Voice of the CFO: A Startup’s CFO’s View on Future-Proofing Business

As Franco-American MedTech firm TISSIUM is preparing its platform for the commercial stage, it has already had an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in place for three years.

“The logic was that the ERP will basically follow the growth of the company, will be able to manage different subsidiaries worldwide, so that we’ll be ready,” TISSIUM Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Romain Attard told PYMNTS.

One responsibility of CFOs is to anticipate new needs and put in place the right tools at the right time, he added.

“I think part of the job of a CFO now is to structure a company for the next steps,” he said. “At TISSIUM, and I think it’s very true in the mindset of Christophe Bancel, our CEO, we like to think three years, four years before. So, I’m trying to structure the company now so that we’ll be ready in three years and be ahead of the workstream we need to handle.”

Digitizing the Financial Workstream

Attard joined the company in July 2021, bringing an extensive background in corporate finance and equity capital markets, and was tasked with supporting the company’s expansion.

TISSIUM was founded in 2013 and is developing a set of solutions that includes polymers for reconstructing and reconnecting tissues, replacing the sutures and more.

Interviewed for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” Attard said that digitizing accounting processes is an important component in structuring the company for the next steps.

“The whole idea is to industrialize as much as possible the financial workstream of the company so that in the future, when we would grow, we will already be set up, and we will have a very specific and cost-effective team to perform value-added tasks,” Attard said.

Creating Confidence

The company is also engaging with investors. TISSIUM has raised 120 million euros (about $122 million) to date, including 50 million euros (about $50.8 million) last year through Series C funding, and continues to engage with investors in Europe and the United States so that it has both long-term investors with the capacity to invest and reinvest and new investors.

“For instance, we have made significant effort to engage with U.S. investors, and hopefully it will help us to show them that basically we deliver what we say, and that when we will need to raise money again, that we’ll be on track and ready to do the work,” Attard said.

To improve its communication with investors, TISSIUM has put in place a cap table management tool. This allows investors to access the company’s related documents without having to call the office. In addition, Attard has put in place other forms of communication — some of which he said are unusual for a company that is private or at this stage — including an annual report, investor days and a science day.

“We’re trying to educate investors on the specificities of our technology, create confidence with new ones but also with our shareholders so that they are up to date, and they can keep track,” Attard said.

Preparing for the Future

Like many companies today, TISSIUM has a hybrid work policy for those who work at its headquarters. The company’s R&D and manufacturing are based in France, while its clinical, regulatory and, in the future, commercial activities will be based in the U.S. Attard said headquarters employees can choose to work remotely or on site.

“I would say at the headquarters, people are mostly on site, and a few days during the week they like to stay home,” Attard said.

In Paris, the company is part of an ecosystem called iBionext in which several startups share some costs, including real estate, legal, information technology (IT) and some accounting assistance.

Recruitment is complicated because TISSIUM is looking for highly technical people and is looking for the right people at the right time. This means it takes time and there is pressure on wages, but the company has dedicated resources to this.

“I think we benefit from the startup environment,” Attard said. “All of our employees are eligible for stock options and these kind of instruments. On the salaries, we are trying to keep up and to follow what’s happening on the market, to which we remain competitive.”

Another illustration of the company’s forward-looking mindset is that it invested in 3D printing three years ago. When the pandemic hit, that technology allowed it to save the time it would have lost if it had been relying on subcontractors.

Today, to continue to prepare for the future, TISSIUM is adding a lot of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, working to get the different pieces to connect and trying to be more collaborative.

“We are also in the process of digitalizing invoices and all these tasks that are a burden for our company — and that’s facilitating the execution for the future,” Attard said.

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