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About Us

Bringing a startup to life can be thrilling, challenging, exhausting, and rewarding — sometimes all at once. We should know, because the startup experience created airCFO.

Born From a Common Need Across Startups

Our founder, Justin McLoughlin, was an early employee at Apartment List, working as a Controller at the San Francisco-based start-up. When Justin decided to return to the Midwest, the remaining team didn’t have the time (or desire) to take over his back-office accounting and financial duties. Like many start-ups, they needed a reliable, scalable accounting solution — but it was still too early to hire a full-time CFO or controller. So Justin agreed to support Apartment List remotely, ensuring that accounting, payroll, tax, and bookkeeping tasks were fully and efficiently accomplished every month.

With that successful arrangement in 2012, Apartment List became airCFO’s first client. Since then, we’ve grown our presence from Silicon Valley to serving more than 300 startups across the U.S. today. When airCFO manages your accounting back-office, taxes, and acts as your part-time CFO, you get an experienced and trusted business partner from day one. To talk with Justin about how airCFO can help accelerate your growth, schedule a call today.

Values Drive Everything We Do

Fully Accountable

We show pride in our work, maintaining a deep focus of quality. We also believe that true success is achieved not just in what we accomplish, but in how we achieve it. This means always seek out opportunities for self-improvement and proactively solicit feedback from our clients and internal team to make progress on our commitment to growth.

Startup Mindset

We draw inspiration from the dynamic startups we serve, adopting their agile and innovative approaches in our own. Embracing change as an opportunity for growth, we consistently challenge the status quo as early-adopters, actively seeking out and leveraging cutting-edge technologies to benefit both our clients and ourselves. By thoughtfully considering the scalability of our solutions, we balance meeting unique client needs with identifying opportunities for standardization.

Strength in Numbers

In accounting, 1+1 always equals 2. In high-performing teams, 1+1 can equal 3. We harness our collective knowledge for the benefit of our clients, and remain open to gathering feedback and perspectives from a diverse range of sources. We strive to foster a cohesive team environment, free from ego, where members engage in constructive debate in the pursuit of truth.

Founder Focused

As we play a critical role in the success of startups that entrust us with their back-office operations, we keep founders' needs at the forefront. Understanding the ups and downs of their journey, we use empathy to build deep relationships. Instead of just offering help, we proactively problem-solve, guiding clients and teammates around potential pitfalls. This means seeking opportunities to act as thought partners, teachers, and mentors, providing valuable guidance throughout their entrepreneurial journey.

Global Connection

We embrace a working environment that enables remote employees to excel, regardless of their location. We actively foster connections among our global team. By leaning in to the complexities of a distributed team and embracing the diversity of cultures and time zones, unlock a new level of creativity and innovation.