Built and run by Tom McCollum.
ACA chartered accountant. KPMG Corporate Finance. Buy-side investment. Ten-plus years of finance leadership inside founder-led businesses.
Compass & Ledger is the firm I would have wanted to hire on the way through.
I trained at KPMG in Corporate Finance on M&A transactions in the £100m–£200m range across TMT — buy-side and sell-side diligence on private equity deals. From there I moved into buy-side investment, running LBO, DCF and credit models on transactions from £10m to £250m: debt raises, refinancings, MBOs and minority stake sales.
Since 2021 I have been the embedded finance lead for a small number of venture-backed startups, off-market real asset platforms, and hospitality and consumer brands — building finance functions from nothing, running monthly close and KPI reporting, and supporting capital raises along the way.
I have sat on the other side of the table. I know what an investment committee does with a model at nine in the evening before a decision, and which five things they check first. That is what the 30-day sprint is built around.
Most advice to growing businesses splits into two unhelpful extremes: capital-raising consultants who hand you a pitch deck and disappear, or fractional CFOs who speak in jargon without touching the underlying numbers. Neither is enough on its own.
What helps is one firm that can do both. Help you decide whether now is the right time to raise, build the model, valuation and investor materials that survive diligence, and then run the finance function — monthly close, KPI reporting, board and lender packs, cash forecasting — so the business stays credible long after the term sheet.
That is the work. It is not flashy and it compounds. I take a small number of clients at a time so each gets real attention — and if we are not a fit on the discovery call, I will say so and try to point you somewhere better.
Four things that do not change.
The same terms on every engagement, whatever the size.
Fixed fees, not hours
Hourly billing makes you ration the thing you most need, which is access. One number, agreed before we start.
The scope is the outcome
Not a checklist. If getting you where you are going takes something that was not on the list, we build that too.
We will tell you when it is a no
If your records will not support what you are asking for, or another firm fits better, you will hear it on the first call.
Built for handover
Every model, forecast and process is documented and trained out. A tool only we can run is a dependency, not an asset.
Thirty minutes. No pitch. Your situation, and what we would do about it.
If we are a fit, we will say so. If we are not, you will hear that too, and where to look instead. Either way you leave with a clearer picture of what good finance looks like for your business.