Across 191 funded Australian startups with a dated finance hire, 100 (52%) had a finance person before their first announced round, and 135 (71%) made their first finance hire below CFO.
What the data shows
Four findings sit under every benchmark in the series. First, there is no single answer to “when”. Of 191 companies with a dated finance hire, 100 had a finance person before their first announced round and 91 hired after it, so an average across both groups describes neither. Second, the first finance hire is usually not a CFO: 135 of 191 (71%) started with a head of finance, a financial controller, a finance manager or an accountant. That matches what I see: founders more often start one level below the CFO seat. Third, nearly half of those below-CFO starts later added a CFO above the first hire, 65 of 135, a median 26 months later. Fourth, each later finance hire comes sooner than the one before: 16 months to the second, 11 to the third, 8 to the fourth and 7 to the fifth.
How I read the benchmarks
The numbers match what I hear from founders and finance leaders. On team shape, the pattern I set out for early-stage startups is agility over size: a finance manager or hands-on financial controller, supported by a bookkeeper or outsourced accounting firm, with cash runway, burn, fundraising readiness and systems as the priorities.[1] That is why so many first hires sit below the CFO seat.
On the outside help this data cannot see: every second executive finance professional I speak to is considering fractional or virtual CFO work, so the market is crowded and harder for founders to judge.[2] On who to hire, the person who has built a first finance function well and wants to do it again is much rarer than people realise.[3] And on what the hire is for: when someone properly owns finance, reporting gets clearer and cash conversations get more accurate,[4] but the real return is the space the founder gets back for customers, product, team and fundraising.[5]
The four benchmarks
Pick the one that matches the decision in front of you.
Did they have a finance person before their first announced round?
100 of 191 (52%) had a finance person before their first announced round, a median 17 months ahead of it.
With nobody in finance when the round was announced, how long until the first hire?
A median 18 months for the 91 that hired after the first round; 14 months after a Series A (n=48).
Was the first finance hire a CFO, or a seat below it?
135 of 191 (71%) started below CFO, and 65 of those 135 later added a CFO above that first hire.
How long from the first finance hire to the second, and what is it?
A median 16 months to the second hire (n=156), then 11 to the third and 8 to the fourth.
The first benchmark is the long-form study, when Australian startups make their first finance hire, which the rest of the series is built on. Its companion, which seat Australian startups fill first and what comes next, covers the first hire and the upgrade to a CFO in more depth.
Which benchmark to read, by where you are
- Planning a raise and nobody owns finance yet. Start with before or after the first raise.
- Just closed a round with nobody in finance. Read how long after a raise.
- Writing the brief for the first finance hire. Read what to hire first.
- One finance person in, and the next search coming. Read the second finance hire.
When the benchmarks say it is time, the process I run is in how to hire a CFO in Australia.
By industry
The same four benchmarks, rebuilt for one sector at a time with that sector’s own figures and case companies.
Tech (software and internet)
For software founders, with software-only figures and case companies.
Fintech
For founders whose product moves, lends or manages money.
Guide: When a fintech needs a CFO
Deep tech
For founders building hardware, materials, biotech, space or energy technology.
How the benchmarks were built
We started from people in Australia with finance titles on public professional profiles, took the companies they worked at, and kept those that had raised venture money. A company only qualified when two independent searches of public funding announcements found the same round. That left 194 companies of roughly 2 to 500 staff. Every finance role at each company, current and past, was dated from the earliest finance title each person held there: 966 hires, 907 to the month. The full method is in the study’s methodology section.
What this data cannot tell you
- It does not show that hiring finance earlier or later causes a better outcome. It records the order things happened in. The only outcome test so far was run on the first 102 companies in the study, before it grew to 194. There, the share that raised again within 24 months of the first finance hire ran 55% when the hire came before any round (27 of 49), 47% at Series A (7 of 15) and 33% at Series B or later (2 of 6), and none of those differences could be told apart from chance (Fisher exact test, p=0.77 and p=0.41). Outcomes have not been collected for the full 194, and companies that hire early and companies that raise again are often the same well-organised companies, so no timing figure in this series is an argument for a timing.
- It is a survivor set. Every company announced a round and has at least one finance employee we could find, so the study describes companies that did build an internal finance function. In the 93 of the first 102 companies with a usable status there was not one insolvency, administration or wind-up. It cannot say what share of Australian startups have no finance lead at all.
- Outsourced and fractional finance is invisible. A virtual or fractional CFO supplied by a firm does not list the startup as an employer, so it never appears in public employment records. 16 of the 191 first hires we tracked (8%) were visibly fractional, part-time or interim, and that is a floor. Every “had no finance hire” figure means no internal hire we could find, among the companies we tracked.
- There is no headcount at the time of the hire. Only today’s headcount is public, so nothing here says “they hired a CFO at 40 staff”. The companies run from roughly 2 to 500 staff today.
- Titles are counted once. Each person is recorded at the earliest finance title they held at the company, so a controller promoted to CFO in the same business reads as a controller. Every “later added a CFO” figure is a floor.
- Rounds are dated by announcement. An announcement usually trails the close by weeks, rounds that were never announced are invisible, and grants and research funding are not in the round series. Round amounts are the least reliable field and no figure in this series rests on one. For 12 companies with names too common to search cleanly, past-staff coverage is a floor.
- It is not the market report. Story’s earlier market report on the first finance hire measured something different, the share of recently funded companies with a finance leader at each stage, so its figures and these do not compare directly.
The full method, including how rounds were double-checked and how same-named companies overseas were excluded, is in the study’s methodology section.
Common questions
What are the finance hiring benchmarks based on?
Story Recruitment's study of 194 venture-funded Australian startups, each with a funding round confirmed by two independent searches of public announcements. 966 finance hires at those companies were dated from public professional profiles, 907 of them to the month, and matched against each company's announced rounds.
Do most Australian startups hire finance before or after they raise?
Roughly half and half. Of the 191 companies we tracked with a dated finance hire, 100 (52%) had a finance person before their first announced round, a median 17 months ahead of it, and 91 (48%) hired after it, a median 18 months later.
Do these benchmarks show that hiring finance early helps a startup?
No. They record the order in which things happened. An earlier test on the first 102 companies in the study found no link between the timing of the first finance hire and raising again that could be told apart from chance. Use them to see what other companies did, not as proof that one timing works better.
References
- From a LinkedIn post on finance team structure by stage: startups up to about 20 staff need agility rather than a big team, often led by a finance manager or hands-on financial controller supported by a bookkeeper or outsourced accounting firm.
- From a LinkedIn post on the fractional CFO market: every second executive finance professional I speak to is considering moving into fractional or virtual CFO work, which makes it harder for businesses to know who to trust.
- On Celia’s Corner: the first finance hire or first CFO who has scaled a business well before and wants to do it again is much rarer than people realise.
- From a LinkedIn post on what changes when someone owns finance: reporting gets clearer, forecasts become more believable, board prep gets less chaotic and cash conversations get more accurate.
- From a LinkedIn post written for founders: the real return on a finance hire is not the reporting but what the founder does with the space they get back.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we place. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.