Hiring your first VP or C-suite leader? See which executive search firms work with startups, how retained and contingent search differ, and what to ask about caseload — from Stanton Chase and SPMB to boutiques like Plenty Search and Nederlia.
41 of the 95 recruiting firms for startups tracked on Startup Recruiting Firms publish Executive Search as a specialty, as of October 14, 2026. The featured partner, Recruitmint, is pinned first when it qualifies; every other row is alphabetical, unpaid, and drawn from public information.
Executive search on this list means retained or contingent search focused on C-suite, VP, and board-level hires for venture-backed and private-equity-backed companies, not high-volume individual-contributor recruiting. The firms here run from large, decades-old practices like Stanton Chase and SPMB to boutique operators built by former founders, such as Plenty Search and Nederlia, that focus specifically on Series A-C leadership searches. Some, like Daversa Partners and Hunt Club, publish case studies naming portfolio companies they've placed leaders into; others keep client work confidential and rely on referrals. What varies most between firms in this category is caseload — how many concurrent searches the partner running yours is also carrying — and whether the search covers a single hire or a broader leadership-team build. Ask directly who does the actual candidate outreach, how many other searches that person is running, and what the replacement policy says in writing before signing. Cross-check region and size filters here, since a firm's search practice may be concentrated in one geography even if the firm itself operates globally.
Which recruiting firms for startups do executive search?
Featured partner pinned first and labelled; every other company is listed alphabetically. No paid placement.
Which recruiting firms for startups do executive search?. Featured partner pinned first and labelled; every other company is listed alphabetically. No paid placement.
Recruitmint is an international search and recruitment partner for founder-led, growth-stage, and government-contracting organizations, with offices in Orange County, CA and Prishtina, Kosovo. It recruits across product, engineering, and AI roles (including founding engineers), growth and ecommerce leadership, executive and leadership search, and GovCon roles including cleared and OCONUS talent. Offered as full-search or embedded talent-partner engagements. Publisher of this directory; disclosed as the featured listing.
AC Lion Group is a New York City-based executive search firm placing growth, GTM, and digital leaders for investor-backed companies, with deep-expertise practices spanning emerging tech/AI, digital media and adtech, MarTech/SaaS, and e-commerce.
Authentech Talent is a boutique recruiting firm running technical, go-to-market, and executive search for startups from Pre-Seed through Series F, offering both embedded TA advisory and success-based placement across AI, fintech, healthtech, and cybersecurity verticals.
Bespoke Partners is an Austin executive search and sales recruiting firm, founded in 2011. It places C-suite and VP-level revenue and marketing leaders, including CRO and CMO roles, at PE- and venture-backed software and SaaS companies.
Bloom Talent is a woman-owned boutique recruiting agency based in San Francisco that partners with early-stage startups, venture capital firms, and established tech companies to fill senior and executive roles through a relationship-driven, white-glove search process.
Bolster is a New York-headquartered executive talent marketplace, founded by the former leadership team of Return Path, that matches CEOs of startups and scaleups with full-time, fractional, interim, and board executives through a combination of experienced recruiters and a sourcing platform.
Bonell Ryan is a boutique, retained executive search firm based in New York serving the FinTech, Payments, and SaaS industries, placing transformational leadership talent for both Fortune 500 clients and early- and late-stage startups.
Captivate Talent is a recruiting firm dedicated to revenue roles at high-growth SaaS companies, placing sales, marketing, customer success, and RevOps talent from individual contributors through executive leadership, working with US and Canada-based teams.
Daversa Partners is an executive search firm that runs leadership searches for high-growth, venture-backed technology companies, with case studies covering companies such as OpenAI, Brex, and Cursor.
Early Stage Talent is a boutique agency founded by Ryan Sapper specializing in early engineering, product, and go-to-market hiring for startups, offering individual-contributor search, fractional recruiting leadership, and executive search.
EC1 Partners is a global FinTech recruitment agency with offices in London, New York, Miami, and Singapore, placing permanent, contract, and executive-search talent across electronic trading, capital markets software, regtech, payments, lending, and crypto/digital assets for FinTech companies.
Excelsior Search is a global executive search and recruitment firm focused exclusively on fintech vendors serving capital markets and investment technology, data, and research providers, recruiting executive management, sales, marketing, professional services, and product development talent across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
GENTY recruitment is a Latin America-focused recruitment agency helping US and European startups hire tech, sales, and leadership talent across 14 LATAM countries, offering IT recruitment, sales recruitment, RPO, and executive search services.
GTM Hunters is a precision recruiting firm exclusively focused on revenue roles for VC-backed SaaS and AI companies from Series A through Series D, placing Account Executives, SDRs, GTM leadership, RevOps, and AI GTM talent.
Boutique executive search firm placing GTM leadership (CRO, CMO, VP Sales, VP Marketing, RevOps, first sellers) for SaaS and tech scale-ups, plus nonprofit executive search, with partners covering North America and EMEA for cross-border searches.
Herd Freed Hartz is a Seattle retained executive search firm with a Pacific Northwest focus (Seattle, Portland, Alaska) and national search reach. It recruits leaders across functions including CEO, CFO, COO, CRO/sales, CTO/engineering, CMO, VP Product, and HR/talent, with technology and startups among the industries it serves.
High Slope Recruiting is a founder-led firm placing engineering and executive talent, including staff and principal engineers, ML researchers, and founding technical leads, at Series A-C startups.
Hunt Club is a Chicago executive search and talent advisory firm, founded in 2014. It finds leaders for high-growth VC- and PE-backed companies (Series A-C included) through expert referrals and AI-assisted relationship mapping.
Retained GTM search firm focused on Series A and Series B venture-backed startups, placing enterprise sales/presales, marketing, and C-suite GTM leadership across DevTools, cybersecurity, and AI/ML companies in the US and EMEA.
MBI Talent Group offers executive search, tech and sales recruiting, and a Fractional Headhunters service in which an experienced headhunter embeds with a client's team on a flexible monthly basis. Its site says it pioneered the fractional model in Latin America and lists offices including Querétaro, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Milan, and San Jose, CA.
McKenzie Recruiting is a women-owned, SAM.gov-registered fractional recruiting and executive search firm working with startups, SaaS companies, tech firms, marketing agencies, and government contractors across insurance, technology, aviation, manufacturing, and other specialized functions.
Nederlia is a venture capital-focused executive search firm specializing in early-stage startups, from seed to Series B, placing C-suite and VP-level leaders across tech hubs in Europe and the UK.
Neon Talent is a subscription-based fractional recruiting firm that embeds recruiters with startups on a monthly basis to fill executive, technical, and operations roles, with active placement work across San Francisco, Austin, New York, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and Miami.
Opal Search Partners is a New York-based boutique executive search and advisory firm placing C-suite, board, and VP leaders in product, engineering, go-to-market, and operations roles for mission-driven, venture-backed startups, using a proprietary candidate-mapping tool called Opal Loupe.
Plenty Search is a boutique New York executive search firm built by former startup operators. It runs leadership searches for Series A-C and early-stage startups, with a smaller caseload per recruiter than traditional retained firms.
Rheaction is a boutique recruiting firm headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in New York and Denver, specializing in design, product, and technical leadership placements for venture-backed startups, including Series A-B companies competing for engineering talent.
Riviera Partners is a technology-focused executive search and talent advisory firm placing leadership in product management, software engineering, AI/ML/data, security, and design, working with venture-backed companies from seed stage through scale.
Rocket (Neatly Technologies, Inc.) is an AI-native recruiting firm started in San Francisco with additional teams in Toronto and New York, placing engineering, product, go-to-market, and executive roles for high-growth, VC-backed startups from Series A through IPO via contingency, executive search, and embedded models.
Scion Staffing is a San Francisco-headquartered temporary staffing, contingency search, and executive recruitment firm that has served Bay Area employers since 2006, including startups and technology companies alongside finance, healthcare, nonprofit, and other sectors.
Shields Group Search is a New York City-based executive recruiting firm specializing in startup and scale-up hiring, providing executive and technical talent acquisition for venture-backed companies from Seed through Series C across SaaS, fintech, healthtech, and Web3.
Skinner & Associates is a boutique health tech recruiting firm placing mid, senior, and executive-level talent for health tech startups and established companies, offering retained, contingency, hybrid, and contract-to-hire placement models.
SPMB is an executive search firm that recruits C-level executives and board members for technology, consumer, and health companies, ranging from early-stage startups to established public companies.
Stanton Chase is a large, Baltimore-based global executive search and leadership consulting firm, founded in 1990. Its startups-and-scale-ups practice recruits C-level and board talent for Series A-D venture-backed and private equity-owned companies.
Storm2 is a FinTech-focused recruitment and executive search firm placing AI/data, software engineering, finance & operations, legal, product, risk & compliance, and sales & marketing talent for FinTech companies from founding teams through public/late-stage, covering verticals from digital banking to payments, lending, and crypto.
Storm3 is a HealthTech-focused recruitment and executive search firm placing data & analytics, engineering, AI/ML, product management, and go-to-market talent for HealthTech companies from founding teams through late-stage and public, covering sub-sectors from digital health to AI drug discovery and biotech.
Talent Vine is a small New York-based search firm founded by three former Palantir recruiters that runs retained search and hiring-partnership engagements for forward-deployed engineering, technical/product leadership, and business-leadership roles at growing startups.
Tangerine Search is a San Francisco Bay Area-headquartered boutique recruiting and fractional HR firm serving startups and growth-stage tech teams, offering startup recruiting, technical recruiting, executive search, embedded/RPO support, and fractional HR across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The Startup Talent Agency is a recruiting firm founded by a CHRO that works only with startups. It recruits across engineering and product, go-to-market, executive and leadership, and G&A roles.
True Search is a New York-headquartered global retained executive search firm with offices across six continents, recruiting C-suite and board talent for venture capital- and private equity-backed companies as well as mid-to-large-cap organizations.
Boutique retained executive search firm focused exclusively on Go-To-Market leadership hires (CRO, CCO, VP Sales, Head of GTM) for founder-led, PE-backed, and venture-funded companies primarily in the US and Canada, with cross-border reach into Latin America.
Zytheq is a San Francisco Bay Area recruiting firm running engineering, data/AI, product, go-to-market, and executive searches for Series A-D startups and larger tech companies, offering contingency search, retained executive search, and embedded/RPO recruiting out of its San Francisco office.
How many recruiting firms for startups do Executive Search?
41 of the 95 companies in this directory. The list is compiled from public information and refreshed as companies change.
How is this list ordered?
The featured partner, Recruitmint, which publishes this directory, is pinned first and labelled. Everyone else is alphabetical. Position is not for sale.
Do companies pay to appear on this page?
No. Inclusion is free and unpaid. Recruitmint is the only company with a commercial relationship to this site, and it is disclosed on every page.
