TalentFund is a fractional advisory and talent marketplace for founding teams.

We partner up with Accelerators, Startup to assist their portfolio companies with their talent acquisition needs by matching them to the top fractional product and engineering talent with the option for the talent to be compensated in combination of cash/equity or equity only.

We currently work exclusively with startups incorporated in Canada and the US that are affiliated with leading startup hubs and accelerators.

While we welcome all top engineering and product talent, we generally prefer candidates with at least 3-4 years of experience and a track record of working at top tech companies that utilize the best agile and product development processes.

Our foundation is built on years of experience in technical recruiting and talent matching. We can match your startup with top talent that we already know and have worked with over the years, helping them advance their careers. For new candidates, we thoroughly vet them for their technical skills, experience, communication abilities, and work attitude.

Our vetting process includes a video interview, an assessment of their skills and expertise, a review of their past projects and portfolio, and an identity check.

Early-stage Startups:
- 5% transaction-based fee
- Flat $3,000 contract to full-time talent buy-out
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‍Scale-Ups:
- 10% transaction-based fee
- Flat $6,000 contract to full-time talent buy-out
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‍Mature Startups:
- 15% transaction-based fee
- 15% contract to full-time talent buy-out based on the candidate's first-year salary

The fees are lower for portfolio companies from partnered startup hubs and accelerators.

To minimize fees for startups, we utilize Plooto for payment processing, which debits your bank account and securely stores all banking information.

Alternatively, we can enable Stripe, but we would need to charge an additional 2.9% per transaction.

The main difference is the quality of talent and cost.

IT agencies and product studios use the same fractional talent model as TalentFund does, but they utilize their internal staff whom they spread fractionally/as needed across their clients. With TalentFund, we don't hire any internal staff to assist startups. Instead, we enable top talent to find side-hustles with startups that match their qualifications and preferences to help them build their products.

IT agencies and product studios charge a commission on billable hours, usually ranging from 30% to 50%. For example, hiring a Fractional CTO from an IT agency could cost you $250/hour. In contrast, with TalentFund, the cost for a CTO, depending on their hourly rate, could be around $100-150/hour, potentially offering even better experience. Additionally, as you raise capital and gain traction, the talent has the option to join full-time or become a co-founder.

Some IT agencies and studios may opt to take equity from companies in exchange for their development services. At TalentFund, we do not take any equity from startups. We let the talent decide if they would be open to this type of compensation. If they're like what you're building, you have the opportunity to hire them partially or fully for equity.