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Kompella Technologies

Senior Technical Leadership · From $8,000/month

Fractional CTO Services for Startups & Growth Companies

Senior CTO leadership embedded 2–3 days per week. Architecture, hiring, AI strategy, and board-level technology reporting — $8,000–$25,000/month versus $300,000+ all-in for a full-time hire.

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A fractional CTO from Kompella Technologies costs $8,000–$25,000 per month for 1–3 days per week of embedded senior leadership: stack decisions, engineering hiring, AI strategy, board reporting, and technical due diligence. We specialize in healthcare, fintech, and SaaS from pre-seed through Series B. Engagements are month-to-month with 30 days' notice and most start within 2 weeks of the first call.

What You Get

Everything a full-time CTO delivers — without the $300K+ salary.

Technical Architecture & Strategy

We choose your stack, design your system architecture, and define the infrastructure strategy that maps to your next 18 months of business outcomes — not the next quarter's hype cycle. We've made these calls for healthtech platforms scaling to 50,000+ users and fintech systems handling regulated payment flows. No vendor lock-in. No premature optimization. Just decisions you can defend to investors and rebuild on.

Engineering Team Building

We write the JD, run the technical loop, calibrate the bar, and close strong candidates. We've hired engineers from staff to senior, in the US, India, and EU — including teams that scaled from 3 to 30+ in under a year. We also fix bad hiring funnels: if your conversion from final-round to offer is under 30%, the funnel is broken, not the candidates.

Product & Roadmap Ownership

We translate business goals into a technical roadmap with concrete trade-offs: what we build now, what we defer, what we kill. We sit between product, engineering, and the CEO so the roadmap reflects what's actually shippable — not what looked good in a slide. Every quarter we publish a one-page CTO update for the board so technology stays a credible conversation, not a black box.

AI & Automation Strategy

We identify where AI creates real leverage versus where it's a feature for the deck. We've architected AI orchestration layers across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity (Sociail), built MLOps for production LLM pipelines, and shipped automation that cut 40% of manual work at scale (Mercer). We define your model strategy, evaluation harness, and the build-vs-buy line.

Vendor & Build-vs-Buy Decisions

We evaluate platforms, tools, and outsourcing partners against your stage and trajectory — not against generic best practices. The framework is simple: build only what differentiates; buy everything else; never build for problems you don't have yet. We've avoided seven-figure mistakes with this discipline at Mercer and Aesthetic Record.

Board & Investor Communication

We prepare technology updates for board meetings, lead due-diligence sessions during fundraises, and translate engineering reality into language investors trust. We've sat on the founder side of Series A through IPO due diligence (A'alda) — we know which questions VCs actually ask and which architectural answers sell vs. spook.

How It Works

From first call to embedded leadership in two weeks.

  1. 01

    Discovery call

    30-minute call to understand your stage, team, technology challenges, and what success looks like 90 days from now. You'll leave with three specific recommendations whether or not we work together.

  2. 02

    Stack audit

    Two-week deep dive: architecture review, codebase walk-through, infrastructure cost audit, hiring funnel review, and risk register. You get a written report — not a deck — with concrete actions ranked by ROI.

  3. 03

    90-day plan

    Joint workshop to align on the first quarter: 3 measurable outcomes, sequenced workstreams, hiring needs, and the budget required. We agree on what counts as success before any retainer starts.

  4. 04

    Embedded execution

    We work 2–3 days per week as a member of your leadership team. In your Slack, your standups, your code reviews, and your board prep. We own outcomes, not deliverables on a SOW.

  5. 05

    Hiring & transition

    When the strategic decisions are made and the team can execute, we help you hire your full-time CTO or VP of Engineering and stay on as advisor. The goal is engineering that keeps shipping after we leave.

Pricing

Three transparent tiers. No “request a quote.”

Most fractional CTO firms hide pricing until you're on a sales call. We don't. Pick the tier that matches your stage. We'll tell you on the first call which one fits — and we'll tell you if neither does.

Advisory

$8,000 / month

1 day/week

Strategic guidance, architecture review, board prep, hiring calibration. No day-to-day ownership.

Ideal stage

Pre-seed founders, post-launch teams with a junior CTO

Fractional

$15,000 / month

2 days/week

Embedded leadership: roadmap ownership, hiring, code/architecture decisions, board updates.

Ideal stage

Seed–Series A startups; growth-stage teams scaling engineering

Embedded

$25,000 / month

3+ days/week

Near-full-time CTO involvement. Major migrations, IPO prep, building from scratch, or replacing a departed CTO.

Ideal stage

Series A/B in critical phases; PE-backed portfolio companies

Healthtech, fintech, and AI-heavy engagements run 20–40% above these benchmarks due to specialization. See our full pricing breakdown for the math vs. a full-time hire.

Who This Is For

Designed for founders who need senior judgment more than they need full-time headcount.

Most companies pre-Series B don't need a full-time CTO; they need a senior technical voice in the room when high-stakes decisions are made. If any of these describe you, a fractional engagement is probably the right shape:

  • —Pre-seed to Series B startups without a full-time CTO
  • —Non-technical founders who need a senior technical partner in the room
  • —Companies preparing for fundraising or technical due diligence
  • —Teams scaling from MVP to growth stage where architecture decisions are starting to bite
  • —Series A/B companies adding AI to an existing product
  • —Companies whose CTO just left and need leadership continuity inside 30 days
  • —PE/VC operating teams augmenting portfolio company leadership

Results

Three engagements that show what fractional CTO leadership delivers.

Aesthetic Record · Healthcare SaaS

Scaled an EMR platform to 4,000+ US clinics

4 years as fractional CTO — re-architected the platform, built the engineering team, and scaled to 50,000+ users.

Read case study

Mercer · Fortune 500 Consulting

Saved $1M+ by killing the wrong tech investments

Fractional CPO/CTO — audited planned investments, redesigned sales enablement, and cut 40% of admin tasks.

Read case study

Sociail · AI Collaboration Platform

Built AI orchestration across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity

Fractional CTO — architected the multi-AI collaboration layer, real-time infra, and engineering culture from scratch.

Read case study

FAQ

Common questions about fractional CTO services.

Fractional CTO services typically run $8,000–$25,000 per month depending on time commitment, vertical, and complexity. That's 30–50% of a full-time CTO's all-in cost ($300K–$500K+ when you add base, equity, recruiting fees, and benefits). We publish three transparent tiers — Advisory ($8K, 1 day/wk), Fractional ($15K, 2 days/wk), and Embedded ($25K, 3+ days/wk).
Most engagements run 6–18 months. Pre-seed engagements often run 3–6 months focused on getting the architecture and first hires right. Series A engagements are typically 12–18 months as we hire the team and prepare for Series B. We design every engagement to make us replaceable — by your full-time CTO, your VP of Engineering, or a strong tech-lead structure.
A consultant produces a deck and a SOW; a fractional CTO sits in your standups, owns hiring, attends your board meeting, and is accountable for outcomes. We're in your Slack, your GitHub, and your Jira. We don't bill for thinking — we bill for ownership. If you want a report, hire a consultancy. If you want someone who'll get your architecture and team into shipping shape, hire a fractional CTO.
Yes. We prepare your architecture documentation, scalability analysis, and security posture for diligence; we sit in DD calls; we answer the technical questions investors actually ask. Companies with fractional CTOs typically present stronger in technical DD because we've been through the process before and can pre-empt the concerns. We've supported Series A and Series B raises across healthtech, fintech, and AI.
Yes. We sign mutual NDAs before any non-public technical discussion and adhere to data-handling protocols appropriate to your vertical (HIPAA for healthcare, SOC 2 for fintech). Our standard MSA covers IP assignment, confidentiality, and indemnification. We can review your paper or use ours.
We specialize in healthcare (HIPAA-compliant platforms, EMR/EHR, FDA SaMD), fintech (payments infrastructure, regulated workflows, SOC 2/PCI), and SaaS (multi-tenant architecture, AI-native products). 75+ products shipped across these verticals over 15+ years. We're selective about engagements outside these verticals — pattern-matching is what makes fractional work fast.
Most engagements start within 2 weeks of the first call. Stack audit kicks off in week one, the 90-day plan is workshopped in week two, and we're embedded by week three. For CTO-quit emergencies, we've started inside 5 business days — but we still insist on the audit before committing to a roadmap.
Sometimes. We'll consider partial-cash + equity for engagements where we believe in the business and the equity has a real probability of liquidity. Fully-equity engagements are rare and only for unusual situations. The reason is alignment, not cost: cash forces clarity on what the engagement is actually buying.
Engagements are month-to-month with 30 days' notice. If we're not delivering, you cancel — no severance, no equity acceleration, no contract penalty. The asymmetry is the point: we earn the engagement every month. In 15+ years and 75+ engagements, we've had a small number end early; in every case the company kept the artifacts (architecture docs, hiring rubrics, runbooks).
Toptal is a marketplace — they match you with an independent operator and take a margin; quality varies. Crosslake is enterprise-focused (PE/M&A diligence). We're a boutique firm with a focused practice in fractional CTO/CPO leadership for pre-seed through Series B in healthtech, fintech, and SaaS. We name the operator on day one. We've shipped the kind of products you're trying to build.

Explore

Learn more about fractional CTO leadership.

Compare

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Pricing

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Industry

See our healthcare work

Definition

What's a fractional CTO?

Ready for senior CTO leadership this month?

400+ founder strategy calls completed. You'll leave with three specific recommendations whether or not we work together. No deck, no pitch — just judgment.

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✓ 15+ years CTO experience✓ 75+ products shipped✓ Response within 24 hours