Vanessa Kruze, CPA
Vanessa Kruze, CPA
Startups and startup accounting are our niche, our passion, and high growth is where we excel. We offer financial and accounting services for 500+ fast growing Seed, Series A, and Series B tech companies - from SaaS to biotech to eCommerce and more.
Find out why the San Francisco Business Times named us one of the top 100 companies in the Bay Area AND one of the most Influential Women Owned Businesses in the Bay Area.
Founder & CEO Vanessa Kruze is a CPA, Deloitte Tax alumni, and former Controller of a 120+ FTE startup. Kruze COO Scott Orn is a Kellogg MBA, former VC Partner and investment banker. Our VP of FP&A, who helps our clients prepare their financial models for fund raises, is a former VC and operating executive. Our Staff Accountants and Controllers come from the Big 4 and top venture capital backed startups. Kruze started in San Francisco, but has expanded to the Los Angeles, San Jose and New York markets.
If your company is raising venture capital funding, we are one of the best tax partners in the greater SF area. We know what you need to do to stay compliant in San Francisco and what documentation you need to retain for regulatory compliance - and to be ready to fly through due diligence.
Kruze’s origins are in San Francisco, with a deep commitment to serving the tax and accounting needs of the VC-backed startup in the entire Bay Area. Kruze’s founder, Vanessa Kruze, attended university in San Francisco and much of the executive team has worked at startups in the SF Bay Area in a variety of finance, accounting and operational roles.
The San Francisco startup ecosystem continues to grow. As SF’s startups attract greater and greater amounts of venture capital funding - at greater and greater valuations - the need for qualified CPAs, tax accountants and quality monthly accounting providers like Kruze will only continue to increase. Making tax accounting and sales tax work even more important to San Francisco startups is the myriad of local city and state compliance paperwork and filings (see the tax deadline calendar that we link to below).
As PitchBook reports, San Francisco area startups continue to attract record levels of venture funding at ever higher valuations. A qualified tax CPA like Kruze can likely help these companies save millions per year in payroll taxes through tax credit advice.
Concerned about your 2021 Tax Deadlines?
We've done the work for you with these 2021 Tax Compliance Calendars.
Client testimonials
We're huge fans of Vanessa and the folks at Kruze Consulting. They set up our books, finances, and other operations, and are constantly organized and on top of things. As a startup, you have to focus on your product and customers, and Kruze takes care of everything else (which is a massive sigh of relief). I highly highly highly recommend working with Vanessa and her team.
Vivek Sodera
Co-Founder @ Superhuman
Avochato has been growing rapidly in the past year – in fact, too quickly for us to keep up with books, taxes, and budgeting for growth. Partnering with Kruze Consulting has been fantastic to manage, track, and analyze our finances while we continue focusing on building our customer base. Kruze’s team knows what startups need.
Alex De Simone
CEO @ Avochato
Everybody, go to Kruze Consulting. They do a great job. I personally can tell you, they've done a great job for our companies, including Calm.com. I'm sure they’ll do a great job for you.
Jason Calacanis
Angel investor
I had a great experience working with Kruze Consulting when we raised Series A. They know what VCs need to see, and how to present a startup’s books and finances. If you are going to raise venture capital, you need experts like Kruze.
Chris Mansi
CEO @ Viz.ai
Being a repeat tech entrepreneur, I know how challenging it is to find the ideal CFO - not only is it often expensive to find the right one, but CFOs who combine expertise with scrappiness, market vision and perspective with detail orientation and 'roll up your sleeves' execution is near impossible for an early stage company. So I've been thrilled to work with Kruze Consulting, who not only provide all the ideal characteristics of a top-tier tech CFO, but also live and breathe entrepreneurship themselves. I've known Scott and Vanessa for many years and their deep personal integrity and strong reputation in the industry and made it an easy decision to work with them again.
Tina Fitch
CEO @ HobNob
NIH, NSF, and SBIR grant compliance can add a lot of overhead for a start-up. The Kruze team makes it easy, so we can spend our time growing the business instead of shoveling paperwork.
Charlie Silver
CEO @ Mission Bio
Prior to Kruze, as a remote-first team, we were weighed down by a lot of the bureaucracy involved with having a distributed workforce. Kruze has supported us above and beyond basic accounting needs by ensuring we have everything we need to expand and support our team wherever they may be located
Zack Fisch
Pequity's Head of Operations & Legal
Financial Consulting
| Staff Accountant | $85 |
| Senior Staff Accountant | $110 |
| Controller | $140 |
| Junior Financial Modeling | $175 |
| Financial Modeling | $400 |
| Venture Debt | $400 |
| CFO | $350 |
| Tax Advisory | $395 |
Startup Tax Return
Custom Quote Tool
Kruze's calculator tells you how much it will cost to prepare your startup's tax return.
R&D Tax Credit
Estimation Tool
Save on payroll taxes this year
We charge a fixed fee of 15% of the anticipated captured credit amount with a minimum fee of $1,000
Startup 409A Valuation
| Seed | $2,000 |
| Seed A | $2,500 |
| Seed B | $3,000 |
| Seed C | $3,500 |
Contact Us for a Free Consultation
Startups are our niche, and our passion. Our clients have raised over $5.5 billion in venture capital financing. We are one of only a few outsourced accounting firms that specialize in funded early-stage companies - we only offer financial and tax services to fast growing startups in the Seed, Series A, Series B and Series C stages.
We know how to de-risk your startup’s next venture capital round. Our team makes sure you are ready to fly through your next VC’s accounting, HR and tax due diligence. And when you use us as your bookkeeper, we set up and keep up-to-date a due diligence folder so you can get that next round of fundraising.
Our practice is built on best of breed cloud accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, Netsuite, Gusto, Zenefits, Expensify, Avalara, Brex iand Bill.com. Technology makes us more efficient, saving our clients money and letting us offer higher value services like FP&A modeling, 409A valuation and venture debt consulting. Startups deserve to work with CPAs using modern software.
Top angel investors and VCs refer Kruze because they trust us to give the right advice. Our clients are portfolio companies of top technology and Silicon Valley investors, including Y-Combinator, Kleiner, Sequoia, Khsola, Launch, Techstars and more. With us, your books and taxes are in order when it’s time to raise another round of venture financing.
Kruze Consulting works with a variety of funded Delaware C-Corps, but the majority of our companies have secured Seed, Series A, Series B and Series C. We look to partner with our clients, going beyond the typical outsourced accounting relationship and seeking to provide a higher level advisory role. We feel honored to be a part of making the world a better place, even if it’s one debit and credit at a time.
Startup CFO services, startup accounting and bookkeeping services, startup annual taxes, expense reports, payroll, benefits: we've got you covered. Our software provides custom tailored dashboards that can be provided weekly or monthly, depending on your preference and plan. Founders are often so busy building their company that they don’t have time to take care of their finances. Traditionally, these companies have had to work with a basket of people to get their work done, including bookkeepers, accountants, AP clerks, CFOs, consultants, and tax accountants. At Kruze Consulting, our founders have one point person, saving time and money.
