AdvisureIQ Aiming to Streamline Corporate Planning

PRO SERVICES: Startup Works With Mid-Sized Businesses

By ELI WALSH

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CARLSBAD - AdvisureIQ is taking off.

Nearly a year after it launched, the financial planning advisory and data analytics consulting firm is gaining traction in San Diego County, Orange County, and Los Angeles County, particularly among mid-market companies that lack streamlined budgeting and financial forecasting tools and processes.

AdvisureIQ founder, President and CEO David Van Horn said the firm's location in Carlsbad in North San Diego County was intentional to operate across all three counties. The location also makes for a quick trip of Van Horn, a trained pilot, between Van Nuys and McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad.

"Everyone we've talked to is like, 'gosh, there's not a lot of people in your space but we can absolutely see the need for it, and we can appreciate everything that you're doing,' and they're excited about our product," he said.

Handling Corporate Curveballs

Van Horn founded AdvisureIQ in mid-2025, roughly 18 months after selling his previous business venture, professional audio and video technology company Spitfire Creative Technologies.

"I started looking for businesses to acquire, buy a company, grow it and do the whole thing again," he said. "And I found that most of the (confidential information memorandums) that I was getting from investment bankers were wrong."

"The experience of conducting diligence on potential acquisition targets frustrated Van Horn to the extent that he began considering ways in which he could leverage his three decades of experience as a certified public accountant to advise companies on how to properly manage and forecast their balance sheets.

After briefly looking into buying a similar company based in Canada, Van Horn opted to start his own firm, primarily serving companies with revenues between $10 million and $100 million per year.

In addition to long-term consulting and advisory services, AdvisureIQ provides third-party software to its clients to make corporate financial planning easier.

"Once you are able to identify where your information is coming from and how you can control it and what it means, you're going to be able to plan and get through life so much easier as a business," Van Horn said. "When they start throwing you curveballs, you'll be able to handle it."

Van Horn pointed to his experience during the COVID-19 pandemic as evidence of his expertise in corporate planning and risk mitigation. The immediate halt of live events in early 2020 could have been disastrous for an audio and video technology company, he argued.

"These guys worked on the Emmys, the Oscars, the Super Bowl, and everything stopped," he said. "But we had planned and we knew where everything was, we were able to continue on without laying anybody off."

Growing List of Partners

AdvisureIQ has established partnerships with multiple software companies during the first four months of the year, including Centage, PlanGuru and Celigo.

According to Van Horn, PlanGuru is primarily for smaller companies that lack any existing corporate planning processes, while Centage is built for larger, more complex companies that may have multiple subsidiaries or operate across multiple countries that use different currencies.

Most recently AdvisureIQ announced it would begin offering Celigo's software to automate processes across platforms like Salesforce, Shopify and Snowflake to its clients.

According to Van Horn, the company plans to forge additional partnerships with software providers while exploring markets beyond southern California, including Europe and in Asia.

"We want to partner with our clients, and we want to be one of the three trusted advisors: your lawyers, your accountants, and then us," Van Horn said. "We want to be the (platform) that they come to and talk to when they're adding new software or they need some help with reporting or they go some processes that just seem out of whack."