It’s no secret folks, The D.C. Metro area continues to build a reputation as a hotbed for innovative startups. This innovation and growth could not be possible without the presence of strong venture activity over the last couple of years. In a recent report from Pitchbook (source: National Venture Capital Association), the Washington metropolitan statistical area is well on track to raise more than $1 billion in venture funding this year, with $897.5 million raised in the first three quarters. In 3Q 2016, the DC Metro area ranked 8th in the country on deal count alone.
“VC Deal Count per major metropolitan area in the United States, Q3 2016
(source: Pitchbook/National Venture Capital Association),”
With the increase in startups comes the need for more engineering talent. This classic scenario of supply and demand has created the tightest start-up job market in recent history, and companies across DC, Maryland & Virginia are looking to Founders, Board Members & VC backers for support. Silicon Valley has already seen this scenario play out, and as a result a handful of venture firms, including some of the larger VC’s in the country are now stepping up to help by hiring full-time tech recruiters at their firms (source: The Wall Street Journal). While this can be a temporary solution, a more effective long-term strategy in identifying top talent that seems to fit well among many venture firms is engaging directly with specialized recruiting firms, like hatch IT.
The team at hatch has recognized that the current state of recruiting is not designed to satisfy the needs of growing startups. In an ecosystem saturated with high-cost staffing firms, hatch has designed an alternative specialized recruiting solution (RPO-4-Startups) that has already been adopted by a few DC based tech startups. As a result, these companies have realized 30%-40% cost savings vs. standard staffing rates, and a reduction in their time to fill urgent engineering openings, amongst a number of other benefits. It’s now our mission to get the word out to the VC community and to offer you an alternative solution you can recommend in your next board meeting when staffing comes up. If you have interest in learning more about how our RPO-4-Startups model could work for you, fill out the request form below to receive our detailed hatch RPO4Startup capabilities deck. We’d love to be a resource for your firm & portfolio companies going into 2017!