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Big investors are buying this “unlisted” stock

When the founder who sold his last company to Zillow for $120M starts a new venture, people notice. That’s why the same VCs who backed Uber, Venmo, and eBay also invested in Pacaso.

Disrupting the real estate industry once again, Pacaso’s streamlined platform offers co-ownership of premier properties, revamping the $1.3T vacation home market.

And it works. By handing keys to 2,000+ happy homeowners, Pacaso has already made $110M+ in gross profits in their operating history.

Now, after 41% YoY gross profit growth last year alone, they recently reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Invest for $2.90/Share

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

Hey there, CFOs! 💼

In this issue, CFO Forum 2025 brings finance leaders together to tackle the big shifts—AI adoption, ESG integration, navigating global economic uncertainty, and the push for digital transformation.

The conversations reveal how top CFOs are reshaping strategy to lead in volatile times.

📰 Upcoming in this issue

• 🏛️ CFO Forum 2025: Insight from Finance Professionals

• 📊 CFOs Go All-In on Agentic AI, Salesforce Finds

• 📊 Deterministic AI for Finance: OneStream’s Playbook

📈 Trending news

• From Days to Hours: How AI Transformed a CFO’s Earnings Prep

• As AI Reshapes Tech Buying, CFOs Lean Into Risk

• CFOs Put Real Meaning Behind ‘Uncertainty’

🏛️ CFO Forum 2025: Insight from Finance Professionals

At The Star’s CFO Forum 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, finance leaders shared pragmatic playbooks for navigating rate volatility, AI disruption, and rising reporting demands while keeping growth and cash discipline front and center.

Read the full article here »

Key Takeaways:

• 📉 Macro Readiness: CFOs are doubling down on scenario planning, FX hedging, and debt-maturity management to stay agile amid rate and geopolitical uncertainty.

• 🤖 AI with Guardrails: Automation is moving from pilots to production in forecasting, close, and controls—paired with clear governance to manage privacy and model risk.

• ♻️ Reporting Gets Real: Sustainability and supply-chain disclosures are becoming investor-grade, pushing finance to unify data across ESG, risk, and performance.

• 👥 Talent & Operating Model: Teams are upskilling in analytics and business partnering, with finance hubs and shared services used to scale capability without ballooning cost.

📊 CFOs Go All-In on Agentic AI, Salesforce Finds

Finance chiefs are already shifting about 25% of AI budgets to agents and expect roughly a 20% revenue lift within a year—despite security and ROI jitters.

Read the full article here »

Key Takeaways:

• 🚀 From Cautious to Committed: CFOs are moving agentic AI from pilots to core strategy as confidence replaces wait-and-see.

• 📏 ROI Gets Rewritten: Leaders are measuring impact beyond cost cuts, tying agents to growth, speed, and decision quality.

• 💸 Budgets Show Intent: About a quarter of AI spend is earmarked for agents, signaling near-term deployment at scale.

• ⚠️ Risks Remain Real: Security, privacy, and time-to-value are top concerns, prompting stricter governance and staged rollouts.

📊 Deterministic AI for Finance: OneStream’s Playbook

OneStream’s CEO underscores a move toward explainable, auditable AI—prioritizing clear answers over “creative” ones so CFOs can deploy agents they trust across core finance workflows.

Read the full article here »

Key Takeaways:

• 🧮 Deterministic Over Generative: The focus is on repeatable, traceable outputs that finance leaders can audit and defend.

• 🔎 Transparency by Design: Agents reveal data sources, lineage, and logic, fitting the sensitivity of CFO environments.

• 🔧 Built for Finance Work: Capabilities target forecasting, scenario modeling, reconciliations, and variance analysis to drive adoption.

• 🛡️ Governed for ROI: Solutions run inside enterprise security and compliance guardrails to move teams from pilots to production with confidence.

Why It Matters

From tech-driven efficiencies to sustainable finance, the leaders who master these trends will set the pace for the next era of growth.

Vanessa Carter
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights