Talent and founding team
A snapshot of the founders, talent, and headcount across the Top 100.
Almost 250,000 people in tech lost their jobs while founders grappled with lose-lose tradeoffs between company survival and retaining top talent. Entering 2024, hiring decisions have been significantly more considered.
Remarkably, 92 companies in the cohort grew their net headcount over the past year. Aside from the 300 cofounders, Cloud Challenger companies collectively employ a total of over 2000 people in their organisations. In the last six months, the fastest growing teams in the cohort increased their headcount by 75%. All things considered, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about the role of early stage companies as an engine for opportunity and job creation in Europe.
Cloud Challengers tend to reach 30 employees three years post-founding.
Founders are usually running hiring end-to-end at this point, so this equates to overseeing close to one hire per month while balancing fundraising, growth and operational priorities.
Median Headcount by Company Age
Vertical SaaS companies have the highest median number of employees, at 26 people followed by marketplaces, and compliance with 24 and 25 firms respectively.
Productivity and Automation tools leveraged the leanest workforces. These companies in particular may be signalling a shift in how companies optimise the capabilities of their existing team without overinflating headcount prior to finding product-market-fit.
Headcount by sector
Source: Notion Capital, 2023
18% of companies have a solo founder, while 29% have two founders. The most common founding team size is three founders, with 36%. Less common are teams with four or more founders, making up 17% of the top 100 firms.
Number of co founders of top 100 Cloud Challengers
Source: Notion Capital, 2023
