Pilot is a San Francisco-based finance back-office for startups and small businesses, combining software with U.S.-based accountants to deliver bookkeeping, tax prep, and CFO services. Founded in 2017 by three MIT friends who had sold two prior startups together, it now serves thousands of venture-backed companies and is backed by Sequoia, Index, and Jeff Bezos.
Vanessa Kruze is the founder and CEO of Kruze Consulting, a San Francisco-based accounting and finance firm exclusively serving venture-capital-backed startups. A CPA and Deloitte Tax alum, she launched Kruze in 2012 after working as a startup controller and spotting a gap in the market for specialized, tech-forward financial services for founders. Today, the firm has served 800+ startups that have collectively raised over $15 billion in VC funding, earned seven consecutive Inc 5000 honors, and is known in Silicon Valley as the go-to accounting partner for early- and growth-stage companies.
James Chan is the CFO of LDV Capital, a New York-based early-stage venture fund investing in visual technology and AI startups. With 20+ years spanning public accounting, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and CFO roles at hypergrowth startups and venture firms, he founded JMC Strategic Advisory in 2022 to serve as a fractional CFO across multiple funds simultaneously - including Bow Capital, BankTech Ventures, Breakout Ventures, Lineate, and First Spark Ventures - overseeing more than $1 billion in assets under management. He holds a BA from UCLA and an MS in Business Taxation from USC, and is known for eating ice cream with chopsticks.