CA Mayank Jain
I help founders and business leaders build financially confident organizations: ones where financial clarity drives decision-making, compliance is systematic, and growth is planned with precision.
Building financially confident organizations.
I’m a Chartered Accountant (qualified November 2022, ICAI) with 7+ years of hands-on experience across financial analysis, due diligence, startup advisory, and Virtual CFO services across 13+ sectors. I also consult with Alchemy Business Intelligence & Insights on financial systems design and institutional-grade analytics.
From article apprentice to founder.
Article Apprenticeship
Three years exposed to diverse engagement types across startup and corporate compliance:
- Startup compliance: company incorporation, statutory compliance, regulatory registrations (DPIIT, MSME, Startup India, angel tax filings).
- Financial analysis: cap table models, valuation workings, financial readiness assessments for founder-facing advisory.
- Due diligence: assisted with startup sell-side diligence readiness: identifying documentation gaps, financial inconsistencies, and governance issues before investor DD.
- Tax & audit: supported statutory audits and tax audits for startups and LLPs.
This period taught me that startup financial challenges are structural, not computational. The issue isn’t calculating a tax number; it’s architecting a financial system that scales.
Associate to Assistant Manager
Advanced to Associate (2020) and then Assistant Manager (2023). Deepened expertise across four areas:
- Startup compliance end-to-end: set up 50+ companies from incorporation through first-year statutory compliance, learning what it takes to build a financial foundation that’s clean, scalable, and audit-ready.
- Due diligence readiness: a systematic process for preparing startups for investor due diligence: cap table audit, historical financial restatement, statutory compliance validation, related party documentation, and governance gap analysis.
- Financial valuation & analysis: valuations under Income Tax Act Section 56, FEMA regulations (FDI rounds), and Companies Act norms, learning that defensible valuation is about methodology clarity and assumption validation, not sophisticated spreadsheets.
- Virtual CFO support (fractional): ongoing financial strategy: cash flow planning, budget vs. actuals, runway forecasting, hiring/fundraising timing, investor reporting. This work shaped the belief that financial advisory is ultimately about business decisions, not accounting mechanics.
Founder, Mayank Om Jain & Associates
Incorporated MOJAA to build a financial advisory practice that serves founders and growing businesses with technical rigor, strategic clarity, and direct CA accountability.
Consultant on Financial Systems
Advise on financial systems architecture and institutional-grade analytics for mid-market and scaling businesses, work that keeps my thinking anchored in how financial infrastructure scales with business complexity.
What I actually do for clients.
Startup Financial Architecture
When a company incorporates, you have one opportunity to build the foundation right: correct chart of accounts, proper statutory register maintenance, GST setup, TAN integration, TDS compliance framework. I approach financial architecture as scalable infrastructure:
- Your month-end close should happen in 7 days, not 3 weeks. This requires proper process design, not heroic effort.
- Your MIS should tell you where cash is actually going, not where you think it’s going. This requires proper ledger structure and reconciliation discipline.
- Your statutory compliance should be anticipated quarterly, not discovered at audit time. This requires proper calendar management.
For a newly-incorporated FMCG startup transitioning from proprietorship: structured incorporation, GST setup, historical MIS reconstruction from the proprietorship period (6 months of revenue and expense data), books setup, DPIIT eligibility tracking, Startup India recognition, 5-year financial modeling, and Virtual CFO support, all coordinated under one SOW.
Cap Table Structuring & Governance
Cap tables are complex instruments: multiple share classes with different rights, vesting schedules with cliffs and clawback provisions, investor rights like ROFR and anti-dilution, and related party transactions that create opacity if left undocumented. I build cap tables to three standards:
- Legal clarity: every term is documented, every share allotment is formalized, no ambiguity about ownership or rights.
- Operational simplicity: founders understand their dilution path, employees understand their vesting, investors understand their terms.
- Institutional readiness: documentation is VC-standard, investor diligence finds no surprises, legal review is efficient.
A founder came to me with a cap table containing conflicting CCPS terms from 3 different funding rounds, each with different anti-dilution clauses. Restructuring was needed before Series B. We consolidated the terms, got investor alignment, and completed the process within 4 weeks, avoiding what would have been 8+ weeks of legal negotiation during the raise.
Financial Modeling & Scenario Planning
Most startups build a financial model once and stop. I build dynamic models that are:
- Actuals-linked: change your revenue, and projections recalculate; change your burn, and runway updates.
- Scenario-based: base case, optimistic case, and conservative case all live in one model.
- Metric-focused: not just P&L; includes cash flow, runway, unit economics, and key ratios.
- Investor-ready: assumptions clearly separated, key drivers highlighted, talking points prepared.
A ₹2 Cr revenue SaaS startup was raising Series A with a model showing profitability in Year 3 at ₹50 Cr revenue, assuming 100% YoY growth with zero churn. I rebuilt it with realistic assumptions (60% YoY, 5% churn, real customer acquisition costs). The profitability timeline extended and the acquisition math looked different. I also modeled hiring a VP Sales (₹40L + team ≈ ₹1 Cr/year) and showed the hire actually extended runway by improving unit economics. Without this modeling, it would have happened speculatively.
Due Diligence & Investor Readiness
Institutional investors conduct thorough financial due diligence: revenue quality, customer concentration risk, financial consistency across books and filings, statutory compliance, cap table clarity, and related party documentation. I run that same review internally before you fundraise:
- Revenue audit: trace material transactions to supporting contracts and payment evidence.
- Statutory compliance inventory: verify all required registers, check completeness, validate signatures.
- Financial consistency check: reconcile books to bank statements, validate GST returns, cross-check ITR filings.
- Cap table validation: confirm all allotments are documented, verify share certificates, validate investor terms.
- Related party mapping: identify all RP transactions, ensure documentation and board approvals.
Before fundraising, internal DD for one client uncovered a founder investment that was never properly documented (it looked like personal debt instead of equity), incomplete statutory registers (AGM minutes missing for a year), and undocumented related-party rent payments. We fixed all of it within 4 weeks. When actual investor diligence happened, it was a smooth process, not a minefield.
Tax Planning & Structuring
Tax planning is most effective when done during the business year, not after it’s closed.
- Income Tax: salary vs. dividend optimization, Section 80-IAC startup tax holiday eligibility (the ₹100 Cr turnover cap, the 7-year deduction window), capital gains treatment, and entity-level structuring (Pvt Ltd vs. LLP vs. Partnership vs. OPC).
- GST: rate classification across 5/12/18/28% slabs, input tax credit optimization, threshold vs. voluntary registration, and interstate supply treatment.
A founder was taking ₹2L monthly salary plus ₹50L annual dividend, with a tax outgo of ₹45L. We restructured to ₹1L salary plus ₹80L dividend, utilizing a corporate-level deduction that wasn’t being used. Tax dropped to ₹28L, an annual saving of ₹17L.
Virtual CFO Services (Fractional CFO)
I work with founders who need ongoing financial leadership but can't support a full-time CFO hire. The engagement includes:
- Monthly financial review: P&L analysis, cash flow assessment, variance explanation, runway calculation.
- Cash flow planning: forecasting when you’ll run out of cash, determining optimal fundraise timing, planning major expense decisions.
- Burn rate optimization: identifying inefficient expense lines, prioritizing cost cuts without compromising growth.
- Investor relations: board-ready financial dashboards, quarterly investor updates, annual performance summaries.
- Term sheet analysis: understanding valuation, liquidation preference and anti-dilution mechanics, and calculating the dilution waterfall across rounds.
- Strategic financial guidance: should you hire now, spend on marketing, build internally or outsource.
A founder running at ₹30L monthly burn thought he had 4 months of runway. Recalculation showed 2.5 months. We identified and cut two major expense lines (contractor overhead and SaaS subscriptions), bringing burn down to ₹20L. Runway extended to 5 months, enough extra time for better Series A negotiations instead of fundraising from a position of urgency. Estimated equity savings: ₹2–3 Cr in dilution.
Sector diversity matters.
A SaaS startup’s financial structure, tax considerations, and fundraise strategy are fundamentally different from a manufacturing business. I don’t apply one-size-fits-all frameworks.
How I think about the work.
Compliance is foundational, not strategic.
Every startup needs clean books, proper statutory compliance, and current regulatory filings. But compliance alone doesn't build a financially confident business. Strategy and rigor do.
Financial clarity enables better decisions.
When you know your runway down to the week, understand your unit economics precisely, and can see your cash flow six months forward, you make different decisions: faster, smarter decisions.
Proactive beats reactive.
Flagging a tax issue in month 6, when you can still restructure, is vastly different from discovering it at year-end audit when your options are limited. I prioritize early flagging.
Transparency and direct accountability.
I own your engagement end-to-end. You're not talking to multiple people across your file. You're talking to me. When something changes or action is needed, you hear it directly.