After a Series A, 55% (11 of 20) of Australian software startups with nobody in finance hired within a year; after a seed, 33% (8 of 24) did.
Software companies that raised first took a median 18 months to hire finance, and a third took more than three years
We dated every finance hire at 194 venture-backed Australian companies against their announced rounds. 82 of them are software or internet businesses with a dated finance hire, and 55% (45) of those made their first one in the month of their first round or after it. This is how long they took, against every startup in the study.
- Software (45 companies)
- All startups (91 companies)
- Within 3 months18%18%
- Within 6 months24%26%
- Within 12 months38%37%
- Within 18 months53%54%
- Within 24 months62%65%
- Within 36 months67%75%
View as a table
| First finance hire | Software (45) | All startups (91) |
|---|---|---|
| Within 3 months | 8 (18%) | 16 (18%) |
| Within 6 months | 11 (24%) | 24 (26%) |
| Within 12 months | 17 (38%) | 34 (37%) |
| Within 18 months | 24 (53%) | 49 (54%) |
| Within 24 months | 28 (62%) | 59 (65%) |
| Within 36 months | 30 (67%) | 68 (75%) |
38% (17 of 45) of these software companies had someone in finance within a year of the round.2 So if you raised eight months ago and nobody owns finance yet, most of your peers were in the same position. For two years software runs on the same clock as everyone else; after that it pulls away, and 33% (15 of 45) went past three years. The chart counts the first internal hire, and many of those companies had outside help while they waited.3
If you already have a finance person, the before-or-after split for software is in when tech startups hire finance, before or after the raise.
After a Series A the clock runs about a year; after a seed, nearly two
The first round is not the only one that starts a clock. This table takes every software company with nobody in finance when a round at each stage was announced, first round or not.
| Measure | Seed24 companies | Series A20 companies | Series B5 companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median wait | 21months | 12months | 2months |
| Middle half of waits | 7 to 45months | 5 to 31months | 1 to 7months |
| Hired within 6 months | 25%6 of 24 | 35%7 of 20 | 2 of 4companies |
| Hired within 12 months | 33%8 of 24 | 55%11 of 20 | 3 of 4companies |
| Hired within 24 months | 52%12 of 23 | 60%12 of 20 | 4 of 4companies |
After a Series A, 55% (11 of 20) hired within 12 months, a little faster than the 46% (21 of 46) across all startups. By two years it was only 60% (12 of 20). After a Series A, a software company that hires tends to do it in the first year, and the ones that do not usually run a long time on outside help. After a seed the wait is longer at every point, and after a Series B it is a matter of months.
Software can run on outside help longer than most, until the work outgrows it
That tail fits what I see in software. As I said on Behind The Story, “for a single product SaaS business that’s very digitized, it’s not a super complex business. So they can get away without a CFO for a lot longer.” They “might get away with a fractional person or a head of finance or a financial controller for a period of time.” A fractional CFO for the capital questions and a strong controller for the day to day often cover it.
The round is what tests that arrangement. In the month after the money lands, the rough edges get noticed: a forecast that is not detailed enough for the board you now report to, a reporting rhythm set for a business half the size, and a hiring plan that is ambitious without being costed. Whether your clock has started depends on whether the round has created that work yet.
Start the search now, or can it wait?
Five yes-or-no questions about your software business since the round. One yes is enough.
- A second product, a second market or a new pricing model in the plan the round paid for?
- A monthly board pack the founder still writes?
- More than a handful of hires planned in the next six months?
- A fractional CFO or outside accountant working well past the hours they were engaged for?
- The next round planned within 18 months?
0 of 5 answered. Your answer appears here after the last one.
Not sure the round has started your clock? Send me the stage, what you raised and who does finance today, and I will tell you.
Get a read on my finance hireIf you are being told to hire now, or to wait
“The board wants a CFO now we have raised the A.” Most software companies did not start there: of the 45 that hired after their first round, 16% (7) started with a CFO, against 31% (14) with a head of finance or finance director and 20% (9) with a controller. The mistake I see most often at Series A is a founder who closes the round and goes straight looking for a CFO. Six months in, that person is bored because the work is not there yet, they leave inside a year, and the founder runs the same search twice. What the stage usually needs is an operational head of finance or VP finance who builds the engine room, manages cash and gives the founder visibility.
“Our fractional CFO will carry us to the Series B.” It might, if someone inside runs the month. The data says it often did: 40% (8 of 20) of software companies with nobody in finance at their Series A had no internal hire two years later.3 But plan the handover. As I wrote after introducing one founder to a fractional CFO, a founder who needs fractional help today may be building something that needs a full-time hire in 18 months.
“We will hire before the next round.” The next round may be further away than the plan says. The figure that stood out most to me in the quarter’s venture numbers was that the median age of a company at Series B is now 9.7 years, against 5.2 in 2021. And the person you want is the finance leader who helps you think through a raise three months before you need to start it, which means already knowing the numbers when that moment comes.
If the board is asking about a CFO, I set out when a software startup needs a CFO, and why single-product SaaS can often wait until Series B.
How The Martec and mod.io ran the clock after their Series A: 3 months and 31 months
Two software companies with nobody in finance when their first round was announced. Titles and dates are from public profiles; rounds from the announcements linked.
The Martec
A financial controller three months after the Series A
- Business
- AI content platform for employer branding and talent marketing, founded 2015
- Rounds
- Series A, Oct 2023 ($8M)
- First finance hire
- Financial controller, Jan 2024
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 3 months after
- Next finance hire
- CFO and COO, Jul 2025 to Feb 2026
- Now
- Financial controller still in role (Sep 2026)
The Martec sells an AI content platform that large employers use for employer branding and hiring. Its first announced round was an $8 million Series A in October 2023, and a financial controller started three months later.
A combined CFO and COO joined in July 2025 and left in February 2026. The controller hired after the round is still in the seat.
The fast end of the software clock: the first hire after the A was the person who runs the month, and that seat has held since, including through a senior hire above it in 2025.
mod.io
31 months after a $26M Series A
- Business
- Platform for mods and player-made content in video games, founded 2018
- First finance hire
- Financial controller, Jun 2024
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 42 months after; 31 months after the Series A
- Next finance hire
- None yet
- Now
- Financial controller still in role (Sep 2026)
mod.io raised a $4 million seed in December 2020 and a $26 million Series A eleven months later. Its first internal finance hire, a financial controller, started in June 2024, 31 months after the A, and is still the only one.
In between, the usual arrangement at this stage is an outside accountant or a fractional CFO.
A large Series A does not force the hire in software. When the first internal hire came, it was a controller to run the month.
Against all startups, fintech and deep tech, software has the longest tail
| Companies that hired after their first round | Software82 companies | All startups191 companies | Fintech40 companies | Deep tech52 companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hired after the first round | 55%45 of 82 | 48%91 of 191 | 45%18 of 40 | 37%19 of 52 |
| Median wait | 18months | 18months | 21months | 21months |
| Middle half of waits | 7 to 42months | 6 to 36months | 12 to 28months | 5 to 38months |
| Took more than three years | 33%15 of 45 | 25%23 of 91 | 17%3 of 18 | 26%5 of 19 |
The medians sit within three months of each other. What separates software is the tail: 33% (15 of 45) took more than three years, the largest share of any group, and fintech the smallest. Each has its own page: all startups, fintech and deep tech. The other software benchmarks: what to hire first and the second finance hire.
Common questions
How long after raising do Australian software startups make their first finance hire?
Of the 82 funded Australian software and internet startups we tracked with a dated finance hire, 45 made their first one in the month of their first announced round or later. The median wait was 18 months and the middle half took between 7 and 42 months. 38% (17 of 45) hired within a year and 33% (15) took more than three years.
How long after a Series A do software startups hire finance?
Among 20 software startups we tracked with no internal finance hire when their Series A was announced, the median was 12 months to the first one. 55% (11 of 20) hired within a year and 60% (12) within two, so most who hired did it in the first year and the rest waited much longer. Across all startups the Series A median was 14 months (n=48).
How long after a seed round do software startups hire finance?
A median 21 months among 24 software startups we tracked with no internal finance hire when their seed round was announced, with the middle half between 7 and 45 months. 33% (8 of 24) hired within a year and 52% (12 of 23) within two, counting only companies whose round is at least that old.
Can a software startup run on a fractional CFO instead of a finance hire?
For a while, and longer than most businesses. A single-product software business can often run on a fractional CFO with an outside accountant or one internal controller or head of finance. The signal to hire is the work outgrowing the arrangement: a second product or market, a monthly board pack nobody owns, or a hiring plan nobody has costed.
Notes
- 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.
- “Software” here means the 83 software and internet businesses in the study, 82 of them with a dated finance hire; fintechs and deep tech companies are counted on their own pages.
The full method, including how rounds were double-checked and how same-named companies overseas were excluded, is in the study’s methodology section.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.