Graphite Financial vs Sandstone Finance
Side-by-side from the Top 11 rankings of 11 Best Fractional CFO Companies 2026 — Priced From $1,500/mo, No Paid Listings and The 11 Best Fractional CFOs for Patent-Heavy & IP-Rich Startups (2026). Last verified June 9, 2026.
The short answer
Graphite Financial ranks higher on Top 11 (#3 vs #7) for Tech founders raising $1M to $50M, Seed to Series B / Founders of deep-tech, AI, biotech, hardware, and any company where patents or other IP form ≥20% of enterprise value — and who need a CFO that treats IP as the asset it is, not a balance-sheet line item.. The YC favourite. Modern stack, priced for your first finance hire.
At a glance
| Graphite Financial | Sandstone Finance | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 11 rank | #3 / 11 Best Fractional CFO Companies 2026 — Priced From $1,500/mo, No Paid Listings | #7 / The 11 Best Fractional CFOs for Patent-Heavy & IP-Rich Startups (2026) |
| Score (out of 9.4) | 8.6 | 7.2 |
| Best for | YC / accelerator early-stage | Bay Area boutique tech with IP awareness |
| Pricing | $$ (typically $1.5k to $8k/mo) | $$ ($3k to $8k/mo) |
| HQ | New York, NY | San Francisco Bay Area, CA |
| Founded | 2017 | 2018 |
Graphite Financial
The YC favourite. Modern stack, priced for your first finance hire.
graphitefinancial.comSee full entry in 11 Best Fractional CFO Companies 2026 — Priced From $1,500/mo, No Paid Listings
Sandstone Finance
Bay Area boutique with practitioner-dependent IP fluency.
sandstonefinance.comSee full entry in The 11 Best Fractional CFOs for Patent-Heavy & IP-Rich Startups (2026)
Methodology and scoring weights live at /methodology. No vendor pays for placement — see about.