Startup accountants for VC-backed founders.

Startup accountants for VC-backed founders keep the cap table, the statutory register and the accounts telling the same story, because a fundraise is diligenced against all three at once. The recurring work is monthly reporting on burn and runway; the episodic work is share issues, option grants and investment scheme compliance.

Startup finance has a different shape from regular SME accounting. Burn matters more than profit. Investor reporting is part of monthly cadence. Cap tables and option pools shift with every round. R&D tax credits are material cash. EMI schemes require careful administration. And due diligence (for the next round, for an acquisition, for a strategic partnership) can land with two weeks' notice.

We've built a startup practice specifically for VC-backed and high-growth companies. The monthly close is reliable (5-day SLA). The board pack is in your investor's format. The R&D claim is filed annually with proper technical narrative. The EMI valuations are documented and HMRC-defensible. Your cap table is maintained alongside your statutory share register.

Most engagements include a fractional CFO element, strategic finance support sitting on top of clean bookkeeping. For Series A and beyond, this means proper 13-week cash flow modelling, fundraising prep, investor due-diligence support, and the kind of forecast that survives investor scrutiny.

A data room is assembled from things that either exist already or have to be reconstructed under time pressure at the worst possible moment. The list is short and known in advance: a cap table that reconciles to the share register, share allotment returns filed with Companies House within a month of each issue, board minutes approving every allotment and option grant, monthly management accounts with a consistent basis across the period, a payroll history that matches the accounts, and evidence for any tax relief already claimed. Reconstructing that during a round is what turns a six-week process into a four-month one.

The cap table is the item that breaks most often. Convertible instruments and advance subscription agreements sit outside the share register until they convert, so the shares in issue and the fully diluted position are different numbers, and the option pool sits between them. Founders who track this in a spreadsheet that was last updated at the previous round routinely find that the promised percentages do not add up once the new money is modelled. We rebuild the cap table from the statutory filings rather than from the spreadsheet, which is the version an investor's lawyer will read.

Investment schemes carry their own arithmetic and their own deadlines. The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme carries a company lifetime limit of 250,000 pounds, a gross assets test at the point of investment and a limit on how long the company has been trading; the Enterprise Investment Scheme takes over above that. Advance assurance before the round is worth the delay, because compliance statements filed afterwards are what let investors claim relief, and a company that has issued the wrong class of share cannot fix it retrospectively. EMI options run alongside, with a per-employee limit of 250,000 pounds, a company limit of 3 million pounds, and a notification deadline that voids the tax treatment if missed.

Then there is R&D relief, which for many pre-revenue companies is the largest single cash item of the year. Claims under the merged scheme need project narratives and cost apportionment recorded as the work happens, and an additional information form before the claim itself. Reporting cadence and runway modelling sit on our fractional CFO page, and subscription businesses should also read our SaaS accountants page for the revenue recognition side. If you are still deciding what level of support you need, our bookkeeper vs accountant comparison sets out what each role delivers, what each costs, and the monthly reporting role that sits between them. Founders incorporating before a first round use our company incorporation service, and the statutory register work that follows sits with our outsourced company secretary service. Both are listed in our accounting and tax services directory.