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PE & VC-Backed Finance Advisory

Your finance function should tell the company's story.

Zeno Insights embeds experienced financial executive leadership into PE and VC-backed companies — building the systems, narratives, and exit-ready infrastructure that drive shareholder value and investor confidence.

Proactive, Not Reactive — The Foundation of Exit Readiness
When bankers and buy-side teams start analyzing your business, your data must already be verifiable and trusted — no asterisks, no capital still being spent to clean up numbers. Value erosion and distrust creep in the moment a buyer discovers the financials aren't fully buttoned up. The time to fix that is now, not during diligence.
The Zeno Approach
Proactive — not reactive — diligence readiness
Embedded in the executive leadership team
Sell-side specialist — at the table, not on the sidelines
Finance, ops & engineering aligned as one team
Quarterback experienced executives through their first exit
"Some of the best-prepared financials I've seen across multiple engagements."
— Deals Director, Big 4 Firm · Quality of Earnings
Sponsor Experience
Private Equity
KKR Bregal Sagemount
Venture Capital
Oak HC/FT CitiVentures
Why Zeno Insights

Finance that drives valuation, not just compliance

Zeno Insights is led by a Financial Executive who has been a core member of executive leadership teams — driving finance transformations that resulted in measurable shareholder and valuation expansion across PE and VC-backed portfolios.

Decision-Driving Analytics

Financials and analytics structured to inform strategic decisions — not just report history. Every number connects to a lever that management can pull to expand shareholder value.

Exit-Ready From Day One

We build finance functions that are already in great shape before bankers and buyers arrive — proactive infrastructure that earns trust and eliminates last-minute diligence surprises that erode enterprise value.

Quarterback Experienced Leaders

Many operators are deeply skilled but have never navigated a full sell-side process. Zeno brings the playbook — coaching management teams through buyer diligence, banker coordination, and the negotiations that determine final valuation.

Technical Accounting Is Not Our Focus — By Design
Our value is management and PE/VC-focused financial leadership: narratives, KPIs, strategic reporting, and exit execution. Technical accounting expertise should sit in-house or with a specialized outsourced partner. We'll help you identify and connect with the right technical resources so your finance function is complete — not dependent on a single generalist.
Cross-Functional Partnership
Successful finance transformations require alignment across operations, engineering, and finance. Zeno Insights is built to work at the intersection of all three — translating business operations into financial story, and financial requirements into systems that engineering and ops teams can actually build.
Services

Six service lines. One integrated engagement.

From sponsor onboarding to transaction close, Zeno Insights covers every phase of the finance leadership lifecycle for PE and VC-backed companies.

01 — Core Engagement

CFO & Executive Finance Leadership

Zeno operates as a member of the executive leadership team — not a back-office function. We lead monthly financial review calls where management discusses performance narratives, strategic levers, benchmarking against budget and forecast, and variance analysis that shapes the next operating decision.

  • Monthly financial review and narrative development with management
  • Budget-to-actual variance analysis and forward-looking guidance
  • Board and investor reporting packages with strategic commentary
  • Cash flow forecasting and treasury management
  • KPI definition, dashboard buildout, and performance benchmarking
  • Sponsor and lender relationship management
02 — Sell-Side Specialty

Exit Preparation & Sell-Side Support

Zeno's core specialty is the sell side. We work hand-in-hand with management teams and bankers — who typically quarterback the process — to fulfill buyer diligence requests with confidence. Our role is to ensure your data is already trusted, structured, and defensible long before the first buyer data room request arrives.

  • Proactive data room preparation in partnership with bankers
  • Quality of Earnings preparation and management support
  • Investment banker financial model population and review
  • Buyer diligence request fulfillment and Q&A management
  • Management presentation financial narrative and story arc
  • Coaching management on buyer questions before they are asked
The Zeno Standard: By the time your banker sends the first CIM, every number in your data room should already be verifiable without qualification. Buyers lose confidence — and enterprise value — when capital is still being spent fixing financials during diligence. We eliminate that risk proactively.
03 — Technology

ERP & Business Intelligence Implementation

NetSuite implementation, optimization, and ongoing administration — plus business intelligence infrastructure using Tableau, Power BI, or Looker. Our ERP experience spans multiple industries where clean data and real-time visibility are operationally critical.

  • NetSuite implementation and chart of accounts design
  • Business intelligence dashboard buildout and reporting infrastructure
  • System integration, data migration, and workflow automation
  • Ongoing ERP administration and optimization
📊 Industry Experience: Ad Tech · FinTech · Real Estate Tech · Financial Services · Healthcare / Digital Health. Deep operational knowledge of the unique data and reporting requirements across each vertical.
04 — Analytics

FP&A & Strategic Reporting

Annual budgets, rolling forecasts, and the KPI infrastructure that gives your board, sponsor, and management team the intelligence to make high-quality decisions. We build reporting that structures decision-making and drives valuation expansion — not just documents history.

  • Annual budget and long-range strategic planning
  • Rolling quarterly forecast models and scenario planning
  • KPI definition aligned to sponsor value creation frameworks
  • Variance analysis with strategic narrative and management commentary
  • Industry benchmarking and competitive positioning analytics
05 — M&A

M&A Integration & Add-On Support

For buy-and-build platform companies, financial integration is where value creation is won or lost. We manage the finance side of add-on integrations — consolidating reporting, normalizing accounting policies, and building combined-entity models that tell the right story to sponsors.

  • Financial integration project management
  • Combined entity reporting and consolidation
  • Purchase accounting and opening balance sheet preparation
  • Synergy identification, tracking, and realization modeling
06 — Capability Building

Finance Team Buildout & Management Coaching

We design the finance org, support recruiting, and onboard talent — then transition cleanly when the team is ready. Critically, we coach management teams on what to expect from buyer diligence, how to present financials under pressure, and how to answer the hard questions before buyers ask them.

  • Finance org design, role definition, and recruiting support
  • Onboarding, process documentation, and knowledge transfer
  • Management coaching: buyer diligence Q&A preparation
  • Technical accounting partner identification and coordination
🤝 Technical Accounting Partners: Zeno actively maintains relationships with specialized technical accounting and audit firms. We help you identify the right partner for complex revenue recognition, ASC 842 lease accounting, or pre-IPO readiness — ensuring your finance function is complete, not compromised.
Our Approach

Embedded, not advisory-at-a-distance

We don't send a deck and walk away. Zeno operates as part of the executive team — present in the close, visible in the board room, and accountable for outcomes across the full hold period.

1
Finance Function Diagnostic
60-day deep dive into reporting infrastructure, close process, systems, and team capability. We identify every gap between current state and exit-ready — and we quantify the cost of each one.
2
Value Creation Roadmap
A prioritized, time-bound execution plan aligned to your hold period and exit timeline. Sequenced for maximum EBITDA impact, multiple expansion, and diligence readiness.
3
Embedded Execution with Ops & Engineering
We work across finance, operations, and engineering simultaneously — because clean financials require clean data from operations, and clean data requires systems built right by engineering. All three must move together.
4
Exit Execution & Clean Handoff
We quarterback the finance side of the sale process alongside your bankers, coach the management team through buyer Q&A, and transition out cleanly — every system documented, every process trained on.
What "Embedded" Actually Means
1
Present in the monthly close
Owning the numbers alongside your team — not reviewing a deliverable after the fact.
2
In the board room
Building and presenting the narratives that shape sponsor confidence and strategic direction.
3
At the negotiating table
Alongside bankers and buyers during live sell-side processes — not watching from the sidelines.
4
Partnering with ops & engineering
Finance transformation requires all three functions moving together — not finance working in isolation.
Experience That Matters

In the room where it happens

Zeno Insights is built on real sell-side experience — not theoretical frameworks. Our founder has been at the negotiating table with bankers, buyers, and management teams completing diligence under pressure.

At the Negotiating Table
Sat alongside management teams in live sell-side processes — with bankers on one side and sophisticated buy-side teams on the other. Knows firsthand what buyers probe for, where diligence stalls, and how to keep management confident under pressure.
Monthly Financial Review Leadership
Led monthly management financial reviews where performance narratives are built, strategic levers identified, benchmarking against budget and forecast is discussed, and variance analysis shapes the next quarter's operating plan. This is where shareholder value is created or lost.
Management Coaching on Buyer Q&A
Experienced operators often know their business cold but have never faced a sophisticated buy-side diligence team. Zeno prepares management for the exact questions buyers will ask — before they ask them — so the process feels controlled, not reactive.
Banker Partnership — Not Displacement
Bankers quarterback the sell-side process. Zeno's role is to make the management team and financial data so prepared that bankers can run the most competitive possible process — without finance being a drag on timeline or valuation.
"Some of the best-prepared financials I've seen across multiple engagements. The data room was clean, the narratives were consistent, and management had answers before we had questions."
Deals Director, Big 4 Firm
Quality of Earnings Engagement

Proven Across PE & VC-Backed Portfolios

Experience spans both PE-backed companies where sponsor rigor and value creation frameworks are paramount, and VC-backed businesses like FastPay where growth stage finance must simultaneously tell the investor story and build the infrastructure needed to scale.

Client Results

Trusted by operators and investors

Outcomes from PE and VC-backed companies that needed an experienced financial executive in the room.

"We came in post-acquisition with no ERP and spreadsheet-based reporting. Zeno had us on NetSuite, running 10-day closes, and producing board packages our sponsor actually wanted to read — all within six months."

HP
HealthTech Platform Company
NetSuite Implementation + Fractional CFO

"Our management team knew our business but had never been through a sell-side process. The coaching Zeno provided before and during diligence was the difference between a smooth process and a chaotic one."

VC
VC-Backed SaaS Company
Exit Preparation & Management Coaching
About Zeno Insights

Built at the intersection of tech and finance — from the inside

Zeno Insights was founded to solve a specific gap: PE and VC-backed companies need financial executive leadership that understands both the investor's value creation playbook and the operational complexity of scaling a tech-enabled business. Most advisory firms offer one or the other.

Our founder has spent the majority of their career inside technology companies — Ad Tech, FinTech, Real Estate Tech, Digital Health, and Financial Services — as a core member of executive leadership teams. That means sitting in the room during monthly financial reviews where management debates performance narratives and strategic levers, and sitting at the negotiating table during sell-side transactions where bankers, buyers, and management are all present simultaneously.

That direct experience — not advisory-at-a-distance — is what Zeno Insights brings to every engagement. We know what good looks like because we've built it, defended it in diligence, and seen it drive material valuation outcomes for shareholders.

PE Finance VC Finance Sell-Side M&A NetSuite Quality of Earnings FP&A Ad Tech FinTech Real Estate Tech Digital Health Financial Services Management Coaching
JF
John Fowler
Founder & Principal, Zeno Insights
Financial Executive on PE & VC-backed executive leadership teams
Live sell-side transaction experience — at the table with bankers & buyers
NetSuite implementation across Ad Tech, FinTech, Real Estate Tech, HealthTech
$1B+ in enterprise value supported through transaction
Based in Southern California — serving companies nationally
Get in Touch

Ready to build an exit-ready finance function?

Schedule a 30-minute call to discuss your portfolio company's needs. No sales pitch — a direct conversation about where your finance function is today and where it needs to be before bankers arrive.

Or reach us directly at [email protected]

No commitment required
Southern California — serving companies nationally
$1B+ enterprise value supported