BOTTOM LINE UPFRONT
Acquisition bolsters Accordion’s ability to deliver agentic workflows and AI systems to PE-backed companies.
NEW YORK – October 13, 2026 – Accordion, an AI and data-powered financial consulting firm focused on private equity, today announced that it has acquired Stride, an AI-powered software engineering firm known for building production-grade agentic systems for enterprise clients in healthcare, financial services, and other regulated industries. Stride’s team of around 50 Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) will join Accordion.
“Building AI that changes outcomes for portfolio companies takes three things working together: a modern data foundation, FDEs who build on top of it, and people who understand how finance and operations actually work,” said Kyle Roemer, Managing Director and Global Head of Data & AI at Accordion. “We’ve spent years building that combination for private equity. Stride provides us with the elite engineering strength to pair with our operational teams, delivering agentic workflows and AI systems for PE-backed companies at scale.”
The deal gives Accordion a dedicated software engineering group built for complex, regulated industries.
Stride’s presence in Latin America also extends Accordion’s global delivery model, alongside its existing teams across North America, Europe, and India.
“So many firms in this space claim AI expertise,” said Nick Leopard, CEO of Accordion. “But so few can put Forward Deployed Engineers, who have shipped production-grade agentic systems in regulated industries in the same room as Forward Deployed Operators, who bring decades of finance domain experience. Stride brings the technical talent we need to build and deploy AI for clients at scale, paired with everything we already know about how a finance function runs.”
The acquisition also accelerates Accordion’s own AI product roadmap, giving its next generation of AI- enabled finance products the dedicated engineering capacity to move faster to market.
Stride was led by Debbie Madden, Founder and Chairwoman, who joins Accordion as Managing Director and AI GTM Leader, and Francisco Martin, Stride’s CEO, who joins as Managing Director and AI Product and Engineering Leader.
“We founded Stride around senior engineers embedded directly inside client teams,” said Madden.
“Accordion works inside the finance and operations functions of PE-backed businesses the exact same way. Joining Accordion means portfolio companies get that same embedded engineering built directly into the finance work Accordion already does, with one unified team owning the data, the system, and the result.”
“A demo is one thing. Getting AI into production inside a regulated business, without breaking anything, is another,” said Martin. “That’s what our engineers are built for. Pairing that with Accordion’s financial expertise and reach means we can run that same rigor across hundreds of portfolio companies at once, instead of one client at a time.”
Combined with Accordion’s existing data, AI, and finance domain expertise, the acquisition gives Accordion the scale to meet growing demand for deployed agentic AI and engineering work. Roemer calls the combination a winning recipe to help close the gap between AI pilots and AI initiatives that can actually move EBITDA.
“That gap closes when the people building the systems and the people who understand finance are working from the same playbook,” said Roemer. “Talking with Debbie and Francisco made clear they see the market the same way we do. Our shared view is exactly why this combination can help clients move beyond pilot purgatory into AI that creates real value.”
About Accordion
Accordion is the CFO’s partner in value creation. Built for the modern finance function, we are the only firm at the intersection of deep CFO domain expertise, technology, and cutting-edge AI and data. Our roots run through private equity, where speed, rigor, and accountability are the baseline, and we bring that same discipline to organizations everywhere. Accordion works with clients to transform and drive value across the entire enterprise, through core accounting, FP&A, analytics, technology enablement, transactions, operational improvement, and turnaround and restructuring. The firm is headquartered in New York, with 11 offices and 1,700+ professionals around the globe.
About Stride
Stride is an AI-powered software engineering firm that designs, builds, and ships production-grade agentic systems and custom software for enterprise clients in healthcare, financial services, and other regulated industries. The firm is built around senior engineers who work embedded inside client teams, giving Stride’s clients the technical rigor to move AI systems into daily production use.