About Afissio
Experienced judgment. Direct involvement. Practical preparation.
Afissio is a transaction-readiness firm built for the period before a consequential transaction becomes urgent.
Why Afissio exists
Founder-led companies are often strong in product, technology, and market execution while their documented business has received less attention. Afissio helps leadership prepare the operative record for the scrutiny that accompanies serious transactions.
Jerry Stephen Smith
CEO / Principal
Jerry Stephen Smith leads Afissio and is directly involved in the transaction-readiness and diligence process. His role emphasizes careful review, structured analysis, practical judgment, and close collaboration with company leadership.
Heidi Abdul
Senior Advisor
Heidi Abdul focuses on the organizational and compliance side of transaction readiness. Her background spans entity formation, governance, and organizational documents; capitalization records and complex cap tables; corporate compliance programs and required corporate filings; and transaction documentation, including diligence and disclosure schedules through closing. She has directed compliance functions in highly regulated, fast-moving environments.
The network
A network of experts
Afissio draws on a network of financial and technical experts with deep experience in the areas that matter most to transaction readiness.
On the financial side, that experience spans capitalization, operating records, financial documentation, and transaction-readiness priorities. On the technical side, it spans software, hardware, data, privacy, security, and the use of emerging technologies. These professionals are engaged as a company's circumstances require, and their work supports the same review, prioritization, and judgment that guide every Afissio engagement.
Keith Lieberman
Former CFO & Senior Advisor
Brian Pry, MSA, CPA
CPA & Tax Specialist
Dawn Newton
Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Matthew Abarbanel
Entrepreneur & Software Engineer
Bill Claxton
Founder & CEO
D. Tyler Heymann
CEO and Financial Advisor
Frequently Asked Questions
What companies ask before they engage
What does Afissio do?
Afissio helps founder-led companies get ready for a financing, acquisition, strategic partnership, recapitalization, or institutional investment. We review the operative record, find the issues most likely to cause friction in diligence, and help leadership resolve them before a counterparty finds them.
What is "diligence friction"?
Anything in the record that prompts questions, slows a process, or hands a counterparty leverage: a missing IP assignment, an unreconciled cap table, an unsigned board consent, an undocumented data practice. Most of it can be fixed. It is far cheaper to fix before a process starts than during one.
How is Afissio different from a law firm, accounting firm, or investment bank?
Afissio is not any of them. We do not give legal advice, audit financials, prepare tax returns, or run a sale or raise. We prepare the record those advisers, and your counterparty, will rely on, and we work alongside them so their work goes faster.
We don't have a transaction scheduled yet. Is it too early?
Usually not. The work is most useful 6 to 36 months before a process begins, while findings can still be resolved rather than disclosed. If a process is already underway, a Deal Engineering Sprint can focus the remaining time on what matters most.
How long does a Transaction Readiness Review take?
Typically 2 to 4 weeks from receipt of the requested documents, depending on the size of the record and how organized it is. Timing is set at the start of the engagement.
How are engagements priced?
The Transaction Readiness Review is fixed in scope and fixed in fee, although those can be re-set by Afissio and the client if needed. Sprints and Ongoing Readiness Support are scoped to the work the Review identifies and the transaction timeline.
What do you need from us to get started?
An introductory conversation about the company, the anticipated transaction, and its timing. Then a document request covering governance, capitalization, contracts, employment, IP, financial records, and technical and data documentation. We keep the demand on leadership's time focused and scheduled.
Is what we share with Afissio kept confidential?
Yes. Afissio holds client information in confidence under its engagement terms [and a mutual NDA, if requested]. Because Afissio is not a law firm, communications with Afissio are not protected by attorney-client privilege. Where privilege matters, involve your counsel.
What if an issue needs financial or technical expertise?
Afissio draws on a network of financial and technical specialists covering capitalization, operating records, software, hardware, data, privacy, and security. They are engaged as needed, and their work feeds the same review and prioritization.
Who decides what gets fixed, and how?
You do. Afissio ranks the findings, explains the consequences, and recommends a path. Leadership decides what to address and who addresses it, whether that is your team, your existing advisers, Afissio experts, or, for legal work, your counsel or Afissio Law.
Before a process begins
There is still time to prepare deliberately.
Afissio reads the operative record early, so the questions that matter arrive with answers already attached.