Services

Financial strategy and product, from the same practice

Virtus Opus runs fractional CFO engagements and startup advisory for early-stage founders — and builds the iOS products too. Twelve apps live on the App Store are the proof of the second half. Remote, worldwide, in English or Turkish.

Service 01

Fractional CFO Services

A fractional CFO is a part-time chief financial officer: the same seniority as a full-time hire, sized to what an early-stage company actually needs. For most startups that means someone who owns the model, produces the reporting investors ask for, keeps runway honest, and is in the room when the financial decisions get made — without a full-time executive salary on a pre-revenue burn rate.

Financial leadership

  • Comprehensive CFO advisory
  • Financial modeling and scenario planning
  • Budget, burn, and runway management
  • Business strategy and implementation

Reporting and raise

  • Controlling and management reporting
  • Investor-ready reporting packs
  • Investment readiness and data room preparation
  • Round closure support
You probably need this if:
  • A raise is coming and your numbers are not yet in a shape you would show an investor
  • Your cap table has become hard to reason about
  • Investors are asking for reporting you cannot currently produce
  • You are the founder and you are spending your week in spreadsheets instead of on the product

Detailed service overview: Download PDF

Service 02

Startup Advisory

Strategic guidance from someone who has been on several sides of the table: twenty years of C-suite financial leadership with more than $40M raised across ventures, four companies co-founded — three failures and one exit — plus angel investments, a stint on the VC side, and mentoring across eight accelerator programmes. The failures are listed deliberately; they are the part that makes the advice specific rather than generic.

Direction

  • Business planning
  • Growth strategy
  • Digital strategy
  • Fundraising preparation and narrative

Execution

  • Operational strategy
  • Go-to-market planning
  • Board and investor communication
  • Founder coaching and mentoring
Selected outcomes:
  • Exit — led the acquisition process of Udentify by Netcad
  • Fundraising — closed the seed round for VenueX; structured the seed round for Büyütech
  • CFO — secured a $10M+ investment at Scotty (Delaware); led the Series A at V-Count, with subsidiaries in the US and UAE
  • Angel — led go-to-market strategy for GENZ Biotechnology
  • Advisory — built the financial structure and strategy of FineDineMenu, Udentify, VenueX and Büyütech

Founder background: About Erdem Gülen · LinkedIn

Service 03

Application Development

End-to-end design and development of iOS and web applications. The portfolio on this site is entirely our own work — every app was designed, built, shipped, and is maintained in-house, which is a more honest reference than a case study deck. Many are deliberately on-device and privacy-first, because that is a harder engineering constraint than sending everything to a server.

Build

  • Native iOS applications (Swift, SwiftUI)
  • Web applications
  • Databases and APIs
  • On-device and privacy-first architecture

Design and AI

  • UI/UX design
  • AI feature integration
  • Prompt engineering
  • App Store submission and release

Our own work: See the portfolio · View on App Store

Process

How an engagement starts

No discovery-call funnel, no proposal theatre. The goal of the first conversation is to work out whether this is worth doing at all — including saying so if it is not.

01

A conversation

You describe where you are — stage, what you are building, and what is currently in the way. Thirty minutes, no pitch.

02

An honest scope

We come back with what we think the work actually is, what it would take, and what it costs. Sometimes that answer is "you do not need us yet."

03

Start small

Most engagements open with something bounded — a model, a readiness review, a first build milestone — so both sides can judge the fit on real work.

04

Scale or stop

If it is working, it becomes ongoing. If it is not, it ends cleanly. No long lock-in on either side.

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

About fractional CFO work, advisory, and how engagements run.

What does a fractional CFO actually do?

A fractional CFO does the work a full-time CFO would do, on a part-time basis: building and maintaining the financial model, producing investor-ready reporting, managing budget and runway, preparing the data room and the numbers for a raise, and being in the room when financial decisions get made. The difference is cost and commitment, not seniority.

When should a startup hire a fractional CFO instead of a full-time one?

When the finance work is real but not yet a full-time job. Typically that is pre-seed through Series A: you have revenue or a raise coming, investors are asking for reporting you cannot easily produce, and the founder is spending too many hours in spreadsheets. A full-time CFO usually makes sense later, once the finance function needs a team rather than a person.

How much do fractional CFO services cost?

It depends on scope and intensity. Engagements range from a one-off piece of work — a financial model, an investment readiness review — to an ongoing monthly retainer. Rather than publish a number that would be wrong for most situations, we quote after a short conversation about where you actually are.

Do you work with startups outside Turkey?

Yes. Virtus Opus is based in Istanbul and works with founders worldwide. Engagements run remotely across time zones as a matter of course, in English or Turkish.

Can you both build the product and run the finances?

Yes, and that combination is the reason Virtus Opus exists. The same practice ships production iOS applications — twelve are live on the App Store — and runs fractional CFO engagements. In practice it means the financial model reflects what the build will actually cost and take, because the people writing it have shipped the thing before.

What stage of startup do you work with?

Mostly pre-seed through Series A. Earlier than that, founders usually need advisory more than a CFO; much later, they need a full-time finance team. The sweet spot is the stage where financial rigor has started to matter but a senior full-time hire is not yet justified.

Tell us where you are

Stage, what you are building, and what is currently in your way. The first conversation is a conversation, not a pitch.