An Airwallex Program

Built a Multi-Tenant CFO Platform From Scratch With No Engineering Background

C TWO is an agentic management platform that sits above an organisation's automation tools as an independent orchestration layer, routing work across bots, AI agents, APIs, and people, and giving enterprises governance and visibility over the whole estate. Thorogood is a fractional CFO to venture-backed B2B SaaS businesses; working with C TWO, he set out to productise the finance and RevOps work-streams he had refined over 12 years in finance leadership.

With no engineering background, he built Illume, a multi-tenant CFO platform using Claude Code, covering three-statement financials, contract and ARR management, pipeline health and forecasting, headcount and opex planning, and board reporting. He designed, built, and shipped it himself.

The board pack that used to take a day and a half and several people to produce now generates in two clicks, for £0.13 in AI token cost.

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Robert Thorogood

C TWO

What Startup Finance 30 is

Finance is one of the most under-leveraged growth levers a startup has.

The best finance leaders don't just keep the books. They extend runway, structure capital that changes what a company can do next, and build the systems that let it scale across borders.

Startup Finance 30 is the first list built to recognise that work. Beginning in 2026 and continuing annually, we name 30 finance leaders at venture-backed, globally ambitious startups. The operators shaping how the next generation of companies grow.

Who's doing the most consequential finance work in the startup world right now?

This list is the answer.

FAQ

More information on how SF30 works.

Who's behind Startup Finance 30?

Startup Finance 30 is published by Airwallex. We built it because we work with globally ambitious companies every day, and the finance leaders driving that growth deserve more recognition than they get. Selection sits with the committee.

Who selects the final 30?

A committee of operating CFOs and finance leaders. They score every candidate against a five-part merit rubric and ratify the final list. See the full selection methodology.

Is there a fee? Can I pay to be included?

No. It's free to enter, and recognition is earned on merit.