Asset Class · Venture Capital

The first C-suite hire is the one that changes the company.

 The leader who builds a function from one to ten is rarely the one who scales it to fifty. We find the specific person your stage actually needs. 

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From a founder, after the search closed
"On Partners continues to be (by far) the best search firm for hiring semiconductor executives. I am repeat customer!"
investor, Semiconductor company
Venture Relationships

The investors backing the companies we've built leadership for.

ON Partners runs executive searches for venture-backed companies at the moment leadership becomes the lever. The first commercial hire. The operating CFO. The head of engineering who'll scale through Series C. Partner-led from kickoff to close.

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Sample of logos from our portfolio

2026 Outlook

The bar for every hire has moved.

Capital is selective, runways are tighter, and the path from Series B to a real growth-stage company runs through leadership earlier than it used to. The hires that mattered in 2021, a storytelling CMO or a coder-CTO who could also raise, may not be the ones that matter in 2026.

Founders are hiring operators who already know how to run a function under capital constraint: CFOs who compress burn while standing up real reporting, CROs who build pipeline without a $4M demand-gen budget, CTOs who ship the next architecture and recruit the team to build it. The searches we run reflect that reset. Spec discipline matters more, references matter more, and the cost of an over-hire matters more than ever.

Three Market Forces
01

Capital efficiency is the new growth.

Investors are pricing companies on path-to-profitability metrics, not on top-of-funnel narrative. The operating leaders we're placing today have to know how to defend gross margin from day one.

02

The first CFO is a real CFO now.

The "controller-plus-fundraising" CFO profile has been replaced. Founders are hiring CFOs with audit, board-package, and exit-readiness experience earlier, sometimes pre-Series B.

03

Founders are running real interview processes.

The "one-meeting-and-handshake" hire is rare. Multi-round process, blind comp benchmarking, and reference depth are now the norm, even at Series A.

Where We Work in Venture

The sectors where leadership compounds returns.

Software and consumer dominate our venture work, but the partners who run those searches have run them at every stage from Series A to growth round. The slate we build for a $20M ARR company is not the slate we'd build for a $200M one.

Software & SaaS

The first operating CFO is the one who'll prep the exit.

Vertical SaaS, horizontal platforms, dev tools, fintech infrastructure. The CRO who built $5M to $40M ARR is the one who knows where the company will break next. The CFO who can stand up SOX-ready reporting while the engineering team ships a major release is the one founders keep.

We've run searches across early growth-stage to pre-IPO software companies, with sponsor and founder involvement at every stage.

Most-Searched Roles
Consumer & Retail

Brand discipline and unit economics both have to be present.

DTC scaleups, marketplace platforms, branded consumer, vertical commerce. The CMO who can defend CAC and protect brand voice at the same time is rare. The CFO who knows where the cohort math breaks is rarer.

We've placed leaders into DTC platforms preparing for Series C, vertical marketplaces approaching profitability, and consumer-tech companies repositioning post-pandemic.

Most-Searched Roles
AI & Emerging Tech

The technical credibility has to be real.

Foundation model companies, applied AI platforms, ML infrastructure, edge AI. The senior engineering leader who can talk research and also ship product is in extreme demand. The CRO who's monetized AI-native pricing is even rarer.

We've placed leaders into foundation model startups, vertical AI applications, and ML infrastructure companies, at the moment when go-to-market starts mattering as much as the underlying tech.

Most-Searched Roles
Healthcare & Digital Health

Clinical credibility and commercial discipline have to coexist.

Digital health platforms, biotech, clinical workflow software, healthcare AI. The COO who can manage payor contracts and run a real go-to-market is the difference between Series B and Series C. The CMO with healthcare-specific buyer fluency is non-negotiable.

We've placed leaders into digital health platforms scaling through value-based care, biotech companies preparing for IPO, and clinical software businesses at the Series B inflection.

Most-Searched Roles
Semiconductors & Infrastructure

The leaders who scale physical and digital at once.

Semiconductor startups, edge compute, advanced packaging, energy infrastructure. These are searches where deep technical credibility and operating-scale experience both have to be present. The senior engineering leader who's tape-out experienced is a different candidate than the one who's only managed a software org.

We've placed leaders into semicap startups, edge AI hardware companies, and energy-tech infrastructure platforms at growth stages.

Most-Searched Roles
How a Venture Search Runs at ON

The same partner from spec to start date.

Start

Calibration with the founder and the lead investor.

The partner running your search sits with the stakeholders. We pressure-test the spec against the runway, the next round, and the leadership gap the company actually has, not the gap on the org chart.

First slate

Initial slate review.

Candidates with stage-appropriate backgrounds, mapped to the runway and the business model.  You'll see early whether the market is yielding the profile we calibrated to. 

Slate refine

Slate narrowed; founder interviews scheduled.

Finalists are in motion. If a candidate's salary expectations or equity ask is going to blow up the search, you'll hear it from the partner before the candidate gets to the founder.

Final

Finalist interviews, board exposure, references.

The partner runs the candidate experience and the reference depth. For first-time C-suite roles, we go three levels deep on references: peers, direct reports, and someone the candidate didn't list. 

Offer

Offer accepted. First-90-days plan handed off.

For a venture-backed company, the start of a new C-suite hire matters as much as the hire itself. The partner stays close through onboarding to make sure it's going well for both sides. 

Year one +

Building a relationship.

We’re in this for the long haul. Our commitment to you extends well past the placement, which is why we conduct a one-year touchpoint with both you and the leader. 

When the founder and the investor disagree

Misalignment surfaces if you let it.

The most common failure mode in a venture search is a founder who wants a different profile than the lead investor signed off on. Both are well-intentioned. Both are right about different things.

Our job is to surface that disagreement at calibration, before it's buried in the slate and the finalist round collapses. If the spec changes, we re-spec openly. If it doesn't, we deliver against the original. 

Why ON for Venture-Backed Companies

Four reasons founders come back.

We don't run venture searches the way we run public-company searches. Different stakeholders, different runway, different definition of a win.

Partner Ownership

The partner you meet builds the bench with you.

The partner on the kickoff call is the partner reading résumés, calibrating with you on Friday, and closing the candidate. We build the team around the company you're building, not around an associate's calendar. For a first-time C-suite hire, this matters more than any other variable.

 98% placement rate ·
Stage Discipline

The leader who runs a $5M ARR company is not the leader who scales it past $50M.

Our partners have placed leaders at every stage from seed through pre-IPO. We know which profiles transition between stages and which don't. 

4.9 /5 client satisfaction
Reference Depth

For a first-time hire, references are the whole search.

We go deeper on references than a standard call sheet, and we weigh what we hear against the stage and the role the founder is actually hiring for. For a founder's first CFO or first CRO, this is where the real diligence happens. 

Standard practice on every venture search.
Aligned on Outcomes

The start of a hire matters as much as the hire.

The candidate signs on day one, and the work starts on day one. The partner who placed them stays close through onboarding, checking in with you and the leader to make sure it's going well. We treat the placement as live until it isn't. 

 85% repeat founder rate.
Frequently Asked

Questions founders and investors ask before a venture executive search.

What's the difference between a venture-backed executive search and a PE executive search?

The biggest difference is the buyer profile and the runway calculus. PE searches are run on a value-creation clock tied to an exit. Venture searches are run on a runway tied to the next round. That changes who the right candidate is, what compensation looks like, and how the company can absorb the cost of a missed hire.

A great PE CFO often has a different career arc than a great venture CFO. Both are real jobs. They're not the same job. At ON, the partner running your search has run searches at the stage you're at, not just in the asset class.

How long does a typical venture executive search take?

A typical venture executive search at ON closes in 80 to 100 days from kickoff to signed offer. CFO and CEO searches at growth-stage companies run slightly longer. VP-tier searches at Series A and B companies often close faster.

What changes the timeline is calibration clarity and reference availability. Founders who are clear on what they need and investors who are aligned on the profile consistently close inside the median.

Can ON Partners help with board placements or advisor introductions?

Yes. Founders often engage ON for board work alongside an executive search. The right independent director can de-risk the next round and help recruit the next C-suite hire.

What happens if the candidate doesn't work out in the first year?

Our standard engagement includes a replacement guarantee. If a placed executive leaves or is asked to leave within the first 12 months for performance reasons, we run a replacement search at no additional fee.

Does ON Partners work with seed-stage companies?

Selectively. Retained executive search at seed stage is rarely the right model. Most seed companies are better served by founder-network hiring and selective advisor placements. We engage at seed stage when there's a specific high-stakes role that warrants the process: a co-founder replacement, a clinical leadership role at a biotech, or a senior technical hire at a deep-tech startup.

Most of our venture work is Series B through pre-IPO, where the company has the resources and the runway to run a real executive search process.

How does ON Partners differ from a venture-focused boutique search firm?

The biggest structural difference is that ON works across the venture, PE, public, and private asset classes, but partner-led on every search. That matters because the best venture CFOs increasingly come from growth-stage PE-backed companies, and the best growth-stage operators increasingly come from public companies that scaled fast and well. Our partners see those candidates across asset classes.

A venture-only firm has deeper Series A pattern recognition. A firm like ON has deeper cross-stage pattern recognition. For most venture searches at growth stage, that cross-stage view is what closes the search.