Startups
From incorporation and DPIIT recognition to ESOPs, diligence-ready books and investor reporting — the finance backbone for companies built to scale.
Early-stage companies rarely fail their audit. They fail their diligence. The finance function that looks adequate at seed stage becomes the reason a term sheet is renegotiated at Series A — because the cap table does not reconcile, ESOP grants were never boarded, or revenue was recognised on invoicing rather than delivery.
Where we help
- Entity structuring and cap table hygiene
- 80-IAC and angel tax navigation
- Investor due diligence preparation
- Monthly MIS and burn tracking
What actually comes up in this sector
Entity and cap-table hygiene
Share issues, conversions and instrument terms must agree between the board minutes, the statutory registers, the MCA filings and the cap table an investor is shown. Divergence between these four is the single most common diligence finding, and it is almost always a documentation failure rather than a commercial one.
Valuation and share-issue scrutiny
Issues of shares at a premium attract scrutiny under both the income-tax and exchange-control frameworks. The valuation report, the method chosen and the date it bears have to align with the allotment — and the file has to be capable of explaining, years later, why that method was appropriate.
ESOPs, from grant to exercise
An ESOP pool is a plan document, a set of board and shareholder approvals, an accounting charge, a perquisite-tax event on exercise and a withholding obligation. Pools created informally in a spreadsheet become expensive to regularise once an investor asks for the trail.
Recognition and MIS discipline
Investors read monthly numbers, not annual ones. Revenue recognition policy, deferred revenue, burn definition and runway calculation should be fixed once and applied consistently, so that the MIS an investor sees in month three still reconciles with the audited financials in month fourteen.
How the engagement runs
Understand
A scoping discussion with a partner covering the facts of your business, the records that already exist and the positions previously taken.
Agree
Written scope and fee, a document checklist and a named team member responsible for the sector work.
Deliver
Execution against tracked deadlines with partner review, and working papers retained for every position taken.
Stand behind
If a filing or position is later questioned, the same team that made it defends it.
Questions we are asked
At what stage should a startup bring in a Chartered Accountant?
Before the first external round, and ideally before the first share issue after incorporation. Most of the expensive problems we are asked to clean up were created in the first eighteen months and only discovered during diligence.
Can you take over books maintained by a founder or bookkeeper?
Yes. We begin with a reconstruction and reconciliation of the period already recorded, identify the positions taken, and agree an accounting policy note before assuming ongoing responsibility.
Frequently paired services
Talk to the sector team
Describe your business in one call — we will map the compliance and advisory picture end to end.
Book a consultation