The Situation
The company was preparing the financial section of a Keiretsu investor diligence package. After internal review the launch plan had shifted: the first commercial unit was now a 2kW system instead of a 10kW system, with the 10kW and 100kW products pushed back roughly a year. The existing five-year plan didn’t reflect any of that.
The team had 48 hours to return the diligence document. They needed a CFO sign-off on a multi-year financial plan that would survive investor scrutiny — and on a deadline.
What CEI did
Rebuilt the five-year projection model around the new product launch sequence: monthly detail for year one, quarterly for year two, annual through year five — with the prior plan retained color-coded for investor traceability.
Rebuilt COGS from first principles: in-house cell stack assembly, outsourced fabrication with markup, salary build by headcount and title, sensitivity ranges on material and labor cost decline curves.
Held the operating plan to the agreed targets — 40–60% gross margin band on initial units, $5M loss target in year one, $20M total losses through year three — aligning the fundraise ask with what the operating plan could actually deliver.
Reset the path to profitability honestly: kept the 10kW and 100kW units as the scale story, acknowledged year-four profitability as the realistic target, and gave investors the assumptions to pressure-test.
48 Hours
Plan Rebuilt to Deadline
40 - 60%
Gross Margin Band Held
Defensible
Plan Investor-Ready
The investor diligence package went out on the agreed timeline with a plan the engineering, sales, and finance functions all signed. Margin and loss targets came out of the operating plan, not backed into the fundraise. The scale story stayed intact — pushed back, not abandoned.
In Their Words
“We needed a finance function that could rebuild the plan when the engineering plan changed — not pretend the old one still worked. CEI did that on the deadline we had.”
— Founder | Confidential Client