. Quarterly: R&D activity captured contemporaneously, not reconstructed at year-end. Annually: the corporation-tax return with the R&D claim filed properly under the merged scheme, grant accounting reconciled, and an investor-ready set of accounts that matches the management view.

Pitfalls Where it goes wrong

The mistakes a
generalist misses.

Each is something we’ve seen multiple times in inherited engagements — and something we now check for as a matter of course.

  • N° 01

    R&D claims written months after the fact, with engineers reaching for memory rather than commit history — HMRC enquiries land hardest on these.

  • N° 02

    EIS / SEIS qualifying conditions silently breached by a director loan, an unconnected revenue stream, or a share-class structure that didn’t survive a Series A. Advance assurance only protects what was disclosed.

  • N° 03

    Innovate UK grant claims treated as revenue at receipt — they aren’t; they’re deferred until the qualifying spend is incurred, and the audit will find it.

  • N° 04

    Convertible loan notes booked as plain debt with no embedded-derivative analysis — FRS 102 has views, and so will any future investor’s diligence.

Begin Begin

Recognise this
as your cohort?