Misty seascape painting in cream and deep green
Phi Coherence Lab

Where Finance Meets Philosophy.

Corporate finance advisory for founders and the investors who back them.

thesis

Value is not captured at the exit.
It is created from inception.

The price a company commands is set by its structure, its terms, and the discipline carried from the founder's first decision. By the time the term sheet arrives, the number has already been written. Most founders meet the deal too late to change it. Most investors cannot bridge the gap.

thesis

The work is to begin earlier.
And to begin in alignment.

The Value Trap

Founders.

Ninety per cent of nothing

For founders. A company can be worth €1bn, its founder can hold ninety per cent of it, and still leave the table with €0. The headline is not the number that reaches the account. The preference stack decides that, and it is drafted years before the exit.

Illustration for founders: ninety per cent of nothing

Investors.

Fact, or forecast

For investors. An investor can back the same company round after round, funding what is already spent, and miss the one line in the board pack that says stop. Fact and forecast share the page, built so you cannot tell them apart.

The Golden Ratio

Phi is the most irrational number there is. It resolves to no clean fraction and never repeats, and that refusal to settle is precisely what allows it to grow without end. In nature it is the angle at which a plant sets each new leaf so none ever shadows the last, and the spiral by which a shell enlarges without ever changing shape. Growth without repetition. Expansion without collision. The same holds for a company, and for a founder. Compounding value is not built by doing more of the same. It is built through asymmetry, through the decision no one else would make. Every founder is a different proportion. The work is to find it, and to build around it.