The Backbone — Episode 27: Raising a $27M Financing Round & Managing the Ever-Changing Priorities as CFO
Dave Pooley, Chief Financial Officer at Axonify
On this episode of The Backbone I chat with Dave Pooley, CFO at Axonify.
Joining me on this episode of the Backbone is Dave Pooley, CFO at Axonify — a provider of an employee knowledge platform intended to help companies shake-up learning and empower people with the knowledge that they need to drive measurable business results.
Dave oversees the Finance & Accounting functions at Axonify. He began his career in public accounting and has since gone on to work at several successful technology and innovation firms. Dave specializes in working with early-stage technology companies and helping them grow effectively and efficiently, driving value to become sustainable long-term successes. His key strengths include a passion for growing an early-stage company in a capital efficient manner while helping to drive and support the sales functions using data-driven insights and legal expertise. Dave obtained his CPA, CA designation while working in public accounting in Banff, Alberta. He also holds a Honors Business Degree from Wilfrid Laurier University.
On this episode of The Backbone, I chat with Dave about:
- His journey into technology with stints at Miovision, Fibernetrics and Kitchener-Waterloo based accelerator, Communitech, prior to joining Axonify.
- Axonify and what its all about.
- Serving the enterprise market and what that means what considerations the finance leader has to make, including the size of investment round and choosing the right investor.
- Managing the ever-changing priorities as the CFO, and how priorities change in a smaller organization to a larger one.
- The importance of the finance function at a technology company.
We close things off with a quickfire round:
- Your go to online resource for all things startup finance related
- Your favourite productivity hack
- Tech jargon that makes you cringe
- The best advise you’ve received
- One thing you don’t leave the office before finishing
Take a listen:
Be sure to check out The Backbone on the web:
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes / Google Play!
Check out previous episodes of The Backbone
Special Feature: Exploring a New & Revolutionary Revenue Model for Education w/ Austen Allred, Co-Founder and CEO of Lambda School
Episode 26: Lessons Learned from Raising $32M Growth Round + the Symbiotic Relationship Between Finance & Operations w/ Samiksha Khanna, VP Finance and Operations at Uberflip
Episode 25: Correlating Non-Financial Metrics into Financial Outcomes + Balancing Ad-load & Revenue Generated Through Sponsored Content w/ Trisha Egberts, Finance Manager at Figure1
Episode 24: Learnings from Starting and Shutting Down a Startup + Balancing Multiple Product Stakeholders w/ Mark Jarvie, VP Finance at Drop
Episode 23: Learnings from Raising/Exiting $700M+ in Deal Value for Software + Hardware and the Importance of a People-First Approach in Finance w/ David Brennan, Chief Financial Officer at Ecobee
Episode 22: Raising $47M from Strategic vs Traditional VC & the Level of Finance Leader to Hire at Each Stage of a Company’s Evolution w/ Danielle Cerisano, VP Finance at League
Episode 21: Using Analytics and Predictive Models to Improve Budgeting + the Role of Attribution in Assessing Digital Marketing ROI w/ Emma Lyndon, CFO at Canopy Labs
Episode 20: Considerations for CAC and Churn in a Self-Serve Pricing Model w/ Matt Dove, VP Finance at Celtx
Episode 19: The Journey of Raising $100M ICO (Initial Coin Offering) as a Venture-Backed Unicorn w/ Brandon Brunet, Controller at Kik
Episode 18: Bootstrapped to $12M Series A & What it Means for the Finance Function w/ Jennifer Pollock, Director of Finance & Operations at RateHub
Episode 17: The Added Complexities of Hardware Tech Companies & How to Price a New Medical Device w/ Travis Phung, Director of Finance & Administration at Exact Imaging
Episode 16: Monetizing a Free Product & Navigating Complexities of the Financial Services Space w/ Brian Wu, Finance Lead at Borrowell
Episode 15: Serving the Restaurant Industry & Breaking Into Tech in a Finance Capacity w/ Rob Curcio, Director of Finance at TouchBistro
Episode 14: Scaling the Finance Function, Fundraising, Making Acquisitions & Operationalizing Metrics w/ Ryan Magee, Chief Financial Officer at Cority
Episode 13: Serving the SMB Market at a Publicly Traded Software Company vs a High-Growth Startup w/ Darren Wood, Director of Finance & Operations at Jobber
Episode 12: Leading Finance at NPOs to High Growth Tech & Bootstrapping vs Raising Venture Capital w/ Anthony Scolaro, VP Finance & Operations at Lucova
Episode 11: Raising $17M Series A Round & What it Means to be ‘Venture-Backed’ w/ Frank Jessop, Director of Finance, Sensibill
Episode 10: Vendor Selection Considerations & Viewing the Finance Function from an Engineering Perspective w/ Gerti Dervishi, VP Finance at Flybits
Episode 9: The Process of Acquiring Companies as a Startup & Best Practices for Investor Relations w/ Ryan Levenberg, VP Finance at Q4 Systems Inc.
Episode 8: Raising VC Funding to Executing an $110M Acquisition + Demystifying the Progressive Roles of the Finance Leader within a Startupw/ Dwayne Walker, CFO at LookbookHQ
Episode 7: Going Through an Acquisition of an eCommerce Company & Keeping Both Sides of a Marketplace Happy w/ Elena Armstrong, Co-Founder & VP Finance at Exact Media
Episode 6: From Finance to Founding an IoT Startup & Bootstrapping vs. Raising Venture Capital w/ Sacha Sawaya, Co-Founder and CFO at Litmus Automation
Episode 5: Difference Between Being an Advisor vs Finance Leader for Tech Startups & When to Raise Capital w/ Eugene Bomba, CFO & VP Operations at ThoughtWire
Episode 4: Transitioning from Professional Services to Finance Leader of Pre-Revenue Tech Startup w/ Chris Parkes, CFO at NuraLogix
Episode 3: Why Finance & Operations go Together & Dealing with the Highly Regulated Financial Services Industry w/ Leen Li, Head of Finance at Wealthsimple
Episode 2: How Finance Scales Growing from 25 to 200+ Employees & Transfer Pricing w/ Les Cullen, Director Finance & Operations at TopHat
Episode 1: Managing Churn & Being Private Equity Backed w/ Daniel Israelsohn, VP Finance & Operations at Firmex
The Backbone is a podcast hosted by Shubham Datta, that explores the journey inside finance at a startup. Each episode features a finance leader (Director/VP, Finance or CFO) that:
- shares their story of how they entered the world of startups,
- explains what their company does
- describes unique challenges he/she faces in their role
