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.
The Standard
The FFI Standard covers seven domains of financial infrastructure, organised into seven Books. Each Book defines what must exist within its domain, at three compliance levels, with specific and testable criteria. The seven Books cover financial architecture, performance modeling and forecasting, capital structure and equity, valuation, investor readiness, and strategic financial planning, with Book 0 establishing the foundational definitions, principles, and taxonomies that govern all others.
The Standard applies to any company at pre-incorporation stage or later that is building, maintaining, or evaluating its financial infrastructure, regardless of legal entity type, jurisdiction, funding status, or company type. It is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International and may be freely used, cited, adapted, and distributed with attribution.
Mission
To define and advance the standard for financial infrastructure in early-stage companies, globally.
Governance
The FFI Standard is currently maintained by The Oakworth Group under a single-organisation governance model. The Standard follows a three-tier versioning policy: errata versions correct factual errors, minor versions update benchmarks and clarify requirements, and major versions make structural changes. From version 2.0 onward, major versions will be subject to review by an independent advisory panel before publication. The composition and governance of that panel will be published with the version 2.0 release.
The versioning policy is set out in full in Book 0, Section 0.2.
Maintained By
The FFI Standard was developed and is maintained by The Oakworth Group, a financial infrastructure advisory firm based in the United Kingdom.
The Oakworth Group
5 Brayford Square
London, E1 0SG
United Kingdom
The Oakworth Group does not charge for access to the Standard and does not monetise citations or derivatives. The Standard is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. It may be freely used, cited, adapted, and distributed for any purpose, provided attribution is given to the Founder Financial Infrastructure Standard and The Oakworth Group.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments will be published with version 1.0 following the close of the beta review period. Practitioners who contribute feedback during the Beta v0.5 review period will be acknowledged at that time.
Feedback on any section of the Standard may be submitted to standard@ffistandard.org with reference to the specific Book and section number.