Double the Revenue, Half the Employees: How do Employment Statistics Compare?

The world revolves around data. From staying connected with friends through social media to uncovering insights on investment options, data is always running in the background. This makes it no surprise when new companies pop on the market, drawing people in with their advanced technology.

Two of these businesses, Alphasense and Pitchbook, seek out consumers looking for well-researched data that supports strong investment decisions, but what’s really going on behind closed doors? These two companies will be the focus of this article where we look to dive into employment data that may lead to some surprising insights.

Alphasense was created in 2011 and has since raised $86.61 million in funding while Pitchbook began operations in 2007 and has rallied up $13.8 million in funding. This is less than a quarter of what Alphasense has raised, yet Pitchbook reported revenue of $290.2 million in 2021 while Alphasense expects to topple $111.6 million in revenue by the end of 2022.

Does generating less than half of the revenue of Pitchbook indicate differences in the employment statistics? This is the question this article looks to answer through data insights provided by Osterus, a software program that combines hundreds of data points to generate key employment statistics.

First, let’s look at company size. Pitchbook has less than half of the employees compared to Alphasense, yet they generate double the revenue? This tells us that the quality of employees generates more importance compared to the quantity. Once we dive into the experience of employees, we will be able to support this theory.

Looking at the average work experience in job titles, we see that in almost every category, Pitchbook’s employees have more experience. Employees in the C suite retain the most experience with Pitchbook showing over 6 years and Alphasense reporting just over 5 years.

Employees in most of the categories have under 4 years of experience, indicating that the company may frequently shift employees’ positions. Additionally, Pitchbook retains more categories of employment with no representation from Alphasense in the software development, finance, automation, investor, operations, and quality management categories.

Moving on to the work experience distribution, we see a majority of the employees for both companies fall into the 5–10 year category with 36.5% of employees reported by Pitchbook and 40.3% shown by Alphasense. This contrasts with what we found in the average experience by job title as we saw that most employees had under 5 years of experience.

The next highest category is the 10–15 year category with 21.1% and 24.7% of employees in those categories for Pitchbook and Alphasense, respectively. There are also 15.4% and 13.4% of employees in the 15+ category for Pitchbook and Alphasense, respectively. A majority of the employees at these companies have over 5 years of experience while there are minimal employees with less than 5 years of experience.

This may indicate that both companies are not looking to hire individuals out of college or with little experience. They are drawn toward professionals with prior knowledge of the industry and applicable work experience.

The current employment duration distribution also gives us insight into the employment culture at these companies. There is a high level of employees in the 0–1 year category with 48.1% and 35.2% reported by Alphasense and Pitchbook, respectively. The next highest category is the 1–3 category with 36.1% and 29.8% of employees reported by Alphasense and Pitchbook, respectively.

There are few employees in the subsequent categories with practically no employees in the 15+ category. The high level of employees with under 3 years of employment with these companies can indicate a major hiring effort by these companies to promote growth or support operations. On the other hand, a large number of recent hires may shed light on low retention rates.

Poor retention rates might be the answer to the low current employment duration distribution. We can see that the 0–1 retention category has 16.6% and 24.2% while the 1–3 year category reports 56.8% and 58.7% for Pitchbook and Alphasense, respectively.

This indicates that both of these companies have a hard time keeping employees for over 3 years. We would like to see more employees stick with the company, especially from the start, since these companies are not very old. The inability to retain qualified labor is a major red flag for investors and prospective employees. If they can’t keep current employees, why would you want to work there?

We also can see some questionable data when it comes to the gender distribution in these companies, which may be contributing factors to retention issues. Women are severely underreported in every category with the business development category showing 62.69% males to 37.31% females in Pitchbook and 82.19% males to 17.81% females in Alphasense.

Despite these statistics, women actually have almost the same, if not more, experience in these categories. This highlights a major hiring issue and potentially discriminatory practices. Men might be subject to less scrutiny of their prior work experience because the data and investment realms are considered male professions.

The areas of focus for each company tell us the operational goals. Both Pitchbook and Alphasense prioritize sales with 18.53% and 21.62% of employees found in those categories, respectively. The next category for Pitchbook is software development with 16.2% while Alphasense reports 15.94% in business development.

The business development job title for Pitchbook is #3 on the list with 7.81% of employees found there while the third category for Alphasense is customer service where 14.19% of employees are found.

Both companies are prioritizing generating revenue; however, Pitchbook retains less than half of the employees, but still creates double the revenue. There was no discernable difference between these companies that would explain double the revenue other than Pitchbook finding the right talent for their business structure.

Pitchbook and Alphasense are two leaders in the data-driven investment industry; however, their employment standards fall short with a high turnover ratio and low female presence in most job titles.

The data we used to uncover these startling findings were by Osterus. This software program is just the beginning of the impact data will continue to have on our day-to-day lives.

In no time, we will be able to use these data points to complete a full analysis of employment with certain companies, from finding an inclusive work environment to evaluating the quality of life.

To learn more about the benefits of using Osterus, reach out to contact us directly, on LinkedIn, or schedule a demo today.