Experienced payments CFOs, embedded in your team.
Bridges brings specialized payments, lending, and FinTech experience to early-stage founders — before they're ready to build a full-time ops team.
Payments is one of the most important — and most difficult — industries to build in.
Every business touches payments. It's regulated, complex, and unforgiving — and the founders building in it are often under-resourced when it matters most.
After 12 years at Morgan Stanley and Lazard in investment banking and private equity, I went inside the companies. I joined Kabbage as head of finance and M&A — on my second day, we had two months of runway left. COVID had just hit. Small businesses were defaulting. We had to furlough over 250 people overnight to keep the rest of the company alive and continue supporting 200,000+ small businesses.
We stabilized, ran one of the largest PPP programs in the country, and sold the business to American Express for $1B.
From there I became CFO at Collectly — a payments company in healthcare collections growing 100%+ year over year, where every system was breaking. We built the financial and operational infrastructure from scratch: sales team, reporting, controls, growth investment. The company grew 3× in 18 months.
Those experiences — a near-death turnaround and a hypergrowth scaling challenge — showed me how under-resourced early-stage payments founders are. That's why I built Bridges.
A partner that doesn't just grow with you.
We help you grow.
Get peace of mind with accurate, reliable support for your financial operations. With Bridges' streamlined service and comprehensive insights, you can focus on growing your business and have confidence in every decision you make.
For modern businesses
Built for retainers, project work, usage, and hybrid models.
Tailored to your needs
Taxes and compliance, fractional and cash flow, hiring and staffing.
Built to scale with you
Operations center on scalable processes, tech, and data.
Handled by experts
CFOs, operators, and Big 4 accountants on your team.
30+ payments and fintech companies guided through fundraise, growth, and exit
“Tim brought financial clarity that let us scale profitably, grow the team, invest in sales & marketing, and move fast without worrying about cash or risk.”
Levon Brutyan
Co-Founder & CEO · Collectly
3×
Revenue growth in 18 months
“We overstaffed, margins collapsed, and runway shrank. Tim gave me the visibility to navigate it.”
Jacki Leahy
CEO · Activate the Magic
“Tim navigated Kabbage through near-zero runway — bringing financial discipline and analytical rigor — and prepared us for a premium exit.”
Rob Frohwein
Co-Founder & CEO · Kabbage
$1B
Exit to American Express
“We were bleeding money. Tim identified where and what to change. We got to profitability.”
Nick Steele
CFO · StimLabs
Common Questions
What type of companies is Bridges the best fit for?
Bridges works best with B2B payments and fintech companies between $3M and $30M in revenue, from seed through Series B.
- Payments processors, embedded finance platforms, lending companies, healthcare payments, and commerce fintech
- Companies past product-market fit navigating a raise, deploying capital, or managing a transition
- Founders who need senior finance leadership but aren't ready to justify a full-time CFO hire
Who will I be working with?
You work directly with Timur Salikhov, CFA — Bridges' founder and your fractional CFO — as your primary point of contact for all strategic and financial decisions.
- Timur leads every engagement directly — you won't be handed to a junior team member
- He is supported by experienced controllers and bookkeepers with 10+ years each in payments and regulated industries
- The same team that runs your books informs your strategy — no handoffs, no gaps
How much time will Bridges commit to our company?
We've built internal automations to streamline recurring work — so our team spends time on decisions, not data entry. Depending on scope, we commit 5 to 20 hours per week.
- 5–20 hours per week, scoped to your stage, complexity, and engagement type
- Typically sufficient for seed through Series B companies
- One to two touchpoints per month with your leadership team — performance update and alignment on annual plan and priorities
What industries do you support?
Bridges was built for payments and fintech, with deep experience where payment complexity and regulation intersect.
- Healthcare payments and collections
- Commerce and marketplace payments
- Transportation and mobility payments
- Lending and credit products
- Embedded finance and platform payments
Work directly with a payments CFO
A 15-minute call is enough to assess your setup, confirm whether we're the right fit, and scope what an engagement looks like for your stage.