Founder Relief: How a 30-Person Deep-Tech Company Got Its CEO Back

The situation

Molabo is a Munich-based deep-tech company with over 30 employees — an established team of developers, a sales function, and a founder leadership team. The finance function, by contrast, had not kept pace. There was no reporting cadence, no structured processes, and no one with the seniority or bandwidth to run the numbers properly. The managing directors were picking up the slack.

By the time Peak Consulting was brought in, the CEO was effectively doing two jobs. The finance function was consuming time that should have gone to growth, partnerships, and leadership.

What we did

The first phase was structural: simplifying finance processes, building a proper reporting rhythm, and introducing shareholder reporting so investors had visibility without the CEO acting as the intermediary. Once the basics were in order, the engagement expanded. Leigh led a year-long initiative to identify and secure a new strategic investor — a process that required senior CFO leadership, not just finance management. Later, he also took over full responsibility for legal matters, removing another layer of operational burden from the founding team.

The result

The managing directors stopped running the back office and started running the business. Finance had structure. Investors had regular, reliable reporting. The legal function had an owner. And the CFO work — including the strategic investor process — was handled by someone whose job it was to handle it.

This is the most common pattern we see: a company that has outgrown its informal finance arrangements, where the cost is measured not in errors but in leadership time. The fix is not complicated. It just requires bringing in the right person at the right level.