How does my portfolio compare?
Each group side by side, role by role
Share of each group's companies that posted the role in its twelve months to October 2026; counts for a group under 30 companies.
Account executive
Software engineer
Customer success
Demand generation
Product management
AI or machine learning engineer
What each group rests on
Share of each group looked for in both the twelve-month history and a live job board, with its median company size
A fair pair needs both groups at 90 in 100 looked for in both sources.
What the postings say
- 0166 in 100 of the 88 Vista Equity Partners portfolio companies posted an account executive role in the twelve months to October 2026; of the 91 Bonfire Ventures portfolio companies, 30 in 100 did, and 54 of the Bonfire Ventures companies have not yet had their twelve months read.
- 02Of the 124 seed-stage AI companies, 16 in 100 posted an account executive role; of the 88 Vista companies, 66 in 100 did; the median company in the two groups has 36 and 814 employees.
- 03Only one of the groups has been looked for in both sources for 90 in 100 or more of its companies; every other group's figures are provisional until its year is read.
For founders and CEOs
Comparing your investor's portfolio with your stage tells you more about how the groups were built than about demand. Read the size line under each group first.
For portfolio talent teams
Put your portfolio next to a stage or another portfolio. The quality strip says how much of each group we have looked at; a fair pair needs both groups well covered, which only one group is today.
For hiring managers
The roles where two very different groups both post widely are the ones where you compete with everyone.
Questions people ask
How does my portfolio compare with seed-stage companies or another portfolio?
Role by role, as the share of each group that posted the role. The first difference you will see is design: a portfolio of large software companies and a group of small seed companies post differently because they are different companies.
Why does each group say how much of it we looked at?
A group's share counts every company in it, including companies we have not yet looked for in both places we read postings. Until 90 in 100 of a group's companies have been, its figures are provisional, and the page says so.
Is a company that posted nothing not hiring?
Not necessarily. Many companies hire through referrals, agencies and their own networks and never post, and many run no public job board we can read. A company with no posting we could read is unknown, so every figure here counts the companies that did post, and is the least of the group that was hiring a role, never the most.
Methodology and data
Window
Seed-stage AI companies: 2025-10-17 to 2026-10-17. Bonfire Ventures portfolio: 2025-10-17 to 2026-10-17. Vista Equity Partners portfolio: 2025-10-14 to 2026-10-14. Valor Ventures portfolio: 2025-10-14 to 2026-10-14.
Who is included
- Each share is of every company in its group as its study counts them. The groups are not matched: a portfolio spans sizes and sectors, a category does not, so a difference between two groups is first a difference in design.
Coverage
- Seed-stage AI companies: 33 of the 123 tracked companies looked for in both the twelve-month history and a live board (27%); 7 with the whole year recorded as read; 16 with a board we read.
- Bonfire Ventures portfolio: 37 of the 91 tracked companies looked for in both the twelve-month history and a live board (41%); 6 with the whole year recorded as read; 21 with a board we read.
- Vista Equity Partners portfolio: 87 of the 88 tracked companies looked for in both the twelve-month history and a live board (99%); 9 with the whole year recorded as read; 30 with a board we read.
- Valor Ventures portfolio: 11 of the 26 tracked companies looked for in both the twelve-month history and a live board (42%); 2 with the whole year recorded as read; 1 with a board we read.
Limits and caps
- Seed-stage AI companies: twelve months of postings to 2026-10-17, the 20 most recent per company; 17 of the 37 companies with postings sit at that cap, so their counts are floors. Every published group is provisional under the benchmark gate until 90 in 100 of its companies are looked for in both sources and 80 in 100 have their whole year read.
- Bonfire Ventures portfolio: twelve months of postings to 2026-10-17, the 20 most recent per company; 14 of the 38 companies with postings sit at that cap, so their counts are floors. Every published group is provisional under the benchmark gate until 90 in 100 of its companies are looked for in both sources and 80 in 100 have their whole year read.
- Vista Equity Partners portfolio: twelve months of postings to 2026-10-14, the 10 most recent per company; 84 of the 87 companies with postings sit at that cap, so their counts are floors and this group states company shares only, never a posting share, a total or a per-company count. Every published group is provisional under the benchmark gate until 90 in 100 of its companies are looked for in both sources and 80 in 100 have their whole year read.
- Valor Ventures portfolio: twelve months of postings to 2026-10-14, the 20 most recent per company; 3 of the 11 companies with postings sit at that cap, so their counts are floors. Every published group is provisional under the benchmark gate until 90 in 100 of its companies are looked for in both sources and 80 in 100 have their whole year read.
- Do not read these differences as causal effects or as demand: postings show what was posted, not what was filled or why.
- A share is stated only over 30 companies or more; below that the page gives counts. Medians, never means. Rules dashboards@1.0.0 (src/lib/dashboards.ts, tested in test/dashboards.test.ts).
When each figure can be stated
| Figure | Stated from |
|---|---|
| Shares for groups of 30 or more, with the quality level printed | today |
| A fair pair of groups | when both are looked for in both sources for 90 in 100 of their companies; one group reaches that today |
| Valor Ventures | counts only: fewer than 30 companies |
Sources
- seed-stage-ai-companies.json (study, version vertical@1.0.0)
- bonfire-ventures-portfolio.json (study, version vertical@1.0.0)
- vista-equity-partners-portfolio.json (study, version vertical@1.0.0)
- valor-ventures-portfolio.json (study, version vertical@1.0.0)
- how-does-my-portfolio-compare.json (the Sunday recompute of crm.role_openings)
- Dashboard file computed 2026-10-25T11:10:43.581Z; board read of 2026-10-24.
- Original research computed from the signal layer of the recruiting CRM behind Human in the Loop Talent: public job boards, company news, funding announcements and headcount readings, collected continuously for every tracked company and recomputed every Sunday. A figure is published only when the sample supports it; the data behind every page is published as JSON next to it.
- Licence: CC BY 4.0. Reuse with attribution.
Cite this
Related: Hiring Intelligence, the hiring benchmark.
Next step
Scoping the seat your peers posted?
Thirty minutes on what companies at your stage posted, what the seat looks like at your size, and whether it needs a hire at all.