Why This Standard
Exists
A gap in the market. A generation of founders making consequential financial decisions without a reference point.
The problem
Institutional investors expect a level of financial sophistication from early-stage founders that most founders have never been shown how to meet. The frameworks, vocabularies, and standards that govern financial practice inside established companies do not exist in an accessible form for founders who are building their first company, managing their first cap table, or preparing for their first institutional raise.
The result is a persistent, structural gap. Founders arrive at investor conversations with models that are technically functional but institutionally inadequate, not because they lack intelligence or commitment, but because no one has defined what adequate looks like. Investors screen out companies for financial weaknesses that are entirely correctable, had the founders known earlier what the standard required.
This is not a problem of education. Founders do not need to be taught finance. They need a clear, authoritative reference point that defines what financial infrastructure a serious company should have, at each stage, across each domain, so they can build to it.
The response
The Founder Financial Infrastructure Standard is the codification of what sophisticated operators and investors already know but which has never been organised into a single, publicly accessible framework. It does not invent new financial concepts. It assembles existing best practice into a coherent standard, applies it specifically to the early-stage context, and defines compliance criteria that are testable and improvable.
It is designed to be used by founders as a self-assessment and planning tool, by investors as a shared vocabulary for portfolio expectations, and by advisors as the framework against which client work is delivered.
Mission
To define and advance the standard for financial infrastructure in early-stage companies, globally.
Maintained by
The FFI Standard was developed and is maintained by The Oakworth Group, a financial infrastructure advisory firm serving early-stage companies from pre-seed through Series B. The standard is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, meaning it is free to use, cite, adapt, and distribute for any purpose, provided attribution is given.
The Oakworth Group does not charge for access to the standard and does not monetise citations or derivatives. The standard's value is in its adoption. The wider it is used, the more useful it becomes.
Contact
For questions about the standard, proposals for the advisory panel, or enquiries about contributing to future versions:
For advisory services, visit theoakworthgroup.com