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Financial Modelling
1 course
Building Your First Financial Model in Excel
Financial modelling is one of the most in-demand skills for finance freshers, but most people learn it by copying templates without understanding why they work. This course starts from zero: what a model actually is, the Excel habits that separate a clean model from a broken one, and how the three financial statements fit together. By the end, you will have the foundation to build and audit your own models with confidence.
- What a financial model is actually used for in real finance roles
- Modelling conventions: colour coding, structure and auditability
- The Excel functions and habits every modeller relies on
Corporate Finance
41 courses
Building a Corporate Bond Issuance Cost Comparison Model
A hands-on build for treasury teams, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy professionals who need to decide how to raise debt in India. The coupon is only the headline: arranger fees, credit ratings, stamp duty, debenture trustee and listing charges, the recovery expense fund, GST and ongoing surveillance costs all move the real number. This course maps every cost line for a listed NCD issue on the NSE and BSE EBP platforms, then builds an Excel model from scratch that turns those costs into an all-in pre-tax and post-tax cost using IRR and XIRR. It then adds term loans, commercial paper and ECBs with hedging, compares them side by side, stress-tests the answer across rating, tenor and issue size, and closes with a full case study and a board-ready recommendation.
- Why the coupon understates the true cost of a bond and how to calculate the all-in cost
- Every upfront and ongoing cost line in an Indian NCD issue, from arranger fees to the recovery expense fund
- How to build a bond cash flow schedule and compute all-in cost with IRR and XIRR in Excel
Building a Foreign Exchange Hedging Tracker in Excel
A hands-on build for treasury and finance teams, growth-stage founders with import or export exposure, and strategy teams who need to see what a rupee move does to the plan. Starts with how FX risk actually hits an Indian company's P&L, the three types of exposure, the hedging instruments available onshore, and the RBI framework that governs who can hedge what. Then builds a working Excel tracker from a blank workbook: an exposure register, a forward contract hedge book, and reference rates from FBIL and forward premium data. From there it covers mark-to-market valuation, hedge ratios, currency options and NSE/BSE currency futures, and realised versus unrealised gains on settlement, before closing with a treasury dashboard, rupee stress scenarios, Ind AS 109 hedge accounting basics, and the controls that keep the tracker audit-ready.
- How transaction, translation and economic FX exposure show up in an Indian company's numbers
- Which hedging instruments Indian businesses can use and the RBI rules that govern them
- How to build an exposure register and forward contract hedge book in Excel from scratch
Building a Simple Cap Table Using Excel or Carta
A hands-on walkthrough for anyone who has been handed cap table ownership without a finance background: HR and L&D teams issuing ESOPs, treasury and finance-adjacent staff maintaining ownership records, and startup founders tracking their own equity. Starts with what a cap table actually is and the terms that trip people up (authorized vs issued vs outstanding vs fully diluted), then builds one from scratch in Excel, layering in founder equity, an ESOP pool with vesting, and convertible instruments like CCPS and SAFEs. From there it covers how a priced funding round changes the numbers and how to model dilution across rounds, before closing with when and how to move the whole thing into Carta and keep it audit-ready.
- What a cap table is and the ownership terms every stakeholder should know
- How to build a cap table from scratch in Excel, step by step
- How to model an ESOP pool, vesting schedules, and convertible instruments like CCPS and SAFEs
Building a Term Sheet Negotiation Checklist and Tracker
A hands-on course for the people who actually sit across the table when an Indian company raises money or takes a strategic investment: growth-stage founders, CFOs and treasury teams, and corporate strategy and BD teams. Starts by breaking an Indian term sheet into its economic, control and regulatory terms, including CCPS structures, FEMA pricing rules and the clauses that survive into the shareholders' agreement. Then builds two working tools in Google Sheets or Excel: a negotiation checklist that records the market standard, your position and your walk-away point for every clause, and a tracker that logs redlines, owners, status and conditions precedent across every draft. Closes with how to sequence concessions, manage multiple investors, carry the tracker through the SHA and SSA, and turn it into a post-closing compliance calendar.
- How to read an Indian term sheet clause by clause and separate economic terms from control terms
- How to build a negotiation checklist with market standard, target position and walk-away point for every clause
- How to model liquidation preference and anti-dilution outcomes in a spreadsheet before you agree to them
Building an FP&A Dashboard Using Excel and Power BI
A hands-on, India-specific course for finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who need a monthly management dashboard that people actually use. Start by choosing the right FP&A KPIs and designing the dashboard on paper. Pull ledger data out of Tally, Zoho Books or an ERP, map it to a clean chart of accounts, and shape it with Power Query while handling the April to March financial year and lakhs and crores formatting. Build budget vs actual variance analysis, driver-based rolling forecasts and a one-page Excel dashboard. Then move to Power BI: model finance data as a star schema, build a fiscal-year date table, and write the DAX measures FP&A needs, from YTD and prior-year comparisons to budget variances. Finish by designing P&L, cash and working capital pages, adding drill-through and bookmarks for management reviews, publishing with scheduled refresh and row-level security, and building a full monthly FP&A pack for an Indian D2C brand.
Case Study: A Corporate's FX Hedging Strategy During Rupee Volatility
A decision-by-decision case study built for CFOs and treasury teams, growth-stage founders with dollar revenue or dollar costs, and corporate strategy and BD teams who need to understand what currency risk does to a plan. We follow an illustrative Indian mid-sized manufacturer that exports in dollars, imports raw material in dollars and carries a foreign currency loan, through a period of sharp rupee depreciation. Start by mapping its transaction, translation and economic exposure and seeing exactly how a rupee move flows into margins, covenants and cash. Then build the board-approved hedging policy, price a forward from interest rate parity, compare bank forwards, NSE currency futures, options and cross-currency swaps, and work through the RBI rules that govern who can hedge what. Walk through the volatility episode one decision point at a time, then close with Ind AS 109 hedge accounting, a hedged versus unhedged scorecard, the mistakes Indian corporates have made with exotic structures, and a playbook your own treasury can adopt.
- How to map a company's transaction, translation and economic FX exposure and net it before hedging anything
- How to write a hedging policy with clear objectives, hedge ratio bands, tenor limits, approved instruments and counterparty limits
- How to price a USD/INR forward from interest rate parity and read the forward premium as a cost or a gain
Case Study: How Zomato Structured Its Series G Round Before IPO
A deal-structuring case study built around Zomato's September 2015 Series G, the $60 million round led by Temasek with existing investor Vy Capital. Start with why a restaurant discovery app burning cash across more than 20 countries needed late-stage capital, then open up the term sheet: why foreign investors in India take compulsorily convertible preference shares instead of plain equity, how liquidation preferences and anti-dilution clauses protect them, and how pre-money, post-money and the ESOP pool shape the fully diluted cap table. Trace how those protections behaved through the valuation markdowns of 2016 and 2017, the pivot to food delivery, the Ant Financial rounds, the share-swap acquisition of Uber Eats India and the Tiger Global era rounds of 2020 and 2021. Then watch the clean-up: conversion to a public company, the bonus issue, CCPS conversion under SEBI ICDR rules, listing with no identified promoter, and the ESOP rework. Close by working out the multiple each round earned at the IPO price and building a pre-IPO structuring playbook. Written for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy teams.
- Explain why late-stage foreign investors in Indian startups hold CCPS rather than equity shares, and what FEMA pricing rules require
- Model how a liquidation preference and a weighted average anti-dilution clause change payouts and share counts
- Build a fully diluted cap table across pre-money, post-money and ESOP pool changes
Case Study: How a Company Restructured Debt During a Downturn
Most companies do not die from losses. They die when debt falls due and there is no cash to pay it. Suzlon Energy is the clearest Indian example of a company that hit that wall, twice, and survived. This case study follows the Pune wind turbine maker from its debt-funded global expansion through the downturn that followed, the 2012 foreign currency convertible bond default, the Corporate Debt Restructuring package, the sale of its German crown jewel, a second restructuring under RBI's prudential framework, and finally the rights issue, QIP and refinancing that made it net debt free. Along the way you learn the full restructuring toolkit: maturity extension, repricing, moratoriums, debt to equity conversion, asset sales, fresh equity and refinancing, plus the early warning signals that tell a finance team when to act. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who want to understand how debt stress actually gets resolved in India, not just how it is described in a textbook.
- Tell the difference between a liquidity problem and a solvency problem, and why the fix for each is different
- Trace how an acquisition-led, debt-funded expansion turned into a crisis once the wind energy cycle turned
- Read the stress signals in financial statements: interest cover, debt to EBITDA, working capital days and refinancing walls
Case Study: How a Growth Stage Startup Built Its First FP&A Function
Most Indian startups hit Series B with a good accountant, a CA firm for compliance and no one whose job is to look forward. This case study follows a composite Bengaluru D2C home brand, roughly ₹120 crore in revenue, from the board meeting where its cash runway turned out to be months shorter than anyone thought, to a working FP&A function eighteen months later. You will see how the founders defined what FP&A should and should not do, when and whom they hired, how they fixed a messy chart of accounts and month-end close in Tally and Zoho Books, and which unit economics they chose to track. Then you will walk through the core models they built: a driver-based operating model, a 13-week cash flow forecast and scenario-based runway planning. Finally you will see the operating rhythm that made it stick, from the first annual operating plan to monthly business reviews, variance analysis and the board pack, and finish with the mistakes, trade-offs and a playbook you can apply to your own company.
- What FP&A does in a growth stage company and how it differs from accounting and compliance
- When to hire the first FP&A person, what profile to look for and where the role should report
- How to fix the data foundations: chart of accounts, month-end close and a single source of truth
Case Study: How a Startup Valued Its ESOP Pool Before a Funding Round
Almost every Indian Series A term sheet carries one line that quietly moves crores of value: the ESOP pool clause. Investors ask for a larger pool, created before their money comes in, and the founders pay for it. This case study follows Neelgiri Labs, an illustrative Bengaluru B2B SaaS startup built from real Indian market practice, through the six weeks between receiving its term sheet and closing the round. You size the pool from a real hiring plan, benchmark it against disclosed Indian startup pools, and work through the option pool shuffle to find the effective pre-money valuation the founders actually got. Then you put a number on the options themselves: fair market value under Rule 11UA and a registered valuer report, a Black-Scholes value with defensible inputs for an unlisted company, and the total pool cost that flows into the P&L under Ind AS 102. The course closes with exercise pricing, perquisite tax, Companies Act approvals, the post-round cap table and the mistakes founders and CFOs make most often. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who sit on either side of that negotiation.
- Explain why investors ask for the ESOP pool to be created pre-money, and who really bears that dilution
- Size an ESOP pool bottom-up from a 24-month hiring plan and sanity-check it against Indian startup benchmarks
- Calculate the effective pre-money valuation after the option pool shuffle and negotiate it with numbers, not adjectives
Case Study: Investor Relations Lessons From a Company's IPO Roadshow
Investor relations does not start on listing day. It starts months earlier, when a company first has to explain to strangers why its business deserves their money at a particular price. This case study follows a composite Gujarat-based specialty chemicals manufacturer, roughly ₹1,800 crore in revenue and backed by a private equity fund, through a ₹1,500 crore IPO combining a fresh issue and an offer for sale. You will see how the company and its book running lead managers turned a DRHP into an equity story, chose the KPIs and peer set it would be judged against, stayed within SEBI's publicity rules, ran early-look and pre-deal investor education, and then took the story on the road through anchor, QIB and one-on-one meetings in Mumbai, Singapore, London and New York. You will follow the price band decision, the anchor book, the subscription data and listing day, and compare the outcome with public examples such as Paytm and Nykaa. Finally you will see how the same discipline carries into life as a listed company: the first earnings call, disclosure obligations under SEBI's LODR Regulations, anchor lock-in expiry and building a permanent IR function. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who will one day sit across the table from institutional investors.
- Explain what an IPO roadshow is, who runs it and why investor relations begins well before listing
- Turn a DRHP into a clear equity story backed by KPIs and a defensible peer set
- Build an investor presentation and stay inside SEBI's rules on publicity and forward-looking statements
Case Study: Transfer Pricing Dispute Between an Indian Subsidiary and Its Parent
Follow an illustrative Indian subsidiary of a foreign parent through a full transfer pricing dispute, from the pricing decisions that started it to the audit, the adjustment, the appeals and the settlement. Along the way, learn India's arm's length rules under Sections 92 to 92F of the Income-tax Act, how Form 3CEB and TP documentation work, how a Transfer Pricing Officer benchmarks your margins against comparables, and why royalty, management fees, marketing spend and share issues to the parent are the most fought-over items. The case is anchored in real Indian rulings including Maruti Suzuki, LG Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone India and Shell India, and ends with a practical playbook covering APAs, safe harbour and documentation discipline for CFOs and founders.
- Explain the arm's length principle and when India's transfer pricing rules apply to a subsidiary
- Read a Form 3CEB and understand what TP documentation must prove
- Follow how a Transfer Pricing Officer selects comparables and computes an adjustment
Introduction to Corporate Fundraising: Equity vs Debt
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how companies raise money, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who want to understand the funding decisions shaping their company. Learn why companies raise capital, what it really means to sell ownership versus borrow, and where each kind of money comes from in India: angels, VCs, PE funds, IPOs, QIPs and rights issues on one side; banks, NBFCs, venture debt and corporate bonds on the other. Understand covenants, collateral, credit ratings and what happens under the IBC when repayment fails. Compare the true cost of equity and debt, see how leverage magnifies both returns and risk, meet the hybrids in between, and finish with a practical decision framework, a walkthrough of reading any listed company's funding mix on screener.in, and a case study of two Indian companies that funded growth in opposite ways.
Introduction to Corporate Governance for Growing Companies
A practical, India-specific guide to corporate governance for founders, CFOs, treasury teams, and strategy and BD professionals at companies that are scaling fast. Learn what governance really means beyond compliance checklists, why it breaks down at scale through cases like Byju's, BharatPe, and GoMechanic, and how the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI LODR shape your obligations as you grow. Build a board that actually oversees, set up audit and other committees, understand independent directors, internal financial controls, and auditors, and navigate shareholder rights, investor protections in term sheets, dual-class structures, and related party transactions. Cover disclosure, insider trading rules, whistleblower mechanisms, and risk management, then finish with a stage-by-stage governance roadmap from seed to IPO readiness.
Introduction to Corporate Restructuring and Its Triggers
An India-specific guide to why companies change their shape and how they do it, built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders, and strategy and business development teams. Learn the four families of restructuring (portfolio, financial, organisational and operational) and the triggers behind each: conglomerate discounts, leverage and liquidity crunches, regulatory and tax changes, technology disruption, and promoter succession. Spot the early warning signs in financial statements, rating actions, auditor remarks and exchange filings. Then walk through the Indian toolkit: mergers, demergers, slump sales, buybacks and capital reduction, and debt restructuring from one-time settlements to the IBC, along with the Companies Act, NCLT and SEBI road map every listed deal must follow. Finish by weighing who wins and who loses, why restructurings fail, and a trigger-to-toolkit framework you can apply to your own company. Uses real NSE and BSE cases like the Tata Motors demerger, Vodafone Idea's debt-to-equity conversion, Essar Steel's insolvency resolution and ITC Hotels, with screener.in and exchange filings throughout.
Introduction to Employee Stock Options (ESOPs) Explained
A plain-language, India-specific guide to employee stock options, built for employees outside finance, HR and L&D teams, treasury professionals and startup founders. Learn why companies share ownership with employees, how ESOPs differ from RSUs, SARs and sweat equity, and what grant, vesting, cliff, exercise price and expiry really mean. Follow an option from the grant letter to the day you sell the shares, including what happens when you resign, get let go or your company is acquired. Understand what your options are actually worth, why listed and unlisted company ESOPs are very different things, and how buybacks and secondary sales turn paper wealth into cash. Get the tax picture right, from perquisite tax at exercise to capital gains at sale and the deferral available to eligible startups, and see the rules that govern ESOPs under SEBI and the Companies Act. Finish by looking at ESOPs from the company's side, covering pool design, accounting cost and dilution, and a case study of real Indian ESOP outcomes.
Introduction to Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) as a Function
Every listed Indian company gives earnings guidance, sets an annual operating plan and explains its quarterly misses to analysts. The team behind all of that is Financial Planning and Analysis. This course explains FP&A as a function: where it sits next to accounting, controllership and treasury, what it produces, and how its work drives real decisions. You follow the full planning cycle as it runs in India, from the April to March financial year and the annual operating plan to rolling forecasts and the monthly business review. You learn the core outputs every FP&A team owns: budgets built from driver-based models, variance analysis that explains the gap between plan and actual, and the KPIs and unit economics that leadership watches. Then you move beyond the numbers to business partnering, scenario planning, capital allocation and the tools Indian FP&A teams actually use, before closing with how the function is structured from startup to conglomerate and how to build a career in it. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy and business development teams who need to plan, measure and explain performance.
- Explain what FP&A does and how it differs from financial accounting, controllership and treasury in an Indian company
- Walk through the Indian planning calendar, from the annual operating plan to the monthly business review and quarterly results
- Build a budget from business drivers instead of last year's numbers plus a percentage
Introduction to Financial Statements for Non Finance Managers
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to financial statements, built for managers outside finance, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and founders who sit in review meetings where revenue, EBITDA, working capital and cash flow decide budgets and bonuses. Learn where to find the numbers in an Indian company's annual report, the accounting basics that shape them, and how to read a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement line by line. See which lines your own department creates, from employee costs and overheads to receivables, inventory and payables, and why reported profit is not money in the bank. Connect the three statements through a single transaction, use a handful of ratios that matter to managers, read variance reports and MIS with confidence, build a business case finance will take seriously, spot red flags, and finish by working through a real Indian company's annual report the way a manager should.
Introduction to Foreign Exchange Risk Management for Corporates
A practical, India-specific introduction to foreign exchange risk for treasury and finance teams, growth-stage founders, and strategy and business development professionals. Learn how the USD/INR market actually works, how banks price the rates you are quoted, and why a rupee move shows up in margins, covenants and valuations. Identify and measure transaction, translation and economic exposure, build a currency exposure map, and size the risk with sensitivity and scenario analysis. Start with hedges that cost nothing, like natural hedging, invoicing currency choices, netting and EEFC accounts, then move to forwards, NSE and BSE currency futures and options, OTC options and collars, and cross-currency swaps on foreign currency borrowings. Understand the RBI rules on what corporates can hedge, how Ind AS 109 hedge accounting keeps hedge noise out of profit and loss, and how to write a board-approved hedging policy. Finish with hedging playbooks by business type, the mistakes that have cost Indian companies crores, and a full exporter case study.
- Explain how the USD/INR market works and decode a bank's FX quote, including the margin hidden in it
- Separate transaction, translation and economic exposure and build a currency exposure map for a business
- Measure FX risk with sensitivity analysis, scenario tests and cash flow at risk
Introduction to Series B and Growth Stage Fundraising
An India-specific guide to raising money after product-market fit, built for growth stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and business development teams who sit across the table from growth investors. Learn what actually changes between Series A and Series B, why the bar shifts from promise to proof, and who writes growth cheques in India: growth VCs, crossover funds, sovereign and pension funds, private equity and corporate strategic investors. Master the growth stage scorecard of revenue quality, net revenue retention, cohorts, contribution margin, CAC payback, burn multiple and the Rule of 40, and build the data room and financial model that survives diligence. See how growth valuations are set using revenue multiples and listed comparables on NSE and BSE, how primary and secondary components split the money, how down rounds and structured deals work, and when venture debt helps or hurts. Read growth term sheets with stacked liquidation preferences, ratchets and investor rights, understand syndicate dynamics and pro rata, and navigate the Indian regulatory layer for large rounds: FDI routes, pricing guidelines, Press Note 3 and CCI approval. Finish with deploying growth capital, the road to Series C and an IPO, and a case study following one Indian SaaS company from Series B to Series C.
Introduction to Startup Fundraising: Seed to Series A
A practical, India-specific walkthrough of how startups actually raise money from their first cheque to a Series A, built for founders, treasury and finance teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees who want to understand the funding rounds shaping their company. Learn why startups raise and when they should not, how the funding ladder runs from bootstrapping and friends and family to pre-seed, seed and Series A, and who writes the cheques in India: angels, angel networks, micro VCs, institutional VCs and government schemes. Understand what investors look for at each stage, the traction and unit economics metrics that matter, how to build a pitch deck and get the legal house in order. See how pre-money, post-money, dilution, ESOP pools and instruments like CCPS, CCDs and iSAFEs work, how a fundraise is run, how to read a term sheet, and what due diligence, definitive agreements and the Indian compliance layer involve. Finish with life after the round, how startups bridge the gap from seed to Series A, and a case study following one Indian startup through both rounds.
Practice Drills: Building a Debt Restructuring Scenario Model
A practice-first course for anyone who has to sit across the table from lenders when the numbers stop working. You will build a debt restructuring scenario model in Excel or Google Sheets from a blank sheet: a tranche-by-tranche debt schedule, a cash flow and DSCR engine, and a set of levers covering tenor extension, principal moratorium, interest rate resets, funded interest, one-time settlements, haircuts and debt-to-equity conversion. Then you will stress it, size sustainable debt from cash flow capacity, compare lender recovery against the IBC alternative, and track what each plan does to the promoter's stake. Every drill uses Indian context: RBI's Prudential Framework for stressed assets, inter-creditor agreements, NCLT timelines and INR numbers. Built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders carrying term or venture debt, and strategy and BD teams evaluating distressed opportunities.
- Lay out a multi-tranche debt schedule with repayments, interest and covenants that recalculates from a few inputs
- Build a base case cash flow and track DSCR and net debt to EBITDA year by year
- Model tenor extension, principal moratorium, rate resets and funded interest term loans as switchable levers
Practice Drills: Building a Foreign Exchange Exposure Assessment
A practice-first course for treasury teams, founders and strategy professionals who need to answer one question with numbers: how much does a move in the rupee actually cost this business? You will work through Indian annual reports, Ind AS 21 and Ind AS 107 disclosures, and realistic exporter and importer books to build a currency-wise exposure register, net natural hedges, bucket exposures by maturity, run rupee sensitivity and stress scenarios, and separate transaction, translation and economic exposure. The course closes with full drills on an IT services exporter and an importer carrying foreign currency debt, and a one-page exposure assessment you can put in front of a CFO or board. Educational content only, not investment or hedging advice.
- Locate foreign currency risk disclosures in an Indian annual report and read the unhedged exposure table correctly
- Build a currency-wise, maturity-bucketed exposure register from receivables, payables, orders and loans
- Net natural hedges across exports, imports and foreign currency debt without double counting
Practice Drills: Building an FP&A Variance Analysis Report
A practice-first course for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who own the monthly budget vs actual conversation. You already know what a budget is; this course makes you explain why the numbers missed it. Working with sample data from Indian businesses, from a D2C brand selling on its own site, Amazon and Flipkart to a mid-sized manufacturer, you will structure budget and actual data for a clean comparison, split revenue variances into price, volume and mix, drill material, employee cost and opex variances, flex the budget to separate volume effects from true overspends, and build gross margin, EBITDA and cash bridges. Then you write the report itself: set materiality thresholds, draft commentary that names causes and owners, build a one-page summary with a waterfall chart, and turn variances into reforecast actions. Three full drills close the course, including reviewing and fixing a flawed variance report.
- Structure budget and actual data so every line compares like with like, across the April to March financial year
- Apply a consistent favourable and adverse sign convention across revenue and cost lines
- Split revenue variance into price, volume and mix effects, by product, channel and region
Practice Drills: Comparing Corporate Bond vs Bank Loan Financing Costs
A practice-first course for treasury teams, growth-stage founders, and corporate strategy professionals who have to answer one recurring question: should we borrow from the bank or issue bonds? The headline rate on a sanction letter and the coupon on an NCD term sheet are never the real cost. You will drill every layer that sits between them and the number that matters: MCLR, EBLR and T-Bill linked resets, processing fees, prepayment charges, margin money and collateral, arranger and rating fees, stamp duty, trustee and listing costs, rating-driven spreads over G-Secs, and the EBP platform route for private placements. Then you will bring both options onto one footing with XIRR, post-tax cost, cash flow profile and refinancing risk, and weigh the non-price costs such as covenants and flexibility. Every drill uses Indian instruments, rupee figures, and the documents an Indian finance team actually works from.
- Build a single all-in cost worksheet that works for both a bank loan and a bond issue
- Convert MCLR, EBLR and T-Bill linked loan pricing into an effective annual rate, including fees and resets
- Put a rupee cost on collateral, margin money, and prepayment penalties
Practice Drills: Drafting an Investor Update Email for a Growth Stage Company
A practice-first course on the one document that decides how your investors feel about you between funding rounds. You will draft investor updates section by section for Indian growth stage companies: picking the metrics that matter, writing an opening summary a partner reads in thirty seconds, reporting revenue, burn and runway in INR without spin, showing unit economics and cohorts behind the headline, and writing asks that get real help. Then you drill the hard ones: a missed quarter, layoffs, a pivot or a down round, plus what should never go into an email at all. Built for growth stage founders, finance and treasury teams who prepare the monthly MIS, and strategy teams who own investor communication.
- Structure a monthly or quarterly investor update that a busy partner can read in under two minutes
- Choose and present the six core metrics a growth stage investor expects, with consistent definitions month to month
- Report revenue, gross margin, burn and runway in INR without flattering the numbers
Practice Drills: Preparing a Transfer Pricing Documentation Summary
A practice-first course for finance and treasury teams, founders and strategy professionals who have to produce, review or sign off on an Indian entity's transfer pricing documentation. You will map a group's international and specified domestic transactions, write a functional, asset and risk (FAR) analysis, characterise the Indian entity, pick the most appropriate method under Rule 10B, run a comparables search with accept-reject filters, and compute the arm's length range under Rule 10CA. Dedicated drills cover royalty and management fees, intercompany loans and guarantees, and safe harbour eligibility. The course closes with full documentation summaries for an IT services captive and a brand distributor, reconciled against Form 3CEB and the Master File. Educational content only, not tax or legal advice.
- Identify which transactions need transfer pricing documentation and which thresholds apply
- Write a FAR analysis and characterise an Indian entity in a way that survives TPO scrutiny
- Choose and defend the most appropriate method from the six recognised under Indian rules
Practice Drills: Structuring a Term Sheet Redline and Negotiation Response
A practice-first companion to Building a Term Sheet Negotiation Checklist and Tracker. You already know what liquidation preference, anti-dilution, reserved matters and CCPS are; this course makes you redline them. Working from sample Indian term sheets, you will triage an incoming draft, build a position sheet before touching the document, then drill the markup of every clause that matters: valuation and the ESOP pool, liquidation preference, anti-dilution, exit rights and put options under FEMA, reserved matters, board composition, founder vesting, exclusivity and conditions precedent. Then you drill the response itself: the cover note, the concession ladder, the investor's second turn and a strategic investor's term sheet from the corporate BD side. Built for growth-stage founders, CFOs and treasury teams, and corporate strategy and BD teams who have to produce the redline, not just read it.
- Triage an incoming term sheet in 30 minutes and rank which clauses deserve your negotiating capital
- Build a redline position sheet with an opening ask, a target and a walk-away for every clause before you mark up the draft
- Redline valuation, ESOP pool, liquidation preference and anti-dilution clauses and quantify what each change is worth in rupees
Practice Drills: Valuing a Sample ESOP Grant Using Black-Scholes
A practice-first course built around one sample ESOP grant that you value from scratch. You start with the grant letter itself: grant date, exercise price, vesting schedule and expiry, and why the option sitting inside it behaves like a call option with a few important differences. Then you build each of the six Black-Scholes inputs the way an Indian finance team actually does: share price for listed and unlisted companies, expected term, volatility from NSE price history or a peer set, and the risk-free rate from the G-Sec curve. You run the formula by hand, value a graded vesting grant tranche by tranche, stress test the inputs, and finish by turning fair value into the Ind AS 102 expense schedule, including forfeitures and true-ups. Built for corporate finance and treasury teams, growth stage founders managing an ESOP pool, and strategy teams who need to read an ESOP valuation report critically.
- Read an ESOP grant letter and extract every term that affects its fair value
- Explain why an ESOP is valued as a call option and where that analogy needs adjustment
- Build all six Black-Scholes inputs for a listed or unlisted Indian company and defend each one
Understanding Cap Tables and Equity Dilution for Founders
A plain-language, India-specific guide to the cap table from the founder's side of the table, built for startup founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees who want to understand how ownership in their company is divided and why it keeps changing. Learn what a cap table records, how authorised capital, issued shares and face value work under the Companies Act, and why fully diluted ownership is the only number that matters. Split equity among co-founders without wrecking the partnership, protect the company with founder vesting and leaver clauses, and hand out equity to early hires and advisors sensibly. See exactly how each fundraise dilutes you, why the ESOP pool is negotiated before the round, and how CCDs and iSAFEs land on the cap table. Go beyond percentages to understand control, board seats, liquidation preference, anti-dilution and secondary sales, then learn to keep a clean, compliant cap table through allotments, transfers and MCA filings. Finish with the mistakes that break due diligence and a case study following one founder's stake from incorporation to Series C.
Understanding Cash Flow Management for Businesses
A practical, India-specific introduction to managing cash inside a business, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance whose decisions quietly move the company's bank balance. Understand why profitable companies still run out of money, how the cash conversion cycle works, and how Indian businesses manage receivables, payables and inventory, including TReDS and the MSME 45-day payment rule. Learn to build a simple 13-week cash forecast, plan burn and runway, choose between cash credit, overdraft and bill discounting, schedule GST, TDS and advance tax outflows, and park surplus cash sensibly. Finish by seeing how every department affects cash, spotting the early warning signs of a cash crunch, and working through a real-world style cash crisis case study.
Understanding Corporate Bond Issuance and Debt Markets
A clear, practical guide to how corporate bonds actually get issued in India, written for treasury teams, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy professionals. Starting from why a company would borrow from the bond market instead of a bank, it walks through the anatomy of an NCD, the SEBI rulebook, private placements versus public issues, credit ratings, arrangers and price discovery on the NSE and BSE Electronic Book Provider platforms. It then explains how a bond is priced against the G-Sec curve, what drives the credit spread, how bonds trade and fail after issue, and where commercial paper, market-linked debentures, green bonds and masala bonds fit. It closes with a step-by-step plan for a company's first bond issue.
- Why companies choose bonds over bank loans and what an NCD term sheet actually contains
- Who buys Indian corporate bonds and what each investor class looks for
- How SEBI's NCS Regulations shape private placements and public issues
Understanding Corporate Capital Structure Decisions
An India-focused, intermediate course on how companies decide the mix of debt and equity that funds them, built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams. Measure leverage the way lenders and rating agencies do, then work through the theory that drives real boardroom decisions: Modigliani-Miller, the tax shield, trade-off theory, pecking order, signalling and agency costs. Estimate the cost of equity and debt for an Indian company, build a WACC, re-lever beta and see why an optimal capital structure is a range rather than a point. Study the Indian reality of financial distress, from promoter pledging and holding company debt to lease liabilities under Ind AS 116 and the collapses of IL&FS, DHFL and Jet Airways. Understand how dividends, buybacks, rights issues and asset sales reshape the balance sheet, and finish with a practical framework for setting target leverage, a walkthrough of reading capital structure choices on screener.in and in annual reports, and a case study of two Indian companies with opposite philosophies of leverage.
Understanding Corporate Taxation Basics for Business Owners
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how businesses are taxed, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who want to understand the tax decisions shaping their company. Learn how your business structure changes your tax bill, how accounting profit becomes taxable income, and what the Income-tax Act, 2025 changed. Understand corporate tax rates, surcharge and cess, the concessional 22% regime, MAT, and how to read a listed company's effective tax rate on screener.in. See how advance tax, TDS, TCS, tax audits and ITR filing work through the year, get a working grasp of GST and input tax credit, and learn what salary, dividends, buybacks and ESOPs really cost the company and its people. Finish with startup tax benefits, the line between tax planning and evasion, and a case study tracing one Indian SME's tax year from profit to paid.
Understanding Financial Markets: A Primer for Non Finance Employees
A plain-language, India-specific primer on how financial markets work, built for employees outside finance, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and founders who keep hearing about markets in board updates, news headlines and salary conversations. Understand how money flows from savers to businesses, who the key players and regulators are, and how the equity, debt, currency and commodity markets actually operate on NSE, BSE and beyond. Learn how companies raise money through IPOs, QIPs, bonds and commercial paper, why an RBI repo rate change moves your company's borrowing costs, what credit ratings signal, and how businesses hedge rupee and input cost risk. Finish by connecting inflation, GDP and FII flows to market moves, understanding insider trading rules and trading windows at listed employers, seeing where your ESOPs, EPF, NPS and SIPs meet the markets, and tracing one RBI rate decision all the way to a company and its employees.
Understanding Investor Relations for Growth Stage Companies
A practical guide to investor relations for Indian growth-stage companies, written for founders, CFO and treasury teams, and corporate strategy professionals. It starts with what IR actually does and who the audiences are, then follows a company through its lifecycle: investor updates and board packs while private, building the equity story and KPI set before an IPO, and the SEBI rulebook that governs every word a listed company says. It then covers the quarterly earnings machine, the guidance question, analyst coverage and consensus, communicating bad news, lock-in expiries and shareholder base management, and closes with how to build and measure an IR function, using real examples from India's new-age listings.
- What investor relations does and why it matters more for growth companies than mature ones
- Who the investor audiences are in India and what each one wants from management
- How to report to private investors and build an equity story before an IPO
Understanding Term Sheets: Key Clauses Founders Must Know
A clause-by-clause, India-specific guide to the venture capital term sheet, built for growth-stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and BD teams who sit across the table from investors. Learn what a term sheet binds you to and what it does not, and how it maps onto the SSA, SHA and Articles of Association that Indian deals actually run on. Decode the economic terms that decide who gets paid: pre-money valuation and the fully diluted trap, the option pool clause, why Indian VCs invest through CCPS, liquidation preference and anti-dilution. Then work through the control terms that decide who runs the company: board seats, affirmative voting rights, information rights, founder vesting and non-competes. Understand transfer and exit mechanics including ROFR, tag-along, drag-along, pre-emptive rights and the exit clauses that FEMA quietly reshapes. Finish with the regulatory overlay under FEMA and the Companies Act, the clauses worth fighting for, the red flags to walk away from, and a full case study redlining a Series A term sheet.
Understanding Transfer Pricing Basics for Multi Entity Businesses
The moment a business has two entities under common control, every invoice between them becomes a tax question. A holding company charging its operating subsidiary a brand fee, an Indian captive billing its US parent for software development, a promoter's trading firm buying raw material for the listed company: all of these are transfer pricing transactions, and the Income Tax Department will test each one against what unrelated parties would have agreed. This course teaches the mechanics from the ground up. You will learn who counts as an associated enterprise, what the arm's length principle actually requires, how the six prescribed methods work with worked Indian numbers, how the common intercompany transactions (services, royalties, loans, guarantees, captive service centres) are priced, and what compliance looks like in practice: Form 3CEB, the master file and local file, safe harbour rules, advance pricing agreements and what happens when the Transfer Pricing Officer disagrees. Built for CFOs and treasury teams, growth-stage founders setting up overseas or group entities, and corporate strategy and BD teams structuring intra-group deals.
- Identify when two entities are associated enterprises and which of their transactions fall under Indian transfer pricing rules
- Explain the arm's length principle and why tax authorities use it to stop profit shifting
- Apply CUP, resale price, cost plus and TNMM to simple Indian examples and pick the most appropriate method
Understanding Working Capital Management for Businesses
A practical, India-specific introduction to working capital, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance whose everyday decisions lock up or release a company's money. Learn to read the working capital lines on a balance sheet, tell gross, net and operating working capital apart, and calculate liquidity ratios and the working capital cycle step by step. See why FMCG, retail, capital goods, pharma and IT companies look so different, and track real trends on screener.in. Understand working capital policy, permanent vs temporary needs, and how to estimate requirement. Get hands-on with credit policy, receivables ageing, EOQ and ABC analysis, supplier terms and the MSME 45-day payment rule. Learn how Indian banks set drawing power, how cash credit, WCDL, commercial paper, factoring and TReDS compare, and finish by linking working capital to growth and valuation, spotting red flags, and fixing a working capital crunch in a case study.
Understanding Working Capital Optimization at Scale
Built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy teams who already know what working capital is and now need to move it. Learn to run the cash conversion cycle as a management KPI, translate days saved into cash released, ROCE and valuation, and benchmark against Indian leaders such as HUL, Asian Paints and Titan. Break working capital down by business unit, channel, SKU and customer to separate structural days from process leakage. Then work through the three big levers: order-to-cash (credit segmentation, dispute control, collections automation, dealer finance), procure-to-pay (term harmonisation under the MSME 45-day rule and Section 43B(h), reverse factoring, dynamic discounting, consignment stock and gold metal loans) and inventory (safety stock, SKU rationalisation, S&OP). Finish with treasury structures, 13-week cash forecasting, the funding mix at scale, negative working capital business models, governance and incentives, the line between optimization and window dressing, and a full 90-day programme case study.
- How to measure the cash conversion cycle the way a treasury team does and convert days saved into cash, ROCE and valuation impact
- How to benchmark working capital against Indian peers and decompose it by business unit, channel, SKU and customer
- Practical order-to-cash levers: credit segmentation, dispute reduction, collections automation and dealer finance programmes
Using Carta or Similar Platforms for Cap Table and Equity Management at Scale
For growth-stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and BD teams who have outgrown the spreadsheet cap table. Learn to recognise the breaking point, understand what equity management platforms like Carta, Qapita, EquityList and Trica Equity actually do, and pick one with a structured scorecard. Migrate cleanly by reconciling your spreadsheet against the statutory registers, and set up equity, CCPS, CCDs, warrants and iSAFEs correctly. Run ESOPs at scale: grants under Section 62(1)(b), vesting and leaver treatment, exercise and perquisite tax withholding, and buyback programs. Model priced rounds, conversions and exit waterfalls on the platform, then keep everything in sync with MCA filings, FEMA reporting, demat requirements and Ind AS 102. Close with pre-IPO clean-up under SEBI SBEB rules and a full case study of equity operations from Series A to pre-IPO.
- How to tell when a spreadsheet cap table has become a liability, and what a platform fixes
- How to evaluate and migrate to Carta or an Indian alternative without breaking your records
- How to run ESOP grants, vesting, exercises, tax withholding and buybacks at scale
M&A & Valuation
4 courses
Case Study: Negotiating a Term Sheet, A Founder's Real Experience
A composite case study of an Indian founder raising a ₹40 crore Series A, built from typical Indian venture deal terms. Follow a Pune B2B SaaS company from its first term sheet to the final close, and learn what every clause actually costs. Work through pre-money and post-money valuation, the ESOP pool shuffle, liquidation preferences and anti-dilution, then the control terms: board seats, reserved matters, founder vesting, ROFR, tag-along and drag-along. Understand the Indian legal layer that shapes every deal here, from CCPS and FEMA pricing rules to valuation reports and how terms get rewritten in the SHA and SSA. Finish by modelling the exit waterfall yourself and walking away with a negotiation checklist you can use on a real deal.
- Read an Indian Series A term sheet and separate the economic terms from the control terms
- Calculate pre-money, post-money and founder dilution, including the effect of a pre-money ESOP pool
- Model how liquidation preferences and anti-dilution change payouts across different exit outcomes
Introduction to Business Valuation for Founders and Managers
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how businesses are valued, built for founders, managers, treasury teams and HR professionals who deal with valuation without being finance specialists. Understand the difference between price, value and worth, and where valuation shows up in real work: fundraises, ESOP grants, acquisitions, buybacks and share transfers. Learn which numbers actually drive value, how multiples like P/E and EV/EBITDA work, how to bridge enterprise value to equity value, and how to build a simple DCF without drowning in jargon. Finish with the Indian rulebook on registered valuers, Rule 11UA, FEMA and SEBI pricing, the everyday management decisions that move your company's valuation, and a case study valuing one Indian private company three different ways.
Introduction to Mergers and Acquisitions From a Corporate Perspective
An India-specific, inside-the-company view of mergers and acquisitions, built for corporate finance and treasury teams, strategy and business development professionals, and growth-stage founders. Learn the vocabulary of mergers, amalgamations and demergers, why companies buy and why most deals disappoint, and how to decide between building, buying and partnering. Value a target the way an acquirer does: standalone value, honestly sized synergies, control premiums and EPS accretion or dilution. Understand how deals are paid for and structured, from cash and stock to slump sales, schemes of arrangement, earn-outs and escrows. Walk through the deal process and due diligence, the Indian rulebook of the Companies Act, NCLT, CCI, the SEBI Takeover Code and FEMA, and the integration work that decides whether a deal succeeds. Finish with the HDFC and HDFC Bank merger traced from announcement to completion.
- Tell mergers, acquisitions, amalgamations and demergers apart and know why companies pursue each
- Decide when buying a business beats building or partnering, and screen targets systematically
- Separate a target's standalone value from the price paid, size synergies honestly and test EPS accretion or dilution
Understanding ESOP Valuation: Black-Scholes and Binomial Models for Employee Options
A practical, India-specific guide to putting a number on employee stock options, built for finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams. Learn why Ind AS 102 treats every ESOP grant as a real cost, why an out-of-the-money option still has fair value, and what the six valuation inputs are. Work through Black-Scholes in plain terms, estimate volatility for listed and unlisted companies, and pick defensible inputs for expected term, risk-free rate and dividend yield. Build a binomial tree step by step, model vesting, early exercise and employee exits, and learn when each model is the right tool. Then follow the fair value into the P&L: expense over the vesting period, forfeitures, repricing, performance and market conditions, and the difference between accounting fair value and tax FMV. Finish with sensitivity analysis and a case study reading ESOP cost disclosures in the annual reports of India's new-age listed companies.
- Why Ind AS 102 requires ESOPs to be expensed at grant-date fair value
- How to value an employee option with Black-Scholes and pick defensible inputs
- How to build a binomial lattice that handles vesting, early exercise and exits
Forensic Accounting & Compliance
5 courses
Case Study: A Basic Introduction to the Punjab National Bank Fraud Case
A ground-up walkthrough of India's biggest banking fraud, the roughly 14,000 crore rupee Punjab National Bank scam uncovered in 2018. Meet the people involved, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and the PNB branch officials who enabled them, and understand the two banking tools at the centre of it, Letters of Undertaking and the SWIFT messaging system, and how they were misused for years without showing up in the bank's own core systems. Walk through how the fraud was finally discovered, what RBI, the CBI and the ED did afterwards, and what the case teaches about internal controls, reconciliation and compliance culture in Indian banking.
Case Study: Adani Group Stock Volatility and Governance Concerns
A ground up case study on the Adani Group Hindenburg episode, covering promoter holding, share pledging, related party transactions, short selling mechanics, circuit limits, index concentration risk, SEBI's investigation, and a practical governance checklist every Indian retail investor can run on screener.in.
- Trace the Adani Group's story before the Hindenburg report
- Understand the crash and the governance concerns it raised
- Apply these lessons to your own investing decisions
Corporate Governance: Evaluating Management Quality
A practical course on judging the people running the companies you own. Learn to read promoter holding and pledges, board and auditor disclosures, related party transactions, capital allocation records, and SEBI and exchange filings for Indian listed companies, then turn it all into a repeatable governance scorecard using annual reports, BSE/NSE filings, and screener.in.
- Why governance quality drives long-term returns and valuation multiples in Indian markets
- How to read promoter holding, pledged shares, and group structures for warning signs
- How to evaluate board independence, auditor remarks, and managerial remuneration
Deep Dive into Financial Statement Fraud and Forensic Red Flags
A forensic course for investors who already read financial statements and now want to catch the ones that lie. Learn how Indian listed companies inflate revenue, hide expenses, fake cash, and dress up balance sheets, and how to detect it using annual report notes, auditor reports, BSE/NSE filings, screener.in data, and quantitative screens like the Beneish M-Score. Built on real Indian cases: Satyam, Manpasand Beverages, Brightcom, Gitanjali Gems, CG Power, DHFL, Ricoh India, and more.
- Why companies commit accounting fraud and where the pressure points sit in Indian promoter-led firms
- How revenue gets inflated through channel stuffing, round-tripping, and fake customers, and how to test it against receivables and cash
- How expenses get parked in the balance sheet through capitalisation, inventory games, and related party structures
Practice Drills: Identifying Corporate Governance Red Flags
A practice-first companion to Corporate Governance: Evaluating Management Quality. You already know what good governance is supposed to look like; this course makes you find the bad kind in real filings. Working with shareholding patterns, related party disclosures, board and auditor announcements, SEBI orders and exchange filings on NSE, BSE and Screener.in, you will build a governance red flag scorecard and drill it flag by flag: pledging and creeping dilution, money moving to group companies, weak boards, auditor exits, and management churn. The course closes with full drills that score companies side by side, replay the signals ahead of real Indian governance failures, and decide what to do when the flags show up in a stock you already own. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors and salaried professionals who want a repeatable governance check before they buy, or before they trust a fund that does.
- Locate every governance disclosure that matters in NSE and BSE filings, annual reports and Screener.in
- Build and apply a weighted governance red flag scorecard to any listed company
- Read shareholding patterns for pledging, promoter selling, warrants and creeping dilution