No first seat took more than a quarter of Australian software startups: CFO 20, head of finance 19, financial controller 18, accountant 15 and finance manager 10, of 82. After a seed round, only 11% (2 of 18) of first hires were a CFO.
After a junior first hire, 64% of software startups hired a CFO; after a controller or head of finance, 22%
Whichever seat you pick, you are not hiring a bookkeeper. As I wrote about one candidate who built a tech company’s finance function while it grew 20 times in four years, the first finance person builds what the business grows on: the reporting, the compliance and the systems you raise and scale with. The table shows what each seat did next in software.
| First finance hire | First hireshare of 82 | Still in the seathired 3+ years ago | Leavers stayedmedian | CFO hired latera different person | Wait for that CFOmedian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CFOCapital, investors, the board | 24%20 of 82 | 35%7 of 20 | 21 mo13 who left | 55%11 of 20 | 35 mo11 companies |
| Head of finance or finance directorThe model, budget and forecast | 23%19 of 82 | 30%3 of 10 | 24 mo9 who left | 21%4 of 19 | 14 mo4 companies |
| Financial controllerControls, compliance, reporting | 22%18 of 82 | 8%1 of 12 | 24 mo11 who left | 22%4 of 18 | 44 mo4 companies |
| Accountant or FP&A analystExecutes; the founder still leads finance | 18%15 of 82 | 14%2 of 14 | 25 mo13 who left | 60%9 of 15 | 24 mo9 companies |
| Finance managerMonth end, reporting, the advisers | 12%10 of 82 | 1 of 8n under 10 | 20 mo6 who left | 70%7 of 10 | 21 mo7 companies |
| Any seat below CFOThe four seats above, together | 76%62 of 82 | 16%7 of 44 | 24 mo39 who left | 39%24 of 62 | 23 mo24 companies |
After an accountant or a finance manager, 64% (16 of 25) of software startups later hired a CFO, so a junior first hire usually comes with a second, senior search built in. After a controller or head of finance only 22% (8 of 37) did, so those seats tended to carry the business alone for years.
Weighing a controller against a head of finance, or either against a CFO? Send me what finance covers today and where the business will be in 18 months, and I will tell you which one to brief.
Get a read on my first finance hireTo work out your own seat in five questions, use the self-check in your first finance hire, the long read.
A CFO first did not settle it: 55% (11 of 20) of software startups later hired another CFO
Of the 20 software startups whose first finance hire was a CFO, 55% (11) went on to hire a second CFO, a median 35 months after the first, and 35% (7) of those first CFOs are still in the seat. Most first CFOs were also new to the title: 65% (13) came from a role without it. A CFO hired before the first round is often hired for that raise, and the company three years on can need someone else.
If you are being told to hire differently
“Hire the CFO now, so you only hire once.” In software that has worked less than half the time: 55% (11 of 20) of CFO starts hired another. Hire a CFO first when the CFO work is already on the table, which means a raise to run, a board to report to and investors asking for the forecast.
“An accountant is enough for now.” It can be, if you know what you are buying. In my breakdown of what each first-hire budget buys, the lower band gets someone who executes the work well while you still lead the finance function, and the next band up gets a finance manager or controller who can own it: build the processes, manage your advisers and give you visibility you do not have today. 60% (9 of 15) of accountant-first software startups later hired a CFO.
“Our controller will grow into the CFO seat.” Some do.5 Plan for the step as a different job. When I asked a guest on The CFO Track, episode 8, who had been promoted into her first CFO role, how that went, I put it to her that it is very different to moving across a business or coming in as a CFO from outside. Brief your first hire for the part of the CFO job they have not done yet.
Before any round the CFO led; after a seed, 11% of first hires were a CFO
By the last announced round before the first hire started: 35% (13 of 37) of the software startups that hired before any round started with a CFO. After a seed round, the first hire was most often a head of finance (39%, 7 of 18) or a finance manager (28%, 5). After a Series A, the controller led (35%, 6 of 17), with a head of finance close behind (29%, 5).
CFO first. Grey bars are the four seats below CFO.
View as a table
| First finance hire | Before any announced round (37) | After a seed round (18) | After a Series A (17) | After a Series B or later (5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CFO | 13 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| Head of finance | 5 | 7 | 5 | 1 |
| Financial controller | 9 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| Finance manager | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| Accountant or FP&A | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
If you have just closed a seed, your peers mostly hired someone to run the numbers and the forecast, and left the CFO title for later. 9% (7 of 82) of first hires were visibly fractional, part-time or interim.3
30% of software first hires came from another startup; screen for the model
Software founders hire their first finance person from other startups more than the market does: 30% (25 of 82) came straight from another startup or scale-up, against 19% (37 of 191) across all startups. What I screen for in software is fluency in the model. When a finance manager asked me how to move from professional services into a SaaS scale-up, I told them to learn the metrics before walking into the room: ARR and MRR, churn, CAC payback, gross margin and net revenue retention, and what the interactions between them mean. SaaS founders do not expect a candidate to have done the exact job before. They expect them to understand the model well enough to talk about it.
The other test is whether they can explain the numbers to people outside finance. On Celia’s Corner I said:
“The way AI is going, it can start to do a lot of that already. So technical skill set is no longer the moat or the weapon that people think it is anymore.”
Brief for that as much as for the month end.
How ActivePipe and CIMET built from two different first seats
Two Australian software companies, two first seats: an analyst and a CFO. Sequences are read from public profile titles and announced rounds.
ActivePipe
A finance business partner first, then a CFO within a year
- Business
- Automated email software for real estate agencies (founded 2014)
- Rounds
- Pre-Series A Aug 2017 (A$1.8M); Series A Feb 2018 (A$5.9M); A$6M, Oct 2019
- First finance hire
- Finance business partner, Sep 2017
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 1 month after
- Next finance hire
- CFO, Aug 2018; financial controller, Jul 2020
- Now
- Controller in role; four finance hires in all (Sep 2026)
ActivePipe sells automated email software to real estate agencies. A month after its A$1.8 million round in August 2017, its first finance person started as a finance business partner, someone to run the numbers.
The Series A followed in February 2018, and a CFO joined six months after it, eleven months after the first hire. That makes ActivePipe one of the 9 accountant-or-analyst starts that later hired a CFO. A controller joined under the CFO in July 2020 and is still there; the first hire and the CFO both left in mid 2022.
If you start with an analyst, plan the senior seat from the first day, and tell the first hire at offer stage where it will sit.
CIMET
A CFO with the first round, and a head of finance three months later
- Business
- White-label comparison software for energy, broadband and mobile (founded 2016)
- Rounds
- A$26.6M from iSelect, Mar 2022 (a Series B in our data)
- First finance hire
- CFO, Mar 2022
- Against the first roundVs first round
- The same month
- Next finance hire
- Head of finance, Jun 2022
- Now
- CFO and head of finance both in role (Sep 2026)
CIMET builds the comparison engines that brands use to sell energy, broadband and mobile plans. Its first announced round was a A$26.6 million investment from iSelect in March 2022, and its first finance hire, a CFO, started the same month.
A head of finance joined three months later. More than four years on both are still in their seats, which makes CIMET one of the 9 CFO-first software startups that have not hired a second CFO.
A CFO first holds when the round brings CFO work with it. Put the month-end seat underneath early, so the CFO is not the person doing it.
Against all startups, software added a CFO after a below-CFO start least often: 39%
| Group | Below-CFO start, CFO hired latershare of below-CFO starts | Wait for that CFOmedian | CFO first, another CFO latershare of CFO starts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software (this page) | 39%24 of 62 | 23 mo24 companies | 55%11 of 20 |
| All startups | 48%65 of 135 | 26 mo65 companies | 50%28 of 56 |
| Difference, software minus all | −9 pts | −3 mo | +5 pts |
| Fintech | 50%15 of 30 | 32 mo15 companies | 60%6 of 10 |
| Deep tech | 66%21 of 32 | 18 mo21 companies | 45%9 of 20 |
For the title mix itself, software against every sector, see the chart in when a software startup needs a CFO, which also covers when single-product SaaS needs the CFO title.
The other tech benchmarks:
- Before or after the raise: when tech startups hire finance
- How long after a raise tech startups hire finance
- The second finance hire in tech
The same question for every sector together is in what Australian startups hire first in finance, and the full study is when Australian startups make their first finance hire.
Common questions
What should a software startup's first finance hire be?
There is no default. Of 82 funded Australian software startups we tracked, 76% (62) started below CFO and 24% (20) with a CFO, and no seat took more than a quarter. Choose by what comes next: a junior first hire was usually followed by a CFO, a controller or head of finance usually was not.
How often does a software startup's first finance hire end up with a CFO hired after them?
39% (24 of 62) of those whose first finance hire was below CFO later hired a CFO, a median 23 months later: 64% (16 of 25) after an accountant or finance manager, 22% (8 of 37) after a controller or head of finance.
If a software startup hires a CFO first, will it need another?
More often than not in our data. 55% (11 of 20) of the software startups whose first finance hire was a CFO later hired another CFO, a median 35 months after the first. 35% (7) of those first CFOs are still in the seat, and 35% (7) had held the CFO title in their previous role.
Should a SaaS startup hire a financial controller or a head of finance first?
Both start about as often in software (18 and 19 of 82), and 4 of each later hired a CFO. A controller owns controls, compliance and reporting; a head of finance also owns the model and the forecast, so choose the head of finance if a raise or a board is coming in the next 12 months.
How long does a software startup's first finance hire stay?
32% (26 of 82) are still in the role. The 52 who left with a known end date stayed a median 24 months.
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.
- Sector is tagged from the product. “Tech” here means software and internet businesses; fintechs and deep tech companies are counted on their own pages, so the software figures and the all-startups figures overlap but are not the same set. Where a group is under 10 companies, read the counts: some medians in the seat table rest on as few as 4 companies, and the Series B stage panel holds 5.
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.