Which fractional CFOs help prepare a company for fundraising?
Fundraising, Diligence and Exit Support: What The Shortlist Report Finds
Burkland Associates appeared in 23.7% of 380 AI responses to this question, ahead of everyone else.
Burkland Associates leads
Burkland Associates comes up more than any other firm on this question, by a clear margin.
Burkland Associates90 of 380
Fractional CFO, FP&A, and fundraising support for venture-backed startups, particularly SaaS and tech companies.
Kroll63 of 380
Provides sell-side transaction advisory including quality of earnings, working capital analysis, and operational due diligence.
Deloitte60 of 380
Offers full finance-function outsourcing, automation, controllership, and transformation for mid-market and enterprise clients.
Local Fractional59 of 380
Offers exit planning, quality-of-earnings preparation, valuation, and sell-side advisory for lower-middle-market companies approaching a sale.
Alvarez & Marsal54 of 380
Provides operational improvement, transaction advisory, and outsourced equity administration for middle-market and PE-backed companies.
+5 more namedin the table
Based on 380 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026–October 29, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 stands alone | |||
| Burkland Associatesburkland.businessFractional CFO, FP&A, and fundraising support for venture-backed startups, particularly SaaS and tech companies. | 90 of 380 | 23.7% | |
| Tier 2 6 firms, 13.9–16.6% | |||
| Krollkroll.comProvides sell-side transaction advisory including quality of earnings, working capital analysis, and operational due diligence. | 63 of 380 | 16.6% | |
| Deloittedeloitte.comOffers full finance-function outsourcing, automation, controllership, and transformation for mid-market and enterprise clients. | 60 of 380 | 15.8% | |
| Local Fractionallocalfractional.comOffers exit planning, quality-of-earnings preparation, valuation, and sell-side advisory for lower-middle-market companies approaching a sale. | 59 of 380 | 15.5% | |
| Alvarez & Marsalalvarezandmarsal.comProvides operational improvement, transaction advisory, and outsourced equity administration for middle-market and PE-backed companies. | 54 of 380 | 14.2% | |
| Ignition Consultantsignitionconsultants.comProvides fundraising strategy, financial modeling, diligence preparation, and investor support for growth-stage companies approaching capital raises. | 54 of 380 | 14.2% | |
| The CFO Centrethecfocentre.comOperates a network of 750+ part-time CFOs across 18 countries providing fractional CFO services to SMBs and mid-market companies. | 53 of 380 | 13.9% | |
| Tier 3 3 firms, 11.1–12.4% | |||
| RSMProvides accounting, FP&A, controllership, and CFO services to growing middle-market businesses and PE-backed companies. | 47 of 380 | 12.4% | |
| EYProvides finance transformation, accounting operations, and full-cycle consolidation with multi-GAAP reporting for larger companies and complex structures. | 43 of 380 | 11.3% | |
| VertexCFOvertexcfo.comCash-flow forecasting, budgeting, financial modeling, exit planning, M&A advisory, and transaction-readiness support. | 42 of 380 | 11.1% | |
Key findings
- Burkland Associates leads this sample alone, named in 90 of 380 ChatGPT responses (23.7%) to the question “Which fractional CFOs help prepare a company for fundraising?”, collected August 8, 2026–October 29, 2026.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Which fractional CFOs help prepare a company for fundraising?” in ChatGPT as of October 29, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Deloitte appears in 7 of the 15 fractional CFO and outsourced accounting firms reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds Burkland Associates, named in 90 of 380 ChatGPT responses (23.7%). No other firm in this sample comes close enough to be grouped with it.
Tier 2 holds Kroll, Deloitte, Local Fractional, Alvarez & Marsal, Ignition Consultants and The CFO Centre, named in 53 to 63 of 380 responses (13.9–16.6%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
Tier 3 holds RSM, EY and VertexCFO, named in 42 to 47 of 380 responses (11.1–12.4%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 380 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
Burkland Associates leads on its own, named in 90 of the 380 responses to this question (23.7%).
324 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 8, 2026–October 29, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Fundraising, Diligence and Exit Support: What The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/cfo-support-fundraising-ma
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.