Startup financial model
No investor takes a forecast at face value. They dig into how you got there.
You set the drivers (customers, price, churn, hires, costs, rounds) and it builds five years from them, month by month. Change one input and the month your cash runs out moves on the dashboard. Italian payroll costs, three scenarios and a cap table from the SAFE to the Series A are already wired in.
Excel and Google SheetsGuide in English and ItalianInstant download
The fictional company pre-filled in the workbook. Run its downside case and the cash runs dry in month 33.
Where you are
Your spreadsheet made sense when you built it. Now someone who wasn’t there has to read it.
The growth rate came from one good month. Salaries went in at their gross figure. The SAFE sits in a note, and nobody has worked out what it converts into.
An investor opens the file without any of that context. Every number has to point back to where it came from. And the cap table? It has to match the cash.
What a first model tends to leave out.
What investors check
Three facts to build the model around.
The next round is far away
On Carta, the median time from seed to Series A was 2.2 years in 2025. Carta’s own warning: planning to raise every 18 months is planning to fail. The model runs for 60 months.
SAFEs are post-money now
Carta’s figures for Q2 2026: 91% of SAFEs were post-money. Across the first half, 21% of the post-money ones had a cap and a discount together. The cap table converts them the way the Y Combinator form does.
A hire costs more than the salary
PwC puts employer social contributions in Italy at about 30% of gross pay. Add 6.91% for TFR, and the 13th and 14th salaries that leave the bank in December and June.
The real price
What an untested model really costs you.
Your company
CB Insights looked at 431 VC-backed startups that have shut down since 2023. In 70% of them, running out of money was one of the reasons. A model that names the month gives you time to act on it.
Your ownership
The median founding team keeps about 56% of its company after the seed and 36% after the Series A, according to Carta. The round simulator shows your number before you negotiate.
Your forecast
Dave Berkus, author of the Berkus valuation method, believes fewer than one startup in a thousand meets its projected revenues in the periods planned. Investors know it, so they test the drivers.
Where you want to be
Now picture the second meeting.
The partner asks: what if growth comes in a third slower and the round slips? You flip to the downside. Cash runs out in month 33, a month before the Series A, and you’ve already worked out the fix. And the conversation turns to your market.
Each figure in your deck leads back to one cell. The cap table and the cash flow agree because they’re fed by the same inputs.
What’s inside
One workbook, two guides.
The financial model
Revenue, team, costs and funding flow into the P&L and cash flow. Then come unit economics, scenarios, the cap table and a dashboard, 60 months each. Real formulas, one input colour and seven built-in checks.
The guide
First the build, step by step. Then the real cost of Italian payroll and how a SAFE converts. After that, the ten minutes an investor spends reading a model, ten mistakes and a worked example. Every source is dated.
La guida
The same guide in Italian. Give it to your accountant, your team or an Italian co-founder.
README
What you’ve got, which edition, and the licence.
From the workbook
The dashboard, for the example company.
Esempio S.r.l. doesn’t exist. It’s pre-filled in the file so that no sheet opens empty. The numbers here come from its base case.
Dashboard · five-year summary · fictional company
| € thousands | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 115 | 1,428 | 5,011 |
| Gross margin | 70.2% | 77.0% | 79.5% |
| EBITDA | (348) | (746) | (116) |
| Cash at year end | 376 | 4,170 | 3,277 |
| Headcount | 6 | 25 | 40 |
| LTV ÷ paid CAC | 3.8x | 3.9x | 4.1x |
30% fewer organic customers, churn 30% higher and rounds three months late: cash runs out in September 2029, month 33, one month before the Series A.
The founders hold 47.6% at the end. That’s after a €300k SAFE (€3M cap, 20% discount), a €1.2M seed and a €4M Series A. The SAFE converts at its cap, €0.27 a share against €0.378 at the seed.
A developer on €42,000 gross costs €57,502 a year with employer contributions and TFR. The 13th and 14th salaries leave the bank in December and June.
From the seed to the Series A the company spends €2.3M: 47% on sales and marketing, 27% on product. The table is ready for the deck.
Fictional company. Figures from the workbook’s base case unless stated.
The model
One download, ready in ten minutes.
€129
Instant download after payment
Buy nowOpen the file, give it ten minutes, and the dashboard shows the month your own cash runs out.
- The workbook and both guides in one download
- October 2026 edition, sources dated
- Licence for your own company or companies
- Questions and feedback at info@adaxit.com
How it works
Three steps, no waiting.
Buy
Pay at checkout by card or PayPal.
Download
The files download right after payment, and a copy of the link is emailed to you.
Start here
Open the workbook’s first sheet and follow the ten-minute setup. Italian instructions are on the Istruzioni sheet.
Why Adaxit
Built the way an analyst reads a model.
Adaxit is a small advisory firm in Milan. We’ve been getting startups and SMEs ready to raise since 2019, which means decks, models, valuation logic and data rooms. Here, the model part comes as a file you run yourself.
Italian payroll, properly
Employer contributions, TFR, the 13th and 14th salaries: each one hits cash in the month it’s actually paid. Every default has its source written beside the cell.
Checked twice
Every formula was recalculated and compared with an independent calculation, for all three business models and all three scenarios.
SAFE to Series A
Post-money SAFE conversion with cap and discount, the option pool shuffle and a round simulator, driven by the same inputs as the cash flow.
Plain about limits
An educational planning tool, not legal, tax or investment advice. Adaxit does not provide investment services.
Honest fit
Is it for you?
It’s for you if
- You’re preparing a round, from pre-seed to Series A, and need a model you can defend.
- Your business is a subscription, a marketplace or an online shop.
- You hire in Italy, or want a model that gets Italian payroll right.
It’s not for you if
- You need statutory accounts, a valuation report or tax advice.
- You’d rather have the model built or reviewed for you: see the financial model service.
Questions
Before you buy.
How do I receive the files?
As soon as you’ve paid, you can download them. A copy of the link also goes to your inbox.
What about Google Sheets?
Works fine. Drop the file into Google Drive and open it with Sheets, or import it. There are no macros in it, and it doesn’t link to any other file. Charts may look a bit different.
My company isn’t Italian. Is it still useful?
Yes. Set employer contributions to your country’s rate, salary payments to 12 and the two tax rates to yours. The revenue engine, cash flow, scenarios and cap table don’t depend on the country.
Where does the 30% employer cost come from?
It’s PwC’s figure, from the Worldwide Tax Summaries for Italy (reviewed July 2026): roughly 30% of gross pay falls on the employer. Yours will vary with the contract, the sector and the size of the company, so you can edit it for the whole company or one person at a time.
Will it give me a valuation?
No. It shows the price per share, dilution and ownership for the terms you enter. What an investor will pay is settled in the negotiation.
Can my co-founder use it?
Yes, anyone inside your company can. The licence is for your own company or companies. Just don’t resell the files, and don’t post them publicly.
Rules change. What then?
Every file carries its date; this one’s the October 2026 edition. Rates and rules do change. Before relying on one, check with your accountant or payroll consultant that it applies to you.
Your next round
Give it ten minutes and your runway’s on the screen. Then let the investor ask.
Download the workbook. Replace the example with your figures. Then read the dashboard, which shows the month your cash runs out, the runway at each round and the stake the founders keep.
Would you rather we built or checked it for you? See the financial model serviceSources: Carta, time between rounds for AI and non-AI companies, July 2025 (median 2.2 years from seed to Series A in 2025; “planning to raise VC money every 18 months is planning to fail”); Carta, SAFE valuation caps Q2 2026, 25 August 2026 (91% post-money in Q2; 21% of post-money SAFEs with a cap and a discount in the first half); PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Italy, last reviewed 23 July 2026 (employer social contributions about 30% of gross pay); Civil Code art. 2120 and Law 297/1982 art. 3 (TFR: pay divided by 13.5, less 0.50%); Leggioggi, 24 June 2025 (14th salary under the Confcommercio terziario contract); CB Insights, “The top 9 reasons startups fail”, 5 March 2026 (70% of 431 shutdowns); Carta Founder Ownership Report, 12 March 2026 (about 56% after the seed, 36% after the Series A); Dave Berkus, “The Berkus Method” (his opinion: fewer than one in a thousand startups meet or exceed projected revenues in the periods planned); Y Combinator, Post-Money Safe User Guide, version 1.2. All read on 7 October 2026. The example company and its figures are fictional.