Focus on your why, not your back office.
Built by operators who have grown businesses from zero to $100M+, through raises, expansions and exits.
Real support for Kiwi businesses from the inside out
Playdough is a Wellington‑based advisory firm built by people who’ve actually sat in your seat. We’ve led teams, managed tight cash cycles, navigated scrappy startup days, and carried the weight of decisions that mattered.
We’re not an accounting firm with polished marketing. We are operators who understand what it feels like to be responsible for the outcome.
We know the pressure founders and CEOs live with: the mental load, the late‑night decisions, the constant expectation to get it right. Our role is simple; step in, steady the ship, and give you the space to lead the parts of the business only you can.
We get inside your business, understand what’s really going on, and quietly fix the things that have been slowing you down.
Real world CFO experience, in the seat, not beside it.
Hundreds of M&A deals, local and global, worth more than $1 billion, including sector roll-ups and business turnarounds. More than $1 billion of capital and bank raisings, from the inside and out. Management buyouts and private equity investment. Scaling through M&A inside a Deloitte Fast 50 Master of Growth index business, in CFO seats from start-up to nearly 1,000 staff. Clients across agritech, SaaS and software, and deep tech products and services.
Want to know if we have the right experience for your situation? Just ask. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and recommend someone who is.
The problems that land on a $10M to $100M desk.
Where is my cash?
Revenue is up and the bank balance is down. Working capital is locked in stock, debtors and deposits.
Working capital cycles, funding structure and cash discipline that keeps pace with growth.
Build up your leaders
Your Finance Manager or Controller is good, but the step up to the bigger role is a lonely one.
We mentor and train them, building their IP and confidence so they can take on the bigger role without us.
Board packs eat days
Reporting chews days of senior time every month and still does not answer the board's actual questions.
Governance reporting that runs itself and says what matters, nothing else.
Key people are the system
The knowledge lives in three heads. One resignation and you are exposed.
Documented process and systems that survive handovers. Risk lifted off individuals.
The capital question
Raise, borrow or fund it yourself. Then the harder part: making every dollar you took on actually produce growth.
Diligence-ready numbers and support through the raise, then disciplined deployment: milestones, returns, and reporting your investors trust.
Expanding?
New markets look obvious until pricing, entities, currencies and reporting all multiply.
Structure, pricing and consolidated reporting for expansion, with the offshore side coordinated for you.
Systems at their limits
The stack that got you to $10M creaks at $30M. Month-end takes weeks and no one trusts one number.
Finance systems built for the next stage, automation where it pays, one clean view.
The exit horizon
A sale or succession sits three years out, and buyers only pay for what can be proven.
Sale readiness: governance, clean reporting, and a business that stands without you.
Our Fractional Services
We bring strong frameworks, but we shape them to fit your business.
We start by listening, understanding how things work today, and spotting where support will have the most impact. From there, we shape a service that fits, whether you need a few hours a week or a more hands‑on partnership.
Fractional CFO, COO, or back‑office support; whatever combination you need, we help lighten the load, bring clarity, and strengthen the parts of your business that matter most.
Fractional CFO - Steadying the Financial Core
We bring clarity to cash flow, forecasting, funding, profitability, and working capital. The focus is always on the real decisions that keep your business moving.
We specialise in:
- Working capital flow and cash cycles
- Prioritising resources and return on investment
- Margin clarity for product and service businesses
- Capital raising: equity, bank facilities and debt financing
- Pricing and structure for international expansion
- R&D and deep‑tech cash burn management
- Designing finance processes and workflows
- Defining in‑house roles and responsibilities
- Mentoring, building capability and accountability across your finance team
You get expert financial leadership without the full‑time cost, and a partner who has worked inside businesses, understands the pressure of financial uncertainty, and brings the clarity needed to move forward with confidence.
Fractional COO - Smoothing Operations & Building Momentum
We untangle workflows, align teams, and build operational systems that actually work. The approach is practical and human, shaped by real experience inside growing businesses.
We support:
- Operational flow and process design
- Team alignment and role clarity
- Coaching and mentoring for internal leaders
- Governance reporting and operational insight
- Supply‑chain and logistics rhythms
The result is smoother days, clearer roles, and a business that feels easier to run.
Holistic Business Consulting - For the Problems That Cross Every Department
At $10M to $100M the hardest problems stop fitting one job title. Growth stalls somewhere between sales, operations and finance, and nobody owns the whole picture. That is the work our consulting practice does.
The questions we take on:
- Where is the growth constraint? Diagnosis across customers, capacity and cash
- Why is margin shrinking as we grow? Customer journey and process mapping that finds where the cash leaks
- Will this decision break us? Scenario and risk frameworks for expansion, big hires, big contracts, M&A
- How do we depend less on a few people? Org design, role clarity and an operating rhythm that carries the load
- How do we get more cash from the same business? Systems and customer journeys built to produce it
Growth as one connected system: customers, people, systems and cash.
Two stages, one standard.
Scaling: $10M to $30M
Support that keeps pace with your growth
When growth speeds up, things get messy. Systems stretch, roles blur, and cash gets harder to see just as the stakes rise. We steady things and put structure around your next stage: reporting, forecasting, working capital control and role clarity.
We can lead your finance, operations or back-office work, or work alongside your team to lift capability. When it is time to bring roles in-house, we help you hire well and keep the IP inside your business.
Growing: $30M to $100M
Strengthen the foundations, protect the value
As businesses mature, new pressures show up. Key people hold too much knowledge, board packs eat days, capital gets locked up, and expansion or M&A plans demand more structure than the business has today.
We work alongside your team as senior finance and operational partners: coaching and mentoring your Finance Manager or Controller, building their IP and confidence so they can take on the bigger role without us.
Preparing for expansion, raising capital or getting the business sale ready, we bring the experience and the practical steps: diligence-ready numbers before the raise, then disciplined deployment after the money lands.
The result is a business that is provable, transferable and worth more.
Before $10M? Our Start-up team runs the journey to your first $10M.
Start-up servicesBoard and governance
Reporting directors trust, delivered on rhythm, in days not weeks.
Capital, raised and used well
Support through the raise, then discipline on how every dollar is deployed.
Group financial reporting
Consolidated, clean and comparable across every entity in the group.
Systems and simplification
Untangling the mess growth brings, with systems and customer journeys focused on producing more cash.
Sale and succession
A business that is provable, transferable and worth more.
Building your people
We mentor your Finance Manager or Controller so the capability stays in-house.
A period of change, then a monthly rhythm.
Fixed scope, clear outcomes, no open-ended clock
Every engagement starts with a defined period of change. We build or rebuild your financial model and reporting, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow as one, map your systems, and fix the things that have been quietly slowing you down.
You end the stage with a finance function you trust: budget versus actuals, scenario planning, a people plan, and one clean view of the business.
The rhythm that keeps you moving
Then we settle into a monthly partnership: board pack delivered in days, not weeks, a monthly performance review, budget versus actuals, forecasts refreshed, and scenarios run before the big decisions, not after.
Capital raising and deployment support, mentoring for your finance leaders, and senior heads on tap for the strategic projects in between.
Ready to start your period of change? It is scoped within two weeks.
Book a callFees
We provide the flexibility to choose the fee structure that works for you and your stage of growth. The compliance essentials sit on defined prices: our Core Accounting plans are fixed and published. We reply within one working day, and a period of change is scoped within two weeks.
See the Core Accounting plansDay Rate
Fixed
Retainer
Want a clearer picture of where things stand?
Tell us what you’re dealing with and we’ll suggest the simplest next step.
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