For prospective investors and partners

Investors

We are deliberately keeping the cap table tight while we get the unit economics right. If you have built or run engineering hiring at scale, run a marketplace business, or have an unfair angle in this space, we are open to a conversation. Email investors@cadence.work.

What we are building

Cadence is the booking layer for AI-native engineering. The traditional hiring loop is 23 days and roughly $4,700 in cost before an engineer ships their first PR. Cadence compresses that to a two-minute booking with a 48-hour free trial. Founders pay weekly, engineers receive 80% of the gross, and partners earn 10% on referred founders, recurring.

We are not a recruiter, we are not a marketplace bid-and-ask, and we are not a staffing firm. We are software that runs the booking, the trial, the weekly billing, and the engineer ratings end to end.

Why this market, why now

  • The hiring loop is structurally broken. 23 days, $4,700 in process cost, and roughly 40% of new hires churn within a year. That math is no longer tolerable for venture-backed startups.
  • AI changed what an engineer is. The 2026 AI-native engineer ships meaningfully more per week than a 2022 engineer. Vetting needs to grade the new shape of the job, not the old one.
  • Bursty work is most early-stage work. Most companies under Series B do not need permanent headcount for the next four weeks of work. They need a booking.

Stage and funding

Seed-stage. Backed by a small group of operator-investors including former engineering leaders at venture-backed startups, founders who have run hiring at scale, and one strategic angel from the marketplace world. We have not done a priced round beyond seed and we are not actively raising. Specific terms are not public.

What we share, what we do not

We share these in a first conversation, on background:

  • Booking volume by tier and stack, week over week.
  • Engineer pool size, vetting funnel, voice interview pass rate.
  • Trial-to-active conversion rate and replacement rate.
  • Engineer churn, founder churn, and the levers that move both.
  • Partner program economics and tier mix.

We do not share specific customer names without their consent, and we do not share specific revenue, headcount, or valuation numbers in writing before a real conversation.

How we think about capital

We are running this like a marketplace, not a software-first SaaS company. That means we will index harder on liquidity (matches per week), on engineer earnings, and on founder retention than on raw GMV. We will raise more capital when the unit economics support a step up in supply or geography, not before.

Existing investors and references

Available on request. Email investors@cadence.work and we will introduce you to two existing investors and two reference customers (one founder, one engineer).

If you are an LP

We are not a venture fund. We do not take LP capital directly. If you are interested in this category, the firms on our cap table will know which other companies in this space are worth tracking.

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Contact

investors@cadence.work · we reply within one business day.