CFO / Capital Markets Co-Founder — Equity Only, UK-Based Only | Fintech Pre-Seed

Founding CFO / Capital Markets Co-Founder — Equity Only, UK-Based Only | Fintech Pre-Seed

Chipin is building the upgrade infrastructure that helps independent UK electronics retailers retain customers across successive device purchases.

Read this first: equity only, no salary until the round closes. UK-based candidates only — no exceptions. If you're not currently in the UK, or you need salary or day-rate income now, this isn't the right fit — better to say so clearly than waste your time. Applicants must already have the right to work in the UK — we're not able to offer visa sponsorship.

The opportunity

Independent UK electronics retailers sell a device once, then lose the customer at upgrade — usually 24 months later — to Amazon, Currys, or the carriers. Chipin closes that loop: retailers keep the customer relationship through the full device cycle, and the upgrade moment becomes a reason to return, not a reason to leave.

The current proposed structure is designed to minimise Chipin's balance-sheet exposure and remain retailer-first — the details below are the working assumption, not a final decision, and will be tested and revised with the finance co-founder and prospective funding partners:

The initial working assumption is that the finance partner holds the consumer hire agreement; the ownership and funding structure for subsequent cycles remains to be designed

Chipin provides the technology and the retailer channel; the finance partner funds the device

At upgrade, the returned device is valued against the agreed residual and offsets the outstanding first-cycle position — the allocation of any shortfall or surplus, and the funding route into a subsequent re-lease cycle, will form part of the pilot structure

ChipIn is a conditional upgrade credit — not a loan, not interest-bearing, not underwriting. The precise funding split across platform economics, finance pricing, and retailer contribution will be agreed through the pilot structure

Current position

Chipin is pre-seed and pre-revenue. Work completed to date:

Business model and device-cohort unit economics developed, with assumptions ready for lender validation and downside testing

Working checkout architecture and server-side state machine built and demo-ready

Retailer and finance-partner propositions defined

A scored target pipeline of prospective retailers and finance partners, with outreach underway

Investor materials in development

The role

You will run the financial architecture for the first device cohorts:

Designing the funding structure for the first device cohorts

Determining the right split between equity, debt, asset finance, and partner-funded capital

Leading conversations with specialty lenders, consumer-finance providers, and institutional funding partners

Developing the financial model into a lender- and investor-ready operating model

Preparing capital forecasts, liquidity scenarios, cohort economics, and downside cases

Defining the structure for device ownership, residual-value exposure, and future funding vehicles

Leading the equity fundraising process alongside the founder

Initial screening

To keep initial screening focused on direct execution experience, reply to this post on LinkedIn with four details: one facility or funding transaction of £5m or more that you personally worked on, which side you represented, what you personally negotiated or executed, and approximately when. Please keep the first message to those four details — CVs and broader background can follow if there's a match.

Also non-negotiable:

Immediately available, working daily, and reliably in touch. No notice period, no fractional arrangement, no "alongside my current build." This isn't about being reachable around the clock — it's about frequent, regular contact and steady progress. If something is agreed, it gets done; if you go quiet on me for a week with no word, that's a problem, not a working style.

No commission, in any form. Percentage of the raise, finder's fee, "advisory success fee" — the answer is no, however it's phrased.

Essential background

15+ years senior experience in lending, capital markets, asset finance, consumer credit, or investment banking

Direct experience negotiating or structuring facilities, funding rounds, or lending arrangements — not observing them

Personally led or played a lead role in an equity fundraise — not just facility/debt deals

Startup or early-stage company experience — as a founder, co-founder, or senior early operator, not as an adviser or observer

Working knowledge of consumer credit risk: default and arrears behaviour, collections, and how loss provisioning plays out in a live book

Experience with leasing or asset-finance structures — residual value setting, end-of-term outcomes, and how funders price and recover against returned assets

Experience working with regulated consumer-credit or consumer-hire businesses and their legal, compliance, and funding constraints

UK-based, available to start immediately, with existing right to work in the UK — no visa sponsorship offered

One more thing worth saying plainly

There's no fixed playbook here — no finance team, no existing process, no precedent to follow. You'll be building the funding structure, the lender relationships, and the fundraising process from nothing, in real time, while the model itself is still being tested. If you need an established framework to operate inside, this will be a frustrating role. If building the structure is the interesting part for you, this is the job.

What's on offer

Meaningful co-founder equity. The equity stake, role, initial responsibilities, and vesting schedule will be agreed upfront. You'd be shaping the capital structure of the company from the ground up, not managing an existing one.

A last word

This ad is deliberately hard to pass — I've learned that the easy way to waste both our time is to make it easy to apply. If you clear all of this, I'd genuinely like to talk. I've built the product and the model myself; what's missing is someone who's actually lived on the other side of a lending desk and wants to build something real, not manage something that already exists.