The round closes; the obligations begin. The SHA you signed converts investor goodwill into contractual deadlines – monthly MIS, board cadence, consent matrices – and the statute adds its own annual stack, now with a FEMA layer if any rupee came from abroad. Companies that treat post-round compliance as a system raise their next round faster: Series A diligence is largely an audit of how you behaved after seed. This is the complete map of what a funded Indian startup owes, to whom, and when.
What you owe your investors (the SHA layer)
| Obligation | Typical commitment | Practice note |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly MIS | Within 15–30 days of month-end: P&L, cash, runway, agreed KPIs | Fix one template in month 1; changing formats monthly reads as chaos |
| Quarterly board pack | Financials, metrics vs plan, hiring, risks | Send 72 hours before the meeting – boards that read in the room decide badly |
| Annual budget | Investor consent usually required | A reserved matter in most SHAs – diarise it for February, not April |
| Audited financials | Within 90–180 days of year-end per SHA | Align the statutory audit timeline so one deadline serves both |
| Consent (reserved) matters | Written consent before listed actions | Keep a one-page consent log; an action taken without consent is a breach even if harmless |
| ESOP reporting | Grants within pool, per scheme | Report grants in the board pack; surprises here erode trust cheaply |
Information rights are the one obligation that pays you back: the discipline of a monthly close produces the cohort and margin data your next raise needs anyway. Treat the MIS as a product with one user – your future lead investor.
What you owe the statute (the annual stack)
Companies Act: board meetings at least four a year (gap ≤120 days), AGM, AOC-4 and MGT-7/7A annual filings, DIR-3 KYC for directors (30 September), DPT-3 (30 June) – and event filings as they arise (MGT-14s for special resolutions, SH-7, CHG forms for venture-debt security). Tax: advance tax quarterly, TDS deposits monthly with quarterly returns, ITR by 31 October (audit cases; 30 November with transfer pricing), and the s.140 holiday election run properly if certified. GST: monthly/quarterly returns plus the annual return; exporters maintain the LUT annually. Payroll: PF/ESI monthly, professional tax per state, POSH committee once you cross 10 employees, and gratuity funding as you scale. None of this is startup-specific – what is startup-specific is that a two-person finance function now answers to a board about it. A missed TDS deposit is no longer a ₹200-a-day nuisance; it is a line in the next diligence report.
The FEMA layer (if any investor is foreign)
The FLA return every 15 July – even in loss years, even if nothing changed. Event filings whenever capital moves: FC-GPR for fresh allotments, FC-TRS within 60 days when shares change hands between residents and non-residents, Form CN on note events. Keep the FIRMS Entity Master current (directors, capital – stale masters block future filings), and diarise everything on the FEMA deadline calculator. The pattern from our practice: FEMA filings are missed not at the round (everyone is watching) but at the small events after – an angel’s secondary sale, an ESOP exercise by a foreign employee, a note conversion. Put a standing agenda item in the quarterly board pack: “any capital movement this quarter?” – and route every yes to the checklist in the closing guide.
The operating rhythm that makes it easy
When things slip
They will – a late MIS in a hard month, a missed consent on an urgent signing. The recovery protocol: disclose to the investor before they discover, cure fast (most Companies Act lapses have condonation/late-fee routes; FEMA has the LSF/compounding path), and fix the system that let it slip. Investors forgive slips disclosed in the next board pack; they price, and remember, patterns of discovery. The relationship asset you are building – a lead who tells the next lead “their reporting was impeccable” – is worth more than the hours the system costs.
Just closed a round?
My Cloud Accountant runs the whole post-round stack – monthly close and MIS, board packs, the statutory calendar and every FEMA filing – as one managed system.
Talk to an expertFrequently Asked Questions
What does a funded startup’s compliance actually cost annually?
For a seed-funded company: statutory audit ₹1–2.5 lakh, secretarial/ROC ₹40–80k, monthly accounting + payroll ₹3–6 lakh/yr, GST compliance ₹60k–1.2 lakh, plus FEMA filings per event. Budget ₹6–10 lakh a year all-in – and treat it as round infrastructure, not overhead.
Do we need a company secretary after raising?
A whole-time CS becomes mandatory at ₹10 crore paid-up capital; below that, a practising CS on retainer covers filings, registers and board processes. Most seed-stage companies run CA + PCS retainers; Series A investors increasingly ask for the arrangement to be formalised.
What happens if we breach a reserved matter accidentally?
It is an SHA breach even if the action was benign – the cure is prompt disclosure and ratification by the investor (usually granted for good-faith slips). Repeated breaches feed default clauses and poison the next round’s references. The consent log exists precisely to make this a never-event.
Our only foreign investor exited – do FEMA obligations stop?
The exit itself needs FC-TRS (and the pricing cap for the NR seller); after that, with zero foreign holding, FLA obligations fall away from the next year – but the historical filings stay auditable forever. Confirm the Entity Master reflects the exit, and keep the file.
Last reviewed: August 2026. Companies Act 2013 annual/event filings; Income-tax Act 2025 calendar; GST law; FEM (NDI) Rules reporting (FLA 15 July; FC-TRS 60 days). Costs are market ranges, not quotes.