From $740K monthly burn to operating break-even in 9 months
Post-Series A fintech with great product traction and undisciplined unit economics. We rebuilt the financial operating system and walked the team to profitability.
- $740K monthly burn with a Series B 11 months out in a hostile fundraising market.
- CAC payback past 19 months on the SMB segment, investor narrative was breaking.
- Gross margin diluted by three legacy payment rails the team had never deprecated.
- Engineering spend at 71% of opex with no link to revenue-driving roadmap items.
- No financial KPIs reviewed weekly, visibility was monthly at best.
Operating system rebuild
Weekly financial KPI review with the leadership team. Single dashboard, eight metrics, no exceptions.
CAC compression
Channel-level CAC analysis killed two paid acquisition channels. Reallocated budget to partner-led GTM with 4× lower payback.
Gross margin program
Sunset two legacy payment rails. Renegotiated processor fees on the remaining one. 41% gross margin expansion in five months.
Roadmap-to-revenue link
Engineering capacity allocated against revenue impact scores. Three low-ROI workstreams paused.
A B2B payments platform serving Southeast Asian SMBs. $9.2M Series A raised 14 months prior at a $48M post. ARR at $4.1M growing 14% MoM, but burn was $740K/month and the runway model showed a Series B in 11 months, likely a down round in the current environment. The board wanted a credible path to default-alive economics before approaching new investors.
- Month 1
Diagnostic
Channel-level CAC, rail-level gross margin, and feature-level engineering cost surfaced for the first time.
- Month 2
Weekly cadence live
Eight-metric dashboard. Leadership reviews every Tuesday with action items logged.
- Month 3–4
Channel & rail cuts
Two paid channels and two payment rails sunset. CAC down 38% by end of month 4.
- Month 5–7
Margin expansion
Processor renegotiation closed. Gross margin from 27% to 38% over the period.
- Month 8–9
Break-even
Operating cash break-even crossed in month 9 with revenue 22% higher than the starting point.
- Operating cash break-even reached in month 9, three months ahead of plan.
- Series B deferred indefinitely; founders raised a $4M insider-led extension at a flat valuation when they did go back to market.
- Engineering headcount held flat while revenue grew 22% over the period.
- Three of the eight weekly KPIs became board-reported metrics the next quarter.
- Default-alive economics documented for every active product line.
- 01
Default-alive is a discipline, not a milestone. The cadence is the moat.
- 02
Most fintech margin problems live in rails the team has stopped questioning.
- 03
Engineering that isn't scored against revenue impact will quietly compound into burn.
"We had been told we needed to cut to survive. CapMaven showed us we needed to charge correctly and acquire smarter. Same revenue, no burn, no layoffs, that's the version of the company I'm proud of."
Did this require layoffs?+
No. Burn came down through gross margin recovery and CAC compression, not headcount. Engineering was held flat while revenue grew.
How transferable is this to consumer fintechs?+
The operating system transfers; the levers don't. Consumer fintechs have different unit economics and a heavier dependence on paid acquisition. The diagnostic structure is the same, the prescriptions differ.
Why a 12-month CFO retainer instead of a project?+
The cadence is the product. A 12-week project can rebuild the dashboards, but the discipline of running the company against them takes a full operating cycle to internalize.
Your case starts here.
Two weeks. Three scenarios. One honest read on your numbers.
The CFO Diagnostic gives you the same artifact every case above started with, a cash model, a unit-economics teardown, and a capital-readiness scorecard.
Start here,
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Book a free 20-minute discovery call, or go straight to a $400 CFO Diagnostic. The Diagnostic delivers a working read of your cash position, runway, and top 3 financial risks within two weeks. Whether you engage further or not, it's the clearest financial picture most founders have ever seen.