FAQs

Growth stage SaaS and AI companies in Australia in the $5m to $50m ARR range, and the investors who back them. We select clients where we can move the needle on valuation and shareholder outcomes, not by strict stage labels.

Many companies start too late. Ideally we engage six to twelve months out, which gives us time to do the granular work that creates real uplift in valuations. Engagements typically run a similar window around the transaction, with intensity increasing as a deal approaches. We can still help when timing is tight, though late stage entry once a process is underway is the exception.

We start with a small piece of work, often a value or deal mapping diagnostic, to show where the deal upside is. From there we focus on the items that move deal outcomes most, usually financial reporting infrastructure, investor grade metrics and models, and deal readiness. We work inside your business, lightening the load on management and building deal capability that bankers, advisers and investors can all draw on.

We build the investor grade deal materials, and ensure companies are fully prepared for a transaction rather than doing so in the shadows of a deal. Our work ensures three key areas are addressed:

• Deal Hygiene: where blockers and obstacles in due diligence are mitigated proactively. Think revenue recognition policies sharpened, tax issues considered, change of control clauses removed from customer contracts.
• Financial Rigour: investor grade financial reporting, covering metrics, models, segmentation, and underlying value drivers. This means every data point with a $ sign in front of it is crafted with buyers in mind.
• Value Enablement: the strategic evidence that supports higher multiples, including how data and AI strategy shows up in diligence, product defensibility, GTM repeatability, and governance maturity.

Even great companies have gaps that hurt valuations, create surprises in diligence, and drag transactions out. Our role is to identify and close those gaps before a process starts.

Working with the company and its advisers, we identify what future buyers and investors will pay the highest valuations for and build the evidence base that substantiates it. The outcomes our clients see are:

• stronger valuations;
• fewer surprises in diligence;
• deal ready management teams that present credibly with evidence.

Having done hundreds of transactions… we've learnt that you can't fatten the pig on market day.

We're far less drawn to long slide decks, corporate theatre, or buzzwords that obscure real progress. Others in the big firms do that far more gracefully than us. Our job is to bring structure to our client’s ambition, sweat every detail, and partner with the deal team to land the best transactions.

We're openly selective about the clients we work with because results are better when teams value the same things.

Monthly retainer for the embedded work plus a success fee tied to transaction outcomes. We tailor the structure to the stage and the deal, and we're open to equity where it makes sense.

No. Your CFO and finance team keep running the business. We come in alongside them on the transaction work being reporting, metrics, models and readiness, jumping in and rolling up the sleeves. If a more permanent resource is required, we maintain a network of fractional CFOs, other advisers, and senior finance leaders we regularly introduce.

The things we say no to are investment banking mandates, tax advisory, audit, and ongoing fractional CFO roles. We'll point you to specialists when one of those is what you need.

Big 4 transaction teams are excellent at what they do, and we work alongside them often as they run discrete workstreams in audit, tax, and financial due diligence reports.

Our role is different in that we embed early inside the business, move quickly without red tape, and focus on the deal capability that lifts outcomes. We won't cover tax returns, audits or bookkeeping. Our role is to make sure the company has the deal capability inside the business so everyone's effort lifts the transaction outcome.

We work in partnerships. Bankers and corporate advisers run the formal sale or M&A process. We bring strategic deal capability inside the business to make their process more effective. We sit with the board, the investor group, and the exec team to shape the narrative, then work inside the business to build the evidence with the management team.

This unique approach results in a broad, fully equipped deal team capable of bringing the best prepared companies to market.

Investors deploy Scale Ventures across their portfolio companies to build deal capability, but the relationship with the company stays theirs. We support in and around the board where asked to.

Across a portfolio, we standardise the deal readiness work that funds otherwise have to repeat company by company. That means investors get leverage and earlier visibility on portfolio performance, fewer surprises in diligence when transactions come, and stronger outcomes when companies go to market.