“Gavin joined the team and has been instrumental to completing our capital planning and raises, strategic initiatives and contract negotiations, and improving Board and shareholder communications. He fills a role in our leadership we needed to execute our growth plans.”
Joel Rockes, CEO of AgriNous, recently completed Series A
CORPORATE FINANCE
We help companies fill in the missing financial leadership and corporate finance gaps they have on their teams. Our team of experts provide a range of capabilities honed over a combined four decades of work in start-ups, investment management and private equity.
If you’re like most business owners, you know where you want to go. The question is not your vision or drive, but whether you have the systems and team in place to be able to execute the plan – directly and smoothly.
Finance is one of the most essential growth engines for small to medium enterprises. But too often, teams with otherwise solid domain expertise lack the financial and capital market experience to execute activities pivotal to company success and survival – like raising capital, managing investors, reporting to the board, pricing, projecting cash flows and modelling, and assessing new ventures and deals.
HOW WE HELP
At Behind the Counter, we work directly with owners to fill in this missing gap. Our team of senior financial professionals serve as fractional CFOs to teams that do not yet require a full-time C-suite finance leader but are serious about growing well. We work directly with leadership to perform critical functions, clean up and upgrade key systems, get you investor ready, or prepare your company for sale. We raise your company’s financial standards.
All of which is done with the goal of:
“Gavin played a critical role in helping CalcTree raise its early-stage rounds of funding. From crafting a powerful narrative, creating investor presentations, to financial and cap table modelling and outreach, we have a lot to thank Gavin for where we stand today.”
AUD $859k 1st pre-seed funding round
USD $1.84m 2nd pre-seed round from US & AU VC funds
“Gavin is well renowked for his unparalleled ability to quickly comprehend technically complex businesses, conduct astute commercial analysis, and craft easily digestible narratives for each stakeholder group.”
SELLING YOUR COMPANY
We partner with founders to land an exit that is right for them. We walk our clients step-by-step through any deal, ensuring there is confidence and clarity in the process.
INTRODUCING
Where you want to be and why ultimately dictates what the right deal will look like for you. Are you willing to work in the business post-acquisition? Do you want a partial or full sale? Do you have a minimum valuation target that must be met? Understanding your goals, constraints and realities is critical to mapping out what the right deal might look like, and the structures that must be put in place.
The next step is crafting a powerful narrative – one that will grab the attention of potential buyers – and preparing the materials that will be used to market your company. This includes crafting a one-page anonymised teaser and a detailed investor presentation, building the financial model, and setting up and populating the data room. Market research is also conducted at this stage. We are looking for similar transactions that can inform valuation expectations, as well as traits in your business that can help us raise your sale price.
We then market your company for you (using the anonymised materials), using a targeted approach to identify probable buyers and reach to them on your behalf. We do the calls, protecting your time and confidentiality. Interested buyers sign a non-disclosure agreement and receive the detailed presentation.
After the initial outreach comes answering questions and securing non-binding offers. We screen parties to ascertain their genuine interest and set-up meetings with potential buyers as necessary. Then we assess, negotiate, and explain to buyers the terms of each non-binding offer — a process that is designed to deepen buyer interest, weed out nonserious parties and create competitive interest.
Finally – you sign an offer, and we do the work to ensure the deal gets completed. In this stage, we respond to further requests for information, conduct reverse diligence on the buyer and update the data room to ensure proper disclosure (far from simply administrative, data rooms become part of the legal sale. It is important to create a secure record of what has been disclosed to the buyer to protect against claims in the future). We also review the final documents prepared by legal advisors to ensure they reflect commercial discussions, while coordinating all legal, tax and accounting advisors to improve the speed of completion.
