Of 52 funded Australian deep tech startups we tracked, 63% (33) had a finance person before their first announced round and 37% (19) hired after it. Of the 28 that had been building for four years or more, 79% (22) hired first; of the 24 that raised sooner, 46% (11) did.
63% of deep tech startups hired finance before their first round, and 67% of those had been building for four years or more
We dated every finance hire at 52 funded Australian deep tech startups against their publicly announced rounds, then sorted them by how long they had been going when the first round was announced.
- Finance hire before the first round
- Hired after it
- Under 2 years (9)2 of 9 before the first round7 of 9 after it
- 2 to 3 years (15)9 of 15 before the first round6 of 15 after it
- 4 years or more (28)22 of 28 before the first round6 of 28 after it
View as a table
| Years of building before the first round | Finance hire before it | After it |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2 years (9) | 2 | 7 |
| 2 to 3 years (15) | 9 | 6 |
| 4 years or more (28) | 22 | 6 |
A deep tech company that has been building for four years or more before its first announced round usually has someone in finance by then (79%, 22 of 28), and the longer the build, the stronger the pattern. Part of that is arithmetic: an older company has had more years for any hire to land. The rest is what those years hold, which is the next section.
Round type barely sorts deep tech. When the first round was a seed, 50% (8 of 16) hired before it; when it was a Series A, 61% (14 of 23) did. In software the same split is 22% (8 of 36) against 65% (15 of 23), which is why the software benchmark turns on the round and this one does not.
The round a deep tech company announces first is rarely its first money
Deep tech takes longer to reach its first announced round: 54% (28 of 52) had been going four years or more, against 44% (36 of 82) of software startups. Founders, angels, research programs, grants and rounds that never made a press release pay for those years. Diraq, below, hired its CFO the month one of those earlier rounds closed.8
Those years create finance work before any venture money arrives. As I said on the Behind The Story podcast, a deep tech company is often pre-revenue and “a commercial product might be seven years away”, so “runway and cash flow is critical”, and “their funding might be tied to certain checkpoints in the company” that someone has to track.
The Research and Development Tax Incentive is the clearest example. A company has to register its R&D activities within 10 months of the end of the income year, and one with turnover under $20 million can claim a refundable offset, which for a pre-revenue company is cash the runway counts on. R&D tax claims sit next to capital raises and runway visibility in the conversations I have had with founders for almost ten years. Someone has to own that claim, and it lands on finance.
At the seed, 47% of deep tech startups had someone in finance; by Series B or later, 89% did
The same question for every deep tech startup that raised at each stage, later rounds included: was an internal finance hire already in place when the round was announced?
| Group | Seedincl. pre-seed | Series A | Series B+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep tech (this page) | 47%8 of 17 | 62%21 of 34 | 89%16 of 18 |
| All startups | 33%24 of 73 | 57%64 of 113 | 78%50 of 64 |
| Difference, deep tech minus all | +14 pts | +5 pts | +11 pts |
| Software | 24%9 of 38 | 60%30 of 50 | 79%19 of 24 |
| Fintech | 43%6 of 14 | 45%10 of 22 | 71%12 of 17 |
At the seed, deep tech is 14 points ahead of all startups, and nearly half had finance in before the seed was announced; the larger group, 9 of 17, raised a seed with nobody in the seat. By Series B or later only 11% (2 of 18) had no internal finance hire.3
Raise within three years of founding and it is close to a coin flip: 46% (11 of 24) hired first
Of the 24 deep tech startups whose first round came within three years of founding, 54% (13) raised first, and 69% (9) of those waited more than a year for the first finance hire. After a seed with nobody in finance, the median wait across deep tech was 20 months (8 companies, 3 of them within a year); after a Series A it was 15 months (13 companies).
What pulls the hire forward for a young company is the size of the money. As I put it on Behind The Story, “some of them might have a 30 to 50 million dollar seed round”, and “they might get in a CFO then because they’ve had the capital.” Rounds that size are no longer rare here: in the first quarter of this year the largest Australian rounds went to space and defence, hardware and robotics, life sciences, and climate and energy. Hysata, below, raised more than A$40 million a year after it was founded and had a CFO two months later.
For the full clock after a seed, Series A and Series B in deep tech, read how long after a raise deep tech hires finance.
Which side of your next round are you on?
Five yes-or-no questions about the business today. One yes puts the first finance hire before the raise.
- Will you have been building for four years or more when the next round is announced?
- Is an R&D Tax Incentive refund or grant money part of your runway?
- Are you buying inventory, components or manufacturing capacity ahead of revenue?
- Is any of your funding tied to milestones you report against?
- Is the next raise less than 12 months away, with nobody inside owning the cash model?
0 of 5 answered. Your side appears here after the last one.
Not sure which side you are on? Send me how long you have been building, what funds the runway and when the round lands, and I will tell you.
Get a read on my finance hireIf you are being told to hire now, or to wait
“Wait until you can afford a CFO who has done deep tech before.” The early hire is rarely a CFO: 58% (19 of 33) of the deep tech startups that hired before the round started below CFO, with an accountant, a controller, a finance manager or a head of finance. And when the CFO seat does come, the sector filter is where the brief usually goes wrong. Founders ask for someone who has handled R&D tax offsets, long commercialisation timelines, government grants and capital conversations that do not follow a standard playbook. The best candidates are often in heavy or food manufacturing, defence or mining, where capital-intensive work and long lead times are normal, and most founders do not know to look in those adjacent sectors. Which seat to fill first is on what deep tech hires first in finance.
“You are pre-revenue. There is nothing for finance to do until the round.” Deep tech stays pre-revenue longer than most startups, and that is when the finance work starts. As I said on Celia’s Corner, deep tech has “massive inventory and stock components or cost of goods or a big R&D component to it. So you’re trying to get tax claims back.” A single-product software company, I said in the same conversation, is “nowhere near as complex as building a rocket”. If an outside accountant covers the claim and the stock today, name who owns the cash model before the round starts.
How SpeeDx, Diraq and Hysata timed their first finance hire
Three Australian deep tech companies from the study, told from public profile titles and announced rounds: one long build, one CFO that arrived with the first money, and one young company that raised first.
SpeeDx
A CFO almost five years before the first round we could confirm
- Business
- Molecular diagnostic tests (founded 2009)
- Rounds
- Northpond Ventures, Apr and Aug 2019 (US$5M, then up to US$10M); Series B, Feb 2020 (US$15M); Feb 2023 ($26M)
- First finance hire
- CFO, Jul 2014
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 57 months before
- Next finance hire
- Senior accountant, Jul 2016; a second CFO, Sep 2018
- Now
- Latest CFO on record served Sep 2018 to Aug 2024
SpeeDx develops PCR tests that pick up several genetic targets at once, for infectious diseases and cancers. It was founded in 2009 and had a CFO by July 2014, almost five years before the first round both of our searches confirmed: US$5 million from Northpond Ventures in April 2019, topped up with up to US$10 million that August. Whatever funded the first ten years is not in the round record.6
A senior accountant joined in 2016, and a second CFO, who was also company secretary, took over in September 2018, seven months before the Northpond money. That CFO carried the company through a US$15 million Series B in February 2020 and a $26 million raise in 2023, with a team of accountants underneath.
When years of building come before the first announced round, time the finance hire to the work. The round then arrives to a function already running.
Diraq
A CFO the month its first Series A closed
- Business
- Silicon quantum computing chips, a UNSW spin-out (founded 2022)
- Rounds
- Series A, closed May 2022 (US$20M, reported later); Series A-2, Feb 2024 (US$15M) and Jun 2024 (US$22M); government equity, Feb 2026 (A$20M)
- First finance hire
- CFO, May 2022
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 21 months before the first confirmed round
- Next finance hire
- Financial accountant, May 2025
- Now
- First CFO in role, 52 months in; finance manager (Australia and US) since Mar 2026
Diraq was spun out of UNSW in 2022 and hired a CFO that May. Its first confirmed round in our study is a US$15 million Series A-2 in February 2024, 21 months later. A later report dates the close of an original US$20 million Series A to that same May, but our two searches did not both find it. With that round in, Diraq hired its CFO alongside its first money.
For three years that CFO was the whole finance function visible in public records. A financial accountant joined in May 2025, and a finance manager covering Australia and the United States in March 2026, a month after the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation took a A$20 million equity stake.
If money is already in the bank before the round you plan to announce, time the hire to that money.
Hysata
More than A$40 million a year after founding, and a CFO two months later
- Business
- Capillary-fed hydrogen electrolysers (founded 2021)
- First finance hire
- CFO, Oct 2022
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 2 months after
- Next finance hire
- Accountant, 2023; accountant, Feb 2024; financial controller, Nov 2024
- Now
- Head of finance since Jul 2026, with three accountants
Hysata raised a A$42.5 million Series A in August 2022, a year after it was founded, with nobody inside in finance, and a CFO started two months later. A company that manufactures electrolysers takes its money with a factory attached: supplier contracts, inventory and a build program need a finance owner at once.
The first CFO left in January 2024, 15 months in, and Hysata built underneath instead of refilling the top seat: accountants, then a financial controller in November 2024, six months after a US$111 million Series B, then a head of finance in July 2026.
A young company can raise first when the round is big enough to pay for the seat straight away. Line the search up before the money lands.
The other deep tech benchmarks
- How long after a raise deep tech hires finance
- What deep tech hires first in 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
Do Australian deep tech startups hire finance before or after their first raise?
Mostly before. Of 52 funded Australian deep tech startups in Story Recruitment's study, 63% (33) had a finance person in place before their first announced round, a median 19 months ahead of it, and 37% (19) hired after it, a median 21 months later. How long the company had been building sorts them: 79% (22 of 28) of those that had been going four years or more hired first, against 46% (11 of 24) of those that raised sooner.
What counts as deep tech here?
A company built on a scientific or engineering advance it develops itself: semiconductors and quantum, space, biotech and medical devices, novel materials, robotics and energy technology. Story Recruitment's study holds 53 funded Australian deep tech companies, and 52 of them have a dated finance hire.
Does a deep tech startup need finance in place before its seed round?
About half in our data had it. Of the 17 deep tech startups we tracked that announced a seed or pre-seed round, 47% (8) had an internal finance hire when it was announced, against 33% (24 of 73) across all startups.
How long after a raise do deep tech startups make their first finance hire?
Among the deep tech startups we tracked with nobody in finance when their seed was announced, the median wait was 20 months (8 companies), and 3 of the 8 hired within a year. After a Series A the median was 15 months (13 companies).
Does hiring finance before the round help a deep tech startup raise?
This data cannot say, and it does not claim to. It records the order in which finance hires and announced rounds happened. It does not show that hiring earlier or later changes how a company fares.
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. Years of building run from the founding year to the year of the first announced round. Where a group is under 10 companies we print counts, and two deep tech companies are in the study on a raise that looks more like a listed company’s share issue or a grant than a venture round. For 8 of the 52, an earlier round was reported that our two-source check could not confirm; without those 8, the 22 of 28 against 11 of 24 comparison is 18 of 22 against 10 of 22.
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.