Compliance is not decision support.
Bookkeepers and external accountants can keep the records straight. Founders still need someone translating those records into runway, funding, hiring, capex and capital decisions.
About Sentinel Capital Advisors
Financial judgement for companies putting their numbers in front of investors.
Sentinel helps founder-led, post-seed companies become more investable. The work combines financial modelling, valuation, capital strategy and independent challenge so management can explain how much capital it needs, what the money will achieve and why the plan is credible.
SCA / PRACTICE PROFILEBRISBANE · AUSTRALIA
01 / WHY SENTINEL EXISTS
The most useful finance adviser is not the one with the most elaborate spreadsheet. It is the one who turns imperfect information into decisions.
And tells management when the assumptions do not hold up.
02 / THE GAP
Early-stage companies need a different kind of CFO judgement.
Finance must connect day-to-day operating evidence with the capital decisions management needs to make next.
A forecast is not evidence.
The model matters only if the assumptions behind revenue, margins, utilisation, working capital, capex and execution can survive challenge.
Capital must buy progress.
A credible raise connects use of funds to milestones, measurable outcomes and the next reduction in investment risk.
03 / THE PRACTICE
Financial analysis with an investigative mindset.
Four connected disciplines bring operating reality, transaction logic and technical evidence into one capital case.
Decisions, not reporting for its own sake.
Cash visibility, funding strategy, Board support and financial discipline in operating businesses.
Understand what capital is being asked to fund.
Business valuation, due diligence, investment appraisal, transaction readiness and acquisition integration.
Translate technical progress into economic logic.
CFO experience in R&D-intensive and environmental technology businesses moving towards commercial-scale operations.
Test assertions against evidence.
A professional background in investigation and forensic work informs how assumptions, inconsistencies and unresolved evidence gaps are examined.
04 / BEST FIT
Businesses with real traction and a real capital decision ahead.
The strongest fit is often a capital-intensive or R&D-heavy company where technical progress, commercialisation and financing are tightly connected.
AUTHOR / MANAGING DIRECTOR
Doug Swanborough
Doug combines operating CFO experience with valuation, transaction and investigative disciplines. His work focuses on helping founder-led companies connect technical and commercial evidence to credible forecasts, capital requirements and Board decisions.
CFO judgement grounded in execution.
Doug has served as CFO of early-stage technology companies and led turnaround and restructuring work in manufacturing, mining services and retail businesses under cash and performance pressure.
Evidence behind the number.
His experience includes business valuation, investment appraisal, due diligence, capital planning and the financial analysis required for material transactions.
Assertions tested against evidence.
A former Queensland Police Fraud Squad detective, Doug brings an investigative approach to assumptions, inconsistencies and unresolved financial evidence.
Complex companies approaching a capital decision.
Sentinel is best suited to founder-led, post-seed companies where R&D, commercialisation, working capital and external funding are tightly connected.
05 / OPERATING PRINCIPLES
Evidence before advocacy.
The working rules applied when management’s assumptions and capital plan are put under scrutiny.
Evidence before advocacy
Determine whether the financial and commercial evidence supports management’s preferred answer.
Decisions before reporting
Financial information should help management decide what to spend, defer, raise and do next.
Scenarios, not one forecast
Test delays, lower revenue, higher costs and other conditions that materially change runway or funding needs.
Independent challenge
Challenge important assumptions before investors, lenders or the Board discover the weakness themselves.
Capital tied to milestones
Connect use of funds to measurable commercial, technical and financial outcomes.
Explicit uncertainty
State limitations, assumptions and unresolved evidence gaps clearly rather than hiding them inside a model.
NEXT STEP / INVESTMENT READINESS
Before investors test the numbers, test them yourself.
Identify where the financial case is strong—and where investors are most likely to challenge it.
Take the Investment Readiness Diagnostic admin@sentinelcapital.io