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Kompella Technologies

Private Equity · Interim CTO · From $30,000/month

Interim CTO cover for private equity portfolio companies

When a portfolio company loses its CTO, we step in as a temporary CTO for 6–12 months while you run the permanent search, then help you hire the replacement. We also run pre-close diligence, post-close value creation, and multi-portco work, led by a SEBI-licensed alternative investment fund manager.

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An interim CTO for a PE portfolio company is a senior technology leader who covers the CTO role for 6–12 months while the board runs a full-time search. We do this at the Embedded tier, 3+ days a week, from $30,000 a month, and we help recruit the permanent hire. Most engagements start within 2 weeks of the first call, and we have started inside 5 business days when a CTO has just left. We also handle pre-close technical diligence and post-close value creation, and we are currently fractional CTO to Landocs Private Equity in Tel Aviv.

Interim CTO Cover

Your portco CTO just left. Here is what happens next.

  1. First call. 30 minutes with the operating partner or portco CEO to understand the gap, the team, and the value-creation plan.
  2. Fast start. Most engagements start within 2 weeks. When a CTO has just left, we have started inside 5 business days, and we still run the stack audit before committing to a roadmap.
  3. Temporary ownership. We cover the CTO role for 6–12 months at the Embedded tier: team, architecture, delivery, and board and operating-partner reporting.
  4. Permanent hire. We help recruit the full-time CTO and hand over. The company keeps the architecture docs, hiring rubrics, and runbooks.

Engagement Patterns

Four ways PE firms engage us.

Pre-close tech due diligence

Senior architecture and team review before transactions close. Often complementary to specialist DD firms (Crosslake, West Monroe). We provide a continuous engagement that bridges into post-close work, rather than a one-time DD report.

Post-close value-creation augmentation

Most common pattern. Embedded in the portfolio company for 6–18 months executing the value-creation tech thesis from the diligence report. Cloud migration, security uplift, AI rollout, ERP modernization, M&A integration playbook.

Interim CTO during a transition

A portfolio company CTO leaves and the board needs continuity for 6–12 months while it runs a full-time search. An Embedded-tier interim CTO covers the role during the search and helps recruit the permanent replacement.

Multi-portco thematic engagements

A small senior team, led by Ganesh, works across 2 to 4 portcos on a coordinated theme: AI rollout, cybersecurity uplift, post-merger integration, cloud migration playbook. Operating-partner-managed engagement structure. Multi-portco scope is confirmed on the call.

Two Engagement Models

Firm-level vs. portco-level engagement.

Firm-level engagement

Operating-partner-managed engagement where a small senior team, led by Ganesh, works across multiple portfolio companies on coordinated themes (AI rollout, cybersecurity uplift, post-merger integration). The operating partner provides governance and prioritization; the team works directly with portco CEOs and engineering leaders. Best for sub-$5B AUM firms with 8–25 active portcos. Multi-portco scope is confirmed on the call.

Portco-level engagement

Embedded fractional CTO at a single portfolio company for 6–18 months, executing the value-creation thesis from diligence or replacing a departed CTO during a transition. Reports primarily to the portco CEO with dotted-line accountability to the operating partner. Best for portcos under $200M in revenue where a full-time CTO isn't yet justified.

The Difference

Diligence written for the investment committee.

Most technical diligence is written by engineers for engineers. It lists every flaw the reviewer could find, scores the team against a maturity model, and leaves the deal team to work out which of it changes the price. That memo gets skimmed and filed.

A memo that lands separates three things: what changes the valuation, what is fixable inside the hold period and at what cost, and what is actually the reason the asset is available at this price. A monolith is not a finding. A monolith that cannot be split without an eighteen-month rewrite, in a business whose thesis depends on launching three adjacent products inside two years, is a finding, and it belongs in the memo with a number attached.

We write it that way because we sit on the other side of the table too. Ganesh Kompella is Founding Partner and certified fund manager at Tykhe Ventures, running $20M across two funds including a SEBI Alternative Investment Fund Category II, and is fractional CTO to Landocs Private Equity in Tel Aviv. The vocabulary of hold period, value-creation plan, exit readiness and LP reporting is native rather than translated.

More on the investment practice, including conflict-of-interest boundaries →

Pricing

Published tiers, with interim cover from $30,000.

The published fractional tiers are $8,000, $15,000 or $25,000 a month. Interim CTO cover for a portfolio company starts at $30,000 a month. Multi-portco scope is confirmed on the call. Technical due diligence is $15K to $75K over 2 to 8 weeks.

Portco Embedded

$30,000 / month

3+ days/week, 6–18 months

Embedded CTO at a single portfolio company. Interim CTO cover, value-creation execution, or exit-readiness work.

Multi-Portco Thematic

On the call

2 to 4 portcos

A small senior team, led by Ganesh, across multiple portcos on a coordinated theme (AI, security, integration). Operating-partner-managed. Scope is confirmed on the call.

Pre-Close DD Support

$15K to $75K

2 to 8 weeks per deal

Tech and team review on transactions, complementing or substituting for a specialist DD firm. Bridges into post-close work.

Selected Engagements

PE-relevant work we've shipped.

Most PE engagements operate under NDA. The named one below is current; the three public case studies that follow are not PE-backed but demonstrate the value-creation patterns that translate directly. Further PE references available under NDA.

Current engagement · Tel Aviv, Israel

Fractional CTO to Landocs Private Equity

Mandate

Technology leadership across the firm and its portfolio: pre-close technical diligence on transactions and post-close value-creation execution.

Reporting

Direct to the partnership, with portco-level engagement run against the value-creation plan agreed at investment.

Why it works

Diligence and execution by the same person. The findings that go into the memo are the findings someone then has to own after close.

Healthcare SaaS scale

Scaling an EMR platform to 4,000+ US clinics, translatable to PE-backed healthcare SaaS scale playbooks

Cost takeout / value creation

Saved $1M+ at Mercer by killing wrong tech investments, a direct fit for PE value-creation theses

Exit readiness

A'alda from founding through Tokyo IPO: exit-readiness patterns for PE hold-period preparation

FAQ

PE-specific questions.

Yes, and the boundary is written down rather than assumed. Tykhe Ventures does not invest in companies where Kompella holds an advisory mandate without disclosing it to both sides first. We take no finder's fees and no success fees tied to a transaction closing. A diligence provider paid more when the deal happens is not a diligence provider. If a conflict exists on a specific deal we say so and step back from the diligence rather than manage around it.
Both, and the reporting line matters. Firm-level engagements are commissioned and governed by the operating partner, with a small senior team led by Ganesh working across 2 to 4 portcos on a coordinated theme. Portco-level engagements report primarily to the portco CEO with dotted-line accountability to the operating partner. The second shape works better when the portco team needs to trust the people on the engagement; the first works better when the sponsor needs consistency across the portfolio.
Yes, increasingly. Operating teams at sub-$5B AUM PE firms in particular use fractional CTOs for portfolio company augmentation rather than hiring full-time CTOs at every portco. The pattern is most common at firms with 8–25 active portfolio companies where staffing a full-time CTO at each is neither budgeted nor feasible.
Tech DD firms (Crosslake, West Monroe, Newforth) produce reports for transaction decisions; fractional CTOs embed in portfolio companies post-close and own outcomes. Most PE firms use both: DD firms for the transaction itself, fractional CTOs for the post-close work where the value-creation thesis actually plays out.
Yes. Multi-portco thematic engagements are increasingly common: a small senior team, led by Ganesh, working on AI rollout, cybersecurity uplift, or post-merger integration patterns across 2 to 4 portcos under operating-partner oversight. Interim CTO cover for one portfolio company starts at $30,000 a month. Multi-portco scope is confirmed on the call.
The published fractional tiers are $8,000, $15,000 or $25,000 a month. Interim CTO cover for a private equity portfolio company starts at $30,000 a month. Multi-portco scope is confirmed on the call.
Yes. Late-cycle PE engagements often focus on exit-readiness: clearing technical debt that would surface during diligence on the next transaction, producing diligence-ready architecture and security documentation, and ensuring the engineering team can defend the asset during exit DD. Typically 12–18 months ahead of expected exit.
Yes. PE engagements typically include monthly operating-partner updates and quarterly LP-aligned tech updates that get aggregated into LP reports. We follow the operating partner's reporting cadence and templates rather than imposing our own.

Need an interim CTO for a portfolio company?

Book a free 30-minute call. We'll talk through the gap, the value-creation thesis, and whether interim cover or a longer embedded engagement fits. No deck, no pitch, just an honest read on whether we're the right shape.

Need the deliverable spec and pricing for a specific deal? Technical due diligence. Venture-stage rather than buyout? Venture capital CTO. Also advising on the family office side? What a family office CTO covers.

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