Of 191 funded Australian startups with a dated finance hire, 100 (52%) had a finance person before their first announced round and 91 (48%) hired after it, and 135 (71%) started below CFO. The company-level data is free to download and cite.
I built this study because founders kept asking me a question nobody had answered with Australian numbers. As I wrote in June, with the first internal finance hire “there’s no obvious benchmark and the cost of getting it wrong tends to show up slowly rather than all at once.” These are the benchmark numbers in one place, with the method and the data. The guides linked from each section turn them into a decision.
Eight figures, each with its base
If you quote a figure, quote its base with it. “Startups” below means the funded Australian startups we tracked.2
- 52% had a finance person before their first announced round. The other 48% hired after it. (100 of 191 companies with a dated finance hire.)
- 74 of 191 made their first finance hire within 12 months of the first round, either side of it. Most were more than a year away. (191 companies.)
- 71% started below CFO, most often with a head of finance or a financial controller. (135 of 191 first finance hires.)
- 26 months was the median wait before a CFO arrived above a first hire who started below CFO. 48% of those companies have added one so far. (65 of 135 companies.)
- 21, 14, 5 median months to a first finance hire after a seed, a Series A and a Series B, for companies with nobody in finance when the round was announced. (42, 48 and 13 companies.)
- About 1 in 5 reached Series B or later with no internal finance hire. 71% of those (10 of 14) hired within 9 months of that round. (14 of 64 companies at Series B or later.)
- 63% vs 45% of deep tech startups had finance before the first round, against software startups. Fintech sat between, at 55%. (33 of 52 deep tech, 37 of 82 tech, 22 of 40 fintech.)
- 16, 11, 8, 7 median months between each finance hire and the next, from the first to the fifth. Each hire came sooner than the one before. (156, 120, 107 and 83 companies.)
Deep tech hires finance earliest, software latest
- Deep tech63% 33 of 52
- Fintech55% 22 of 40
- Other47% 8 of 17
- Tech (software)45% 37 of 82
- All sectors52% 100 of 191
View as a table
| Sector | Before the first round | Companies |
|---|---|---|
| Deep tech | 33 (63%) | 52 |
| Fintech | 22 (55%) | 40 |
| Other | 8 (47%) | 17 |
| Tech (software) | 37 (45%) | 82 |
| All sectors | 100 (52%) | 191 |
Deep tech spends years building before its first round, and those years carry finance work of their own: grants, R&D tax claims and stock. The deep tech companies that hired before the round did it a median 19 months ahead of it. Software startups split close to evenly, and the companies in the “other” group (17 consumer brands, retailers and infrastructure operators) are too few to read alone.
For the full timing picture, read when Australian startups make their first finance hire.
After a round with nobody in finance, the wait shortens at each stage
- After a seed21 months 42 companies
- After a Series A14 months 48 companies
- After a Series B5 months 13 companies
View as a table
| Round | Median wait | Hired within 12 months | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | 21 months | 12 of 42 (29%) | 42 |
| Series A | 14 months | 21 of 46 (46%) | 48 |
| Series B | 5 months | 9 of 12 (75%) | 13 |
For a founder, Series A is the row to read: 46% of companies (21 of 46) with nobody in finance at their Series A had made an internal hire within a year. More than half had not, and some of those were running on an outsourced or fractional provider.3
By sector and stage, read how long after a raise startups hire finance.
The first finance hire is usually not a CFO
- CFO29% 56 of 191
- Head of finance or finance director23% 44 of 191
- Financial controller19% 36 of 191
- Accountant or FP&A analyst15% 29 of 191
- Finance manager14% 26 of 191
View as a table
| First finance hire | Companies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| CFO | 56 | 29% |
| Head of finance or finance director | 44 | 23% |
| Financial controller | 36 | 19% |
| Accountant or FP&A analyst | 29 | 15% |
| Finance manager | 26 | 14% |
No single seat took more than 29% of first hires. Of the 135 companies that started below CFO, 48% (65) have since added a CFO above that first hire, a median 26 months later. The CFO-first share is highest in deep tech (38%, 20 of 52) and lowest in software (24%, 20 of 82).
Which seat, and what followed it: your first finance hire.
Once the first hire is in, each one after comes sooner
- First to second16 months 156 companies
- Second to third11 months 120 companies
- Third to fourth8 months 107 companies
- Fourth to fifth7 months 83 companies
View as a table
| Gap | Median | Companies |
|---|---|---|
| First to second | 16 months | 156 |
| Second to third | 11 months | 120 |
| Third to fourth | 8 months | 107 |
| Fourth to fifth | 7 months | 83 |
35 of the 191 companies (18%) have made exactly one finance hire so far. 83 (43%) have made five or more. Of the second hires, 49% (77 of 156) were more junior than the first.
What the second seat should be: the second finance hire.
Deep tech’s first finance hires rarely come from another startup
- Tech (software)30% 25 of 82
- Fintech15% 6 of 40
- Deep tech6% 3 of 52
View as a table
| Sector | From another startup | From a business outside tech | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tech (software) | 25 | 22 | 82 |
| Fintech | 6 | 13 | 40 |
| Deep tech | 3 | 23 | 52 |
44% of deep tech first hires (23 of 52) came from a private business or a large corporate outside tech. That matches what I see in deep tech CFO searches. Founders want someone who has done it in deep tech, and “the sector filter is almost always where the brief misses the mark.” The best candidates are often in heavy or food manufacturing, defence or mining. In fintech, banks and large corporates supplied 7 first hires each.
For deep tech in full, read what deep tech hires first in finance.
The three sectors side by side
| Measure | Tech82 companies | Fintech40 companies | Deep tech52 companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance before the first round | 45%37 of 82 | 55%22 of 40 | 63%33 of 52 |
| First hire was a CFO | 24%20 of 82 | 25%10 of 40 | 38%20 of 52 |
| Founding to first finance hire (median) | 4.0years, 76 companies | 2.3years, 34 companies | 3.6years, 50 companies |
| First hire visibly fractional or interim | 9%7 of 82 | 2%1 of 40 | 15%8 of 52 |
Download the data
The dataset is company-level and free to use with credit. It holds no names, profile links or individual job titles, and no round amounts, which were the least reliable field.
- Companies (CSV, 194 rows): sector, founding year, first announced round, the seat and start month of the first finance hire, months between the two, and flags for the softest rows.
- Confirmed rounds (CSV, 430 rows): every round both searches found, with the source we cited.
- Read me (column definitions and limits)
How to cite it. Story Recruitment (2026). When Australian startups make their finance hires: 194 venture-funded companies. storyrecruitment.com.au/insights/finance-hiring-data. Licensed CC BY 4.0. If you find an error in a row, email info@storyrecruitment.com.au and we will correct it and date the change.
Common questions
What share of Australian startups hire finance before their first funding round?
In Story Recruitment's study of funded Australian startups, 100 of 191 companies with a dated finance hire (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. The study counts companies that went on to build an internal finance function.
Is the first finance hire at an Australian startup usually a CFO?
No. 135 of 191 first finance hires (71%) were below CFO, most often a head of finance or a financial controller. 56 (29%) were a CFO. Of the companies that started below CFO, 48% (65 of 135) have since added a CFO above that first hire, a median 26 months later.
Which sector hires finance earliest?
Deep tech. 33 of 52 deep tech startups (63%) had a finance hire before their first announced round, against 22 of 40 fintechs (55%) and 37 of 82 software startups (45%).
Can I download and reuse the data?
Yes. The company-level data and the list of confirmed rounds with their sources are free to download from this page under a CC BY 4.0 licence, with credit to Story Recruitment. The files hold no names, profile links or individual job titles.
Does hiring finance earlier help a startup raise again?
The study cannot show that. It records the order things happened in. An outcome test on the first 102 companies found no difference in raising again that could be told apart from chance (Fisher exact test, p=0.77 and p=0.41).
How the study was done
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 qualified only if two independent searches of public funding announcements found the same round: 585 rounds came out of the first search, the second reproduced 430, and only those 430 are used. That left 194 companies of roughly 2 to 500 staff. Every finance role at each company was collected, current and past, including people who have since left Australia, and each hire is dated from the earliest finance role that person held there. A role counted only when the employer matched the company in the study. The data was read on 23 and 24 September 2026. The full method, with every check we ran, is on the study page.
Notes
- It records order, not cause. Nothing in it shows that hiring finance earlier or later leads to a better outcome. An outcome test on the first 102 companies in the study found no difference in raising again that could be told apart from chance (Fisher exact test, p=0.77 and p=0.41).
- It describes companies that built a finance function. The companies were found through their finance people, so the study cannot say what share of all Australian startups have no finance lead.
- Outsourced finance does not show. A fractional or virtual CFO supplied by a firm does not list the startup as an employer. “No finance hire” means no internal hire we could find. 16 of 191 first hires (8%) were visibly fractional, part-time or interim, and that is a floor.
- Rounds are dated by announcement, which trails the close by weeks, and unannounced rounds are invisible.
- Start dates are self-reported on public profiles, and “first finance hire” is the earliest one we could identify. For 12 companies whose names are too common to search cleanly, past-staff counts are a floor. Six companies qualified on a placement, corporate investment or grant rather than a clear venture round; they are flagged in the data.
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.