62% (32 of 52) of Australian deep tech companies we tracked made their first finance hire below CFO, and 38% (20) started with a CFO, the highest share of any sector. 15% (8) of first hires were visibly part-time, fractional or interim.
79% of deep tech startups have had a CFO: 20 hired one first, and 21 added one above a below-CFO start
| First finance hire | First hireshare of 52 | Still in the seathired 3+ years ago | Leavers stayedmedian | CFO hired latera different person | Wait for that CFOmedian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CFOCapital, investors, grants, the board | 38%20 of 52 | 33%6 of 18 | 29 mo12 who left | 45%9 of 20 | 50 mo9 companies |
| Head of finance or finance directorThe model, budget and forecast | 19%10 of 52 | 3 of 8n under 10 | 14 mo6 who left | 70%7 of 10 | 28 mo7 companies |
| Financial controllerControls, compliance, reporting | 19%10 of 52 | 1 of 9n under 10 | 35 mo8 who left | 70%7 of 10 | 18 mo7 companies |
| Finance managerMonth end, reporting, the advisers | 12%6 of 52 | 1 of 4n under 10 | 47 mo3 who left | 2 of 6n under 10 | 24 mo2 companies |
| Accountant or FP&A analystExecutes; the founder still leads finance | 12%6 of 52 | 0 of 5n under 10 | 32 mo4 who left | 5 of 6n under 10 | 11 mo5 companies |
| Any seat below CFOThe four seats above, together | 62%32 of 52 | 19%5 of 26 | 33 mo21 who left | 66%21 of 32 | 18 mo21 companies |
Only 21% (11 of 52) have no CFO on the public record.3 So the choice in front of you is the order. Start below CFO and the CFO usually arrives over the top of your first hire: at 62% (13 of 21) of the companies that added one, the first hire was still in the seat when the CFO started. The accountant row moved fastest, 5 of 6 adding a CFO a median 11 months later.
That makes the first brief harder to write. As I wrote about the hardest hire a founder makes, founders focused on the product and the science behind it often cannot tell what good looks like in finance, so the brief gets written on guesswork. Write this one with the CFO seat in it: say whether it is open to the person you hire, and when you expect to fill it.
Weighing a CFO now against a head of finance with a CFO above them later? Send me what finance covers today, what funds the runway and when the next round lands, and I will tell you which seat to brief first.
Get a read on my first finance hireTo test which seat fits your stage in five questions, use the self-check in your first finance hire.
A first deep tech CFO stayed a median 29 months, the longest of any sector, and 20% were part-time
70% (14 of 20) of the CFO-first companies made that hire before their first announced round. The seat then held longer than anywhere else in the study: the 12 first CFOs who have left stayed a median 29 months, against 24 across all startups, 21 in software and 15 in fintech. 45% (9) of the 20 companies have since hired a second CFO, and where that happened it came late, a median 50 months after the first CFO started.8
80% (16 of 20) of first CFOs had not held the CFO title in their previous role; they came from roles such as finance director, controller, investment director and strategy. 20% (4) were part-time, fractional or interim. Across every seat, 15% (8 of 52) of deep tech first hires were visibly part-time or fractional, against 8% (16 of 191) across all startups.
The seat also reaches further into the business than it does in software. On Celia’s Corner I described the deep tech version: “you will have a warehouse building something, or you might have a sales team doing stuff, or you might have an R&D science team”, and the finance person has to go and explain to each of them what the numbers mean for their work. Brief for that, whatever the title.
If you are being told to hire differently
“Hire a CFO who has done deep tech before.” Few first hires had. 6% (3 of 52) came straight from another startup, against 19% (37 of 191) across all startups, and 44% (23 of 52) came from a private business or a large corporate outside tech. In my post on the classic deep tech CFO challenge, I wrote that the strongest candidates often sit in heavy or food manufacturing, defence or mining, because they have run finance in capital-intensive businesses with long lead times and demanding technical stakeholders. That experience carries across; a strict sector filter screens it out.
“An accountant can hold it until the Series A.” It can, briefly. 5 of the 6 accountant-first companies added a CFO, a median 11 months later, and none of the 5 hired three or more years ago is still in the seat. As I wrote about the most expensive finance hire, that is usually the hire that follows the first one, because a business can scale faster than the person who set it up. If the CFO is a year away, brief the accountant for the team under that CFO.
“Start with a part-time CFO.” 20% (4 of 20) of the CFO-first companies did, and the record does not show it failing: two of those four are still in the seat, and Sicona (below) made the role full-time at its Series A. Decide in advance which round turns the part-time seat into a full-time one, and tell the person at the start.
Before the first round, 42% of deep tech first hires were a CFO; after it, 32% were
Deep tech put a CFO in first on both sides of the round. Companies that hired before their first announced round started with a CFO 42% of the time (14 of 33); those that raised first, 32% (6 of 19), and none of those 19 started with an accountant. Across all startups, 19% (17 of 91) of those that hired after the round started with a CFO.
CFO first. Grey bars are the four seats below CFO.
View as a table
| First finance hire | Hired before the first round (33) | Hired after the first round (19) |
|---|---|---|
| CFO | 14 | 6 |
| Head of finance | 6 | 4 |
| Financial controller | 5 | 5 |
| Finance manager | 2 | 4 |
| Accountant or FP&A | 6 | 0 |
How long a company built before its first round sorted when deep tech hired finance, and it barely sorted the seat. Companies that built four years or more started with a CFO 36% of the time (10 of 28); those that raised within three years of founding, 42% (10 of 24). Neither round size nor biotech and medical devices against the rest moved it by more.
What does change before the round is what the person has to build. On Behind The Story I said “coming from the big brands aren’t always the best choices”: someone can do well inside a large business because the people around them carry the load, and building a finance function from nothing is much harder. 15% (8 of 52) of deep tech first hires came from a large corporate outside tech. Ask each candidate what was there when they arrived, and what they built.
How Sicona, Inventia and OncoRes Medical built from three different first seats
A part-time CFO, an accountant and a part-time head of finance, and each company has a CFO today. Sequences are read from public profile titles and announced rounds; people are not named.
Sicona Battery Technologies
A part-time CFO 13 months before the first round, made full-time at the Series A
- Business
- Silicon-carbon anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (founded 2019)
- Rounds
- Pre-Series A Aug 2021 (A$3.7M); Series A Jun 2023 (A$22M)
- First finance hire
- CFO (part-time), Jul 2020
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 13 months before
- Next finance hire
- Full-time CFO, Aug 2023; finance manager, Sep 2023
- Now
- Full-time CFO and a finance manager in role (Sep 2026)
Sicona makes anode materials for lithium-ion batteries and runs a pilot plant in Wollongong. A part-time CFO started in July 2020, 13 months before an A$3.7 million pre-Series A, and carried the company through to a A$22 million Series A in June 2023.
Two months after that round a full-time CFO started, the part-time role ended the same month, and a finance manager joined a month later: one seat, converted at the round that could pay for it.
A part-time CFO can carry a pre-revenue company to its Series A. Decide in advance which round makes it a full-time seat.
Inventia Life Science
An accountant first, and a CFO above them eight months later
- Business
- 3D bioprinting of human cell models for drug discovery (founded 2013)
- Rounds
- Series B Dec 2021 (A$35M), the first round we could confirm
- First finance hire
- Financial accountant, Oct 2021
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 2 months before
- Next finance hire
- CFO, Jun 2022; finance manager, Apr 2024
- Now
- CFO in role, with two finance managers and a financial accountant (Sep 2026)
Inventia builds bioprinters that make 3D models of human tissue for drug research. Its first finance hire, a financial accountant, joined in October 2021, two months before an A$35 million Series B.
A CFO followed in June 2022, eight months after the accountant, who stayed in the seat under the CFO until July 2024. The team then filled in below the CFO: finance managers in April 2024 and December 2025, and a financial accountant in January 2026.
If the first hire is an accountant and a big round is close, open the CFO search with it, and tell the accountant which seat will sit above them.
OncoRes Medical
A part-time VP of finance for more than five years before a CFO joined above them
- Business
- An imaging probe that helps breast cancer surgeons check tissue during surgery (founded 2016)
- Rounds
- Series A2 May 2022 (A$9.5M, the first round we could confirm); private round Feb 2026 (A$27M)
- First finance hire
- VP of finance (part-time), Nov 2017
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 54 months before
- Next finance hire
- Financial accountant (part-time), Jul 2022; CFO, Jun 2023
- Now
- VP of finance, CFO and financial accountant all in role (Sep 2026)
OncoRes grew out of a university research project into a Perth medical device company. A part-time VP of finance joined in November 2017, 54 months before a A$9.5 million Series A2 that came with a A$3 million Cooperative Research Centres Projects grant for its clinical trials.
A part-time financial accountant followed in July 2022 and a full-time CFO in June 2023, 67 months after the VP of finance, who is still in the seat. The company closed an A$27 million round in February 2026 with all three in place.
Part-time finance can carry a deep tech company through years of grants and trials. When the CFO seat comes, agree what the part-time person keeps.
Against every other sector, deep tech’s first CFOs stayed longest: 29 months, against 24 across all startups
| Group | CFO firstshare of first hires | CFO laterafter a below-CFO start | First CFO staymedian of leavers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep tech (this page) | 38%20 of 52 | 66%21 of 32 | 29 mo12 who left |
| All startups | 29%56 of 191 | 48%65 of 135 | 24 mo38 who left |
| Difference, deep tech minus all | +9 pts | +18 pts | +5 mo |
| Software | 24%20 of 82 | 39%24 of 62 | 21 mo13 who left |
| Fintech | 25%10 of 40 | 50%15 of 30 | 15 mo9 who left |
The rest of the deep tech series:
- Before or after the first raise: deep tech
- How long after a raise deep tech hires finance
- The second finance hire in deep tech
- Every finance hiring benchmark, by subject and sector
The same question in other sectors: software, fintech, and every startup in the study.
Common questions
Should a deep tech startup's first finance hire be a CFO?
More deep tech companies started there than in any other sector. Of 52 funded Australian deep tech companies we tracked, 38% (20) made a CFO their first finance hire and 62% (32) started below CFO. Of those 32, 66% (21) later added a CFO, a median 18 months after the first hire.
How long does a deep tech company's first CFO stay?
Longer than in any other sector. The 12 first deep tech CFOs who have left stayed a median 29 months, against 24 across all startups, 21 in software and 15 in fintech. 45% (9 of 20) of the CFO-first companies later hired a second CFO.
Does building for years before the first round change the first finance hire?
It changes when the hire comes, and barely changes the seat. Deep tech companies that built four years or more before their first round started with a CFO in 36% of cases (10 of 28); those that raised sooner, in 42% (10 of 24).
Can a deep tech startup start with a part-time CFO?
Some did. 15% (8 of 52) of deep tech first finance hires were visibly part-time, fractional or interim, 4 of them CFOs, against 8% (16 of 191) across all startups.
Where do deep tech companies find their first finance hire?
Mostly outside startups. 6% (3 of 52) of deep tech first finance hires came straight from another startup, against 19% (37 of 191) across all startups; 44% (23 of 52) came from a private business or a large corporate outside tech.
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.
- Deep tech is 53 companies, tagged by us. It means a scientific or engineering advance the company builds itself; 52 have a dated finance hire. Every seat row holds 20 companies or fewer, so counts replace shares under 10 and small medians are indicative. Part-time and fractional flags come from public profile titles and employment types, and are a floor.
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.