Seed to Series B: The People Stack You Actually Need
The honest minimum people-systems stack for a venture-backed company from seed to Series B — and what you do not need yet, no matter how good the sales pitch…
- Seed: payroll + offers + a shared doc folder. That is it.
- Series A: add an HRIS, an ATS, a performance tool you barely use.
- Series B: replace tools you outgrew, add levelling and comp tooling.
- Do not buy enterprise tools you will not configure properly.
Most early-stage companies overbuy on tools and underinvest in the actual decisions tools cannot make. The honest answer to 'what HR tech do we need at this stage' is shorter than vendors want you to believe. Here is the minimum that holds, by stage.
Seed (1–15 employees)
| Category | Tool | Cost band |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll + benefits | Gusto, Rippling, Justworks (US) / Deel, Remote (global) | $40–80 PEPM |
| Offer letters | DocuSign or HelloSign + a Google doc template | $15–25/mo |
| People records | A shared Notion/Coda page | Free |
| Hiring | A Google sheet | Free |
An HRIS, a performance tool, an engagement survey platform, or a learning platform. None of them earns its cost at this size.
Series A (15–50)
| Category | Tool | Cost band |
|---|---|---|
| HRIS | Rippling, HiBob, BambooHR | $8–15 PEPM |
| ATS | Ashby, Greenhouse (mid), Lever | $6,000–25,000/yr |
| Performance check-ins | Lattice, 15Five, or just a doc | $8–12 PEPM |
| Engagement | Officevibe, Culture Amp basic, or pulse via Slack | $3–8 PEPM |
Series B (50–150)
| Category | Add or upgrade | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Comp tooling | Pave, Figures, or Compaas | Levels + bands at scale; manual breaks. |
| Performance | Lattice / Culture Amp full suite | Calibration, 9-box, manager workflows. |
| L&D | A real LMS only if you actually run programs | If you do not, skip. |
| ER case management | HR Acuity if regulated; doc folder otherwise | Tracking matters at audit time. |
Stack anti-patterns
- Buying Workday before 500 employees — you will not configure it properly and it will become your bottleneck.
- Adding a tool to fix a workflow you have not designed — the tool will reify the bad workflow.
- Five point-tools where one platform would do — integration cost exceeds best-of-breed gain at this size.
- Skipping the HRIS to 'save money' — the cost of fragmented people data at Series B is 10x the licence fee.
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