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Jim Shirley, founder of FundingHero, brings over two decades of financial expertise and insight to the world of fundraising. With an exciting career reaching the role of CFO, Jim has successfully navigated the challenges of rapidly scaling businesses, raising millions in funding, building five finance functions, and working on over 20 acquisitions and integrations. His biggest achievements include the successful rapid growth and eventual exit of two multi-award-winning companies to billion-dollar overseas organisations. In 2022, Jim embarked on his newest endeavour with FundingHero®, driven by a singular mission: to simplify fundraising and pave the way for startup founders to thrive and scale with the funding they need. His acclaimed work, "The Startup Fundraising MBA," which showcases his unique 6 Pillars of Fundraising™. was inspired from his time as CFO with a London-based tech startup venture studio, who had a large portfolio of tech startups, each aiming to raise their first few funding rounds. Jim quickly identified a pattern of challenges. Due to there being no formal investment readiness process, there was consistently a large gap in founders understanding of the investment readiness process. This was impacted further from a lack of strategic financial planning due to the inability for founders to access the right financial advice that a CFO can provide at such a vital stage in their journey. This meant founders where chasing the wrong amounts from the wrong investors at the wrong time with the wrong investment materials. Recognising these recurring challenges and the vicious cycle founders fell into, it eventually inspired the idea behind FundingHero®: offering early-stage founders CFO-level insights paired with a step-by-step guide to streamline their investment journey, to save time and get their critical funding faster.