About Stakewell
We built the firm we
wished existed.
Stakewell was founded on a simple observation: the best technical talent is expensive to hire, slow to find, and has no incentive to care whether your company succeeds. And the AI infrastructure that makes modern businesses run is out of reach for most early-stage founders. We set out to fix both.
Why We Exist
Most founders and CEOs face the same impossible choice: hire locally and spend $500K a year before shipping a single feature, use an agency that invoices the same whether you succeed or fail, or spend 18 months hunting for a technical co-founder who may never materialise. And on top of all of that, figure out how to build and maintain AI infrastructure that actually moves the business forward.
We built Stakewell to be a fourth option. A fully managed engineering team and fully managed AI agents at Indian market cost, with equity alignment that makes our incentives structurally identical to yours across both.
We don't bill hours. We hold equity. That changes everything about how we show up.
What We Stand For
Principles we don't negotiate on.
Skin in the game
We hold equity with a 4-year vest and a 1-year cliff across every service we deliver. Engineering and AI both. If you don't succeed, neither do we. That's the whole model.
Radical transparency
Weekly written updates. No hiding behind status calls. You always know exactly what was built, what's next, and where blockers exist.
Quality over volume
We deliberately limit how many partners we take on. Every company we work with gets the same focused attention. We'd rather do fewer things exceptionally well.
Long-term thinking
We're not optimising for the invoice. We're optimising for your exit. Every technical decision is made with that in mind.
AI as infrastructure, not a feature
We don't bolt AI onto the side of your business. We treat it as the operating layer that runs sales, marketing, operations, and customer success while your team focuses on what only humans can do.
Where We Operate
Global by design.
Our structure lets us combine North American client relationships with world-class engineering talent at a fraction of the cost.
Toronto
Client Relations & Strategy
Where founders come first. Our client-facing team is based here, close to the North American startup ecosystem.
Ahmedabad & Delhi
Engineering Hubs
Our vetted engineering teams operate across two hubs in India, giving us access to top-tier talent at a fraction of Western rates.
Want to work together?
We review every application personally and only take on partners we genuinely believe in.