Investor-ready technology leadership
Fractional CTO for
Series A Startups
Series A is the hardest technical stage. You need investor-ready infrastructure, scalable architecture, and the foundation of an engineering team — all without the $350K full-time CTO hire. We deliver all three.
75+
Products shipped
15+
Years operating experience
$140M+
ARR built
IPO
Guided to public listing
Architecture decisions compound
The technical choices you make at Series A will either accelerate or cripple your growth for years. A monolith that worked at seed stage won't survive 10x user growth. But a premature microservices migration will drain your runway. You need someone who's made these decisions before.
Investors expect technical maturity
Series A investors aren't just evaluating your product — they're evaluating your technology organization. They want to see documented architecture, automated deployments, security foundations, and a credible plan to scale. Technical due diligence failures kill deals.
Team scaling begins
You're going from 3-5 engineers to 10-25. That means engineering management, coding standards, interview processes, and onboarding. The habits you set now become your engineering culture. Get it wrong and you'll spend Series B fixing it.
Tech due diligence preparation
We prepare your technology stack, documentation, and processes for investor scrutiny. Architecture diagrams, security posture, scalability analysis, and honest assessment of technical debt — ready before the term sheet.
Architecture scaling
We evaluate your current architecture against your growth trajectory and design the migration path. Whether that's database sharding, service decomposition, or infrastructure automation — we plan it and lead execution.
Engineering hiring (first 10-25 engineers)
We design your interview process, define role levels, write job descriptions, screen candidates, and conduct technical interviews. We've built engineering teams from scratch at multiple startups and know what good looks like at this stage.
SOC 2 and compliance foundations
Enterprise customers and sophisticated investors expect security compliance. We establish the policies, access controls, logging, and monitoring that form the foundation of SOC 2 Type I — without slowing down product development.
Vendor evaluations
Cloud providers, monitoring tools, CI/CD platforms, third-party APIs — every vendor decision has cost and lock-in implications. We evaluate options based on your specific needs and negotiate contracts that protect your interests.
3 days/week
Embedded in your team — standups, architecture reviews, hiring interviews, and board prep. Deep enough to own outcomes, not just advise.
$12K-$20K/mo
A fraction of the $350K+ total cost of a full-time CTO (salary + equity + benefits + recruiter fees). Cancel anytime with 30 days' notice.
6-12 months
Long enough to build the foundation, hire key roles, and transition to a full-time CTO when the time is right. We help you hire our replacement.
✓Documented architecture with clear scaling plan
✓CI/CD pipeline with automated testing
✓Security posture: access controls, secrets management, vulnerability scanning
✓Scalability plan tied to business growth projections
✓Engineering hiring plan with role definitions and timeline
✓Technical debt inventory with prioritized remediation
✓Incident response process and uptime history
✓Data backup and disaster recovery procedures
We prepare all of this before your investors ask for it. When due diligence starts, you're ready — not scrambling.
Ready to make Series A your strongest stage?
Book a 30-minute strategy call. We'll review your current architecture, team, and investor timeline — and tell you honestly whether a fractional CTO is the right move.
Book a Free Strategy Call