Helping Achieve Financial and Regulatory Clarity, and Close Investment

CHALLENGE

Prolific are an online platform connecting researchers to best-in-class study participants in seconds, rather than weeks. Founded in Oxford and bootstrapped whilst the founders were finalizing their PhDs, the Company grew quickly but had several key regulatory and financial hurdles to cross. The team were looking at raising outside investment to accelerate their growth.

SOLUTION

Ralston joined as interim CFO and took a deep dive into the Company’s business practices, including invoicing, payments systems & accounting practices. We then developed and executed on a clear roadmap to set up financial controls & reports to enable the Company to keep track of and better forecast their financial and operating performance. This included delineating client accounts, clarifying VAT & Revenue Recognition requirements, and helping understand and reduce their regulatory and compliance risks. In the process, we built a financial model to support business planning and budgeting and set up monthly reports to track against our targets.

Once all processes and key reports were in place, the team had more clarity on their vision, and chose to seek investment to accelerate their growth.

The team applied and were successfully admitted into the prestigious YCombinator accelerator program in San Francisco. This required setting up a US Company & accounts, developing an investment case, and providing financial diligence through the program and subsequent fundraise.

The team successfully closed a $1.4M seed round, and have since seen their growth accelerate. Uncertain times during the COVID crisis required a strong focus on Cash flow and contingency planning, and the finance function was further built out with its first full-time hire. We continue to advise the team going into this next phase of their journey.