Which fractional CFO firms work with venture-backed startups?
Which Fractional CFOs Get Recommended to Venture-Backed Startups
3 firms lead, appearing in 52.0–56.0% of 25 AI responses. The sample cannot separate them, so we do not pretend it can.
Based on 25 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
Key findings
- Burkland Associates, Kruze Consulting and Pilot lead this sample, each named in 52.0–56.0% of 25 ChatGPT responses to the question “Which fractional CFO firms work with venture-backed startups?”, collected August 8, 2026.
- The gaps between Burkland Associates, Kruze Consulting and Pilot are inside the margin of error at 25 responses, so The Shortlist Report groups them in one tier rather than ranking them against each other.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Which fractional CFO firms work with venture-backed startups?” in ChatGPT as of August 8, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Burkland Associates appears in 3 of the 8 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.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 3 firms, 52.0–56.0% | |||
| Burkland Associatesburkland.businessFractional CFO, FP&A, and fundraising support for venture-backed startups, particularly SaaS and tech companies. | 14 of 25 | 56.0% | |
| Kruze Consultingkruzeconsulting.comProvides startup accounting, CFO services, tax preparation, R&D tax credits, and fundraising support for seed through Series C+ ventures. | 13 of 25 | 52.0% | |
| Pilotpilot.comOffers technology-enabled bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services to startups and small to midsize companies. | 13 of 25 | 52.0% | |
| Tier 2 7 firms, 8.0–20.0% | |||
| CFO Advisorscfoadvisors.comProvides CFO advisory, fundraising support, investor reporting, and financial modeling for seed-to-series C venture-backed tech startups. | 5 of 25 | 20.0% | |
| Propeller Industriespropellerindustries.comProvides outsourced accounting, fractional CFO, FP&A and strategic finance services for more mature and high-growth startups. | 5 of 25 | 20.0% | |
| airCFOaircfo.comFractional CFO and accounting services for pre-seed through Series A venture-backed startups. | 4 of 25 | 16.0% | |
| Waveupwaveup.comProvides FP&A, board reporting, fundraising strategy, and M&A readiness for Series A through late-growth startups. | 4 of 25 | 16.0% | |
| Graphite Financialgraphitefinancial.comProvides combined CFO strategy and outsourced accounting for venture-backed SaaS and tech startups. | 3 of 25 | 12.0% | |
| Sandhill Accounting SolutionsProvides SaaS-specific accounting, ASC 606 compliance, and investor reporting for early-to-growth-stage technology startups. | 3 of 25 | 12.0% | |
| Attivoattivopartners.comOffers hands-on fractional finance teams for smaller startups. | 2 of 25 | 8.0% | |
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds Burkland Associates, Kruze Consulting and Pilot, named in 13 to 14 of the 25 ChatGPT responses. They are grouped rather than ranked because the gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size — one extra mention would reorder them, so an order would be reporting noise as a finding.
Tier 2 holds CFO Advisors, Propeller Industries, airCFO, Waveup, Graphite Financial, Sandhill Accounting Solutions and Attivo, named in 2 to 5 of 25 responses (8.0–20.0%). 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 25 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
3 firms lead this question: Burkland Associates, Kruze Consulting and Pilot. They appear in 52.0–56.0% of the 25 responses. The gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size, so they are listed together rather than ranked against each other.
34 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; 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
Danielle Trettson. (2026). Which Fractional CFOs Get Recommended to Venture-Backed Startups. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/fractional-cfo-for-startups
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON · reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.