Is this normal at 10 people?
How big companies at seed are, and what companies your size posted
Shares are given for companies of 20 to 49 and 50 to 99 people; 1 to 19 and 100 to 199 people show counts, too few companies posted for a share.
The 124 seed-stage AI companies by size
105 with a known headcount; median 36 employees
1 to 19 people: what they posted
16 of 68 companies posted a role; too few for a share
20 to 49 people: what they posted
48 of 94 companies posted a role; share of those that posted
50 to 99 people: what they posted
41 of 64 companies posted a role; share of those that posted
100 to 199 people: what they posted
26 of 46 companies posted a role; too few for a share
What the postings say
- 01Of the 124 seed-stage AI companies we follow, 105 have a known headcount; the median company has 36 employees, 32 have 1 to 19 people and 38 have 20 to 49.
- 02Of the 68 companies at 1 to 19 people across the groups we follow, 16 posted a role in the twelve months to October 2026; 10 of them posted an AI or machine learning engineer and 12 a software engineer, too few for a share.
- 03Of the 48 companies at 20 to 49 people that posted a role, 27 posted an account executive, 8 a recruiter and 7 an engineering leader.
For founders and CEOs
Find your band. Most seed-stage AI companies have more than ten people; if you are under twenty, engineering roles, software and AI, top what companies your size posted.
For portfolio talent teams
The size line explains most of what a portfolio posts: the bands are where a portfolio company's next seat is easiest to read against peers its size.
For hiring managers
If the team around you is small for its stage, the band chart shows which roles companies your size were looking for.
Questions people ask
Is ten people normal at seed?
It is on the small side for the seed-stage AI companies we follow: the median company is larger, and companies under twenty people are a minority of the group.
How many engineers should a company my size have?
The postings show which roles companies your size looked for, not how many people they employ in each function. A headcount mix by function is not in this data, and this page does not estimate one.
Does a posting mean the company hired someone?
No. A posting says a company was looking for the role, not that it filled it, and a company that posted the same role five times counts once. The page reads what was posted and listed, never who was hired.
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
Size: the study's headcount readings to 2026-10-17. Postings: 2025-10-25 to 2026-10-25.
Who is included
- Size mix: the 124 companies of the published seed-stage study.
- Posted mix: across every group we follow except the Vista Equity Partners portfolio, the companies in the band with any posting in the window, the band total printed beside it.
Coverage
- Companies under 20 people rarely run a public job board, so the 1 to 19 band fills only as their headcount and history are read; 48 companies with no headcount are left out of the bands.
Limits and caps
- A share needs 30 posting companies in the band. No figure here is a growth or headcount change: two readings a week apart show no change.
- 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 |
|---|---|
| Size mix of the seed-stage group | today |
| Posted mix at 20 to 49 and 50 to 99 people | today: each band has more than 30 companies that posted a role |
| Posted mix at 1 to 19 people | counts only, not within 180 days: companies this size rarely run a public job board |
| Headcount growth or change | never on this page; see Which seat first? from April 2027 |
Sources
- seed-stage-ai-companies.json (study, version vertical@1.0.0)
- is-this-normal-at-10-people.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.