Honesty About Limitations
No model predicts the future perfectly. We teach you to understand where your assumptions might break and how to test them. That's more valuable than pretending we have all the answers.
Building Financial Models That Actually Work
We started vaxilora because we were tired of overcomplicated approaches.
Financial modelling shouldn't feel like decoding ancient manuscripts. Since 2019, we've been teaching Australians how to build models that make sense—ones that actually get used instead of gathering digital dust.
How We Got Here
vaxilora began in a shared workspace in Melbourne. Three of us kept running into the same frustration—financial models that looked impressive but couldn't handle real business questions.
We'd been consultants, analysts, CFOs. And we all noticed something: most people learn Excel formulas but never really learn how to think through a business problem from scratch.
"The best model isn't the fanciest one. It's the one that helps someone make a better
decision tomorrow morning."
So we started teaching differently. Not from textbooks, but from actual situations we'd navigated—startup funding rounds, expansion decisions, portfolio rebalancing. Real scenarios where getting the numbers right mattered.
What Guides Our Teaching
Start With Questions
Every decent financial model begins with a question someone actually needs answered. We build backwards from there—not from templates.
Keep It Usable
Complexity for its own sake doesn't help anyone. We focus on models that your team can update six months from now without calling you at midnight.
Learn By Doing
You can watch a hundred videos about swimming, but eventually you need to get in the water. Our courses put you in front of real datasets early and often.
Sienna Valtonen
Lead Instructor & Co-founder
Sienna spent eight years building financial models for venture capital firms before she started teaching. She's the person companies call when their existing models stop making sense.
What sets her apart? She can explain derivative pricing to a startup founder over coffee without making them feel lost. Her courses focus on practical application—less theory, more "here's what happens when your revenue assumptions are wrong."
Outside work, she's usually rock climbing or trying to convince her dog that squirrels aren't worth chasing. She holds a Master's in Financial Economics from Monash University and still thinks the best learning happens when you're slightly uncomfortable.
What Matters To Us
Practical Over Perfect
We'd rather you build something useful this week than chase perfection for three months. You can always refine later once you see how people actually use your work.
Support That Sticks Around
Questions don't stop when the course ends. Our community forum stays active because real learning happens when you hit your first unusual dataset and need another perspective.
Real-World Relevance
Every case study comes from actual client work—names changed, of course. We show you the messy middle parts that textbooks skip, because that's where most people get stuck.