Technical leadership when you need it most

Fractional CTO for Startups

Plug in an executive-level engineering leader who has scaled venture-backed products, overseen AI teams, and prepared startups for diligence — without the full-time hire. We co-own the roadmap, architecture, hiring, and investor narratives alongside you.

Book a CTO Diagnostic Request 30/60/90 Plan

Former Head of Engineering at PyjamaHRScaled Rupa Health through 300% traffic surgeIntegrated with 12+ venture-backed teams

$35M+

ARR guided through diligence

5 days

Average onboarding time

99.99%

Uptime maintained across clients

Engineering leaders hired

Executive-level leadership without pausing product velocity

Early teams need a technology owner who can partner on roadmap sequencing, unblock engineers, and translate architectural bets to investors. Hiring that leader full time can take six months and burn precious runway.

Our fractional CTO engagements give founders immediate access to a senior leader who has already run engineering and AI teams. We join your standups, lead architecture reviews, prepare board-ready updates, and mentor your in-house talent so you can scale with confidence.

Where founders get stuck

•Roadmaps that change weekly without a single source of truth
•Investors asking for diligence materials that do not exist
•Firefighting incidents instead of building features
•Difficulty hiring senior engineers or holding them to a bar

Outcomes you can expect

✓Clear technical strategy tied to revenue goals
✓Architecture decisions documented and future-proofed
✓Hiring funnel for senior ICs and tech leads
✓Investor narratives and diligence-ready documentation

Deliverables every engagement includes

Quarterly technical strategy that ladders into company OKRs

System architecture and data flow diagrams updated in Notion/FigJam

Security, reliability, and compliance readiness checklist

Hiring scorecards plus interview loops for critical roles

Weekly executive updates with risks, velocity, and asks

Investor diligence packet (infrastructure, metrics, risks, mitigation)

Code review cadence plus guardrails for AI-generated code

Budget models comparing build vs. buy vs. AI automation options

Why startups choose HyperNest Labs

Hands-on leaders who still ship code, not just PowerPoints

Deep AI/LLM expertise to guide model selection, fine-tuning, and evaluation

Experience stewarding teams through acquisitions at Fullscript and Gambling.com

Transparent pricing starting at $35/hour with no retainers

US timezone overlap and direct founder access within shared channels

Bench of vetted senior ICs who can join alongside the CTO

How we plug into your team

Engagement roadmap

Day 0-7

Architecture & Alignment

We capture the current state across product, infra, data, and people. Then we align on north-star metrics and constraints with founders and investors.

→Technical deep dive sessions and artifact audit
→Risk register covering reliability, security, and data
→Hiring and process assessment

Day 8-30

Execution & Enablement

We co-own ceremonies, unblock teams, and implement the roadmap. Every sprint ties proofs-of-value to business milestones.

→Standup + async updates
→Architecture/design doc reviews
→Hands-on pairing with ICs

Day 31+

Scale & Transition

We help you recruit or promote the long-term leader, then transition knowledge, documentation, and rituals without downtime.

→Succession plan + recruiting support
→Documentation handoff playbook
→Post-engagement office hours

30 / 60 / 90 day integration plan

Days 0-30

Stabilize roadmap, visibility, and engineering rituals.

•Shadow every team ceremony for a full sprint
•Ship an architecture memo + prioritized risk list
•Stand up an investor-ready metrics dashboard

Days 31-60

Accelerate throughput while hiring or up-leveling leads.

•Implement decision logs and ADR workflow
•Lead two critical launches or migrations
•Close at least one senior hire or contractor

Days 61-90

Hand off durable leadership systems and scale the bench.

•Codify 12-week roadmap with measurable KPIs
•Document onboarding runbooks for engineers
•Prepare full diligence packet for the next raise

Proof it works

Rupa Health: Surviving a 300% traffic surge pre-acquisition

We stepped in as fractional CTO to stabilize infra, add observability, and lead hiring as Rupa Health sprinted from Seed to Series A and prepared for the Fullscript acquisition.

300%+

Traffic absorbed

$100K → $5M

ARR scale

<0.5s TTFB

Core web vitals

4 → 15 engineers

Team growth

Read the full case study →

“Aravind is in the top 1% of engineers and technical leaders I’ve hired. He kept us shipping through crazy growth.”

Tara Viswanathan

Co-founder & CEO, Rupa Health

Founder questions, answered

How many hours per week do you engage?

Most fractional CTO engagements run 15–25 hours per week. We design the cadence around board meetings, launches, and hiring seasons. Need more execution coverage? We pair in senior ICs from the HyperNest bench.

Can you work with our existing engineering leads?

Yes. We often coach emerging engineering managers or tech leads, giving them decision frameworks, review templates, and hiring support while we retain executive accountability.

Do you help with fundraising and diligence?

We prepare technical sections for data rooms, join investor calls, and translate product velocity into business metrics. Recent rounds we supported ranged from $2M seed extensions to $25M Series B raises.

What time zones do you cover?

We maintain heavy overlap with US mornings and India afternoons, enabling real-time collaboration with both sides of distributed teams.

Ready to plug elite engineers into your roadmap?

We’ll audit your architecture, map out an engagement, and plug in team members within days.

Book a fractional CTO consult