Financial leadership for founder-led companies|
Adastra Solutions takes on the finance function alongside the founders and their leadership team: monthly numbers the company can steer with, and books that hold up when a buyer eventually looks at them. Fractional, a few days a month, for as long as it is useful.
Three areas, usually in combination
Most engagements begin with the first and grow into the others as the numbers get sharper.
Financial Steering
Monthly reporting and consolidation, planning and forecasting, cash flow with enough lead time to act on, and the operating numbers a service business actually runs on: utilisation, contribution by project and by client, pricing built on real delivery cost. Includes bringing the finance function up to speed, internal staff and external accountants both.
Transaction Readiness
Getting a company to the point where its numbers survive a buyer's scrutiny: an earnings figure that holds after adjustments, revenue whose quality can be shown rather than argued, working capital and debt understood before the buyer defines them, and a history that reads the same in every month. Then standing next to the founders and their team through diligence and the contract, and through the transition that follows, so that what was warranted in the numbers never turns into a claim later.
Financial Infrastructure
Most companies between 5 and 30 million run on too many tools and one that is too big for them. Each was chosen under pressure, and none of them talk to each other. Adastra Solutions picks the few tools that fit the company's stage, and uses AI where it takes real work off the finance team. It negotiates the contracts and licences and keeps the whole stack cheaper than before. One rule from the seller's side of a deal: no software choice survives the acquisition. The buyer brings their own. What survives is the data. So the stack stays lean and produces clean raw data that any system can take over.
A Platform and a Method
Steering a company and preparing its sale ask for two things at once: operating numbers the leadership team can act on every month, and books that hold up when a buyer's team takes them apart. Most tools do one or the other. CFO Foundry does both. It is a financial intelligence platform and a method that turns a company's own exports into the monthly reporting pack, with every figure tracing back to the account it came from.
Part of every engagement, operated by Adastra Solutions. Your data stays on your side; the reports stay with you.
Five stages, each ending in something you can hold
Fractional, a few days a month, never a permanent seat.
Assessment
a few weeksHow is the company set up financially? Entities, the accounting setup, the data map. Ends with a written plan and a first report from your existing numbers.
Implementation
the first monthsChange what has to change: chart of accounts, booking conventions with the Steuerberater, data ownership, the data room structure. Ends with the first full monthly pack.
Cadence
monthly, ongoingData lands by a fixed day, the pack follows, one review meeting. Your team learns the rhythm and starts reading its own numbers.
Deepening
on the cadencePlanning and budgeting, pricing from delivery cost, the cost base, board and bank reporting from the same figures.
Transaction Readiness
dormant or liveAdd-backs documented as they occur, the data room growing as a by-product, and the numbers defended when a process is live.
Stage zero is a conversation: get in touch. The stages in detail: how an engagement runs, on cfofoundry.io →
100+ employees, 3 countries
PE exit, 2024
A founder since 2001
I co-founded Parkside in 2007 and ran it for seventeen years: custom software engineering and digital services, more than 100 people, offices in Austria, Portugal and Switzerland. I was Managing Partner and Group CFO. In 2024 I led the financial workstream of its sale to a UK private equity buyer.
Before that, from 2001 to 2006, a digital studio in Graz called Mediaeffect.
Adastra Solutions is the most recent one, and it is where twenty years of building digital products and software meet the finance, M&A and infrastructure work that running those companies required. Adastra Solutions also helps companies put AI to work in their finance function, from producing the monthly numbers to the analysis behind a decision.
LinkedIn profileBuilt, scaled, and exited
PE Exit — Parkside acquired by Ascent Digital Services (UK)
Led the entire financial workstream. Built consolidated financials, prepared the data room, normalised EBITDA, and managed the sell-side process from first conversation to close.
Rapid growth — >20% CAGR, >30% post-COVID recovery
100% organically financed. Sustained >20% adjusted EBITDA margins across the group. No external capital.
Swiss turnaround — EBIT −250K CHF to +500K CHF
Turned around the Swiss entity within 12 months of acquisition. Full operational restructuring and financial cleanup.
Co-founded Parkside — bootstrapped from zero
Custom software engineering and digital services. Grew to 5 offices across 3 countries. Clutch #1 in Austria. 95% client recommendation rate. 90% referral-driven growth.
Founded Mediaeffect Studio — first digital venture
Websites and multimedia applications in Graz. Built the foundation for 20+ years of expertise in digital product development and user experience design.
Experience behind the work
Finance & M&A
Running a company by its numbers, and carrying it through a transaction. I have been on the selling side of a private equity process: I know what a buyer's team asks, what the figures have to withstand, and how to keep steering the business while they look. Normalisation, modelling and diligence are the tools underneath, not the point.
Digital & Product
Knowing how software gets built, because I built software companies. Twenty years of product work, from Mediaeffect through Parkside to CFO Foundry. It is why I can talk to delivery teams in their own language, and why the numbers I set up reflect how a service business actually earns.
Leadership & Strategy
Founding, scaling and turning around companies, with the decisions that come with it: hiring, pricing, expansion, the hard years. Leading teams across three countries taught me that finance only works when the people running delivery understand and trust the numbers.
Where engagements usually begin
Most founder-led service businesses share the same financial blind spots.
Your P&L doesn't tell the story
Multi-entity, multi-country, but no consolidated view. Your accountant delivers numbers that nobody can actually read.
EBITDA is full of noise
Founder costs, one-off expenses, and intercompany transactions that haven't been normalised. Your real profitability is hidden.
No CFO function
You've grown past the point where the founder can be the finance team, but not far enough to justify a full-time hire.
Exit is on your mind — but not on your timeline
You know the business is worth something. You just can't prove it in a format a PE buyer would trust.
The Big 4 alternative
Traditional advisory serves a purpose. This is built for the 5–30M range.
Traditional Advisory
- €200–400K for a sell-side engagement
- Partner rates, with juniors doing the actual work
- Delivers a polished deck you can't update
- Project-based, so it leaves when the project ends
- Builds their deliverable, not your capability
- One-size-fits-all frameworks
Working with Adastra
- Fraction of the cost, on a lightweight engagement model
- You work with Syrous Abtine directly, not a team you'll never meet
- Builds tools and processes you keep and use
- Embedded in your business, not advising from outside
- You gain capability, not just a report
- The same method run every month, not a framework off the shelf
Describe your situation
The first step is a conversation about your setup: which entities, which accounting systems, what you need to see. After it you will know whether this is a fit, and so will I.
A few sentences are enough: where you stand, where you want to go. I read every inquiry myself and reply within one to two business days.
Thank you!
Your inquiry has been received. I'll review it and get back to you within 1–2 business days.