Founder Oxygen


Hiring is hard - but it shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t be this risky. And it shouldn’t be this speculative.

When you get hiring right it feels like breathing pure oxygen

In 2025 we rebranded from Kandidate to Sherpa. Over the last 8 years the team has worked with 200 venture-backed companies.  The world’s leading VC’s and their portfolio companies trust us to help them with their no.1 challenge - finding the right talent. 

By deeply engaging with founders and meticulously vetting candidates through a proven process, we transform guesswork into expert guidance. This is the Sherpa Method

  • It’s both really - intuition and trusting your gut is important. Combining this with a well thought out hiring plan and interview process is the key to avoiding mis hires. We refine your talent acquisition strategy, establishing a clear and productive pathway that gets you optimal hiring results.

  • Building a talent acquisition process that gets results involves three parts
    a) Deep research using advanced sourcing methods (many of the best engineers don’t use linkedin)
    b) Designing a thorough interview process - scripted questions and references
    c) Attracting and closing high quality talent with attractive offers

  • The biggest challenge for scaling start-ups is transformation. The team you need at Series B is not the same as Series A. The average tenure of senior hires is 11-13 months at VC backed startups so the hiring needs are always evolving

Case-studies

  • Macrocosmos

    Macrocosmos - we built the 12 person engineering team in 12 weeks

    Macrocosmos (London, UK) leverages decentralized networks and incentive mechanisms to optimize machine learning through the Bittensor protocol, driving collaboration and AI performance on a global scale.

    The Sherpa team helped Macrocosmos grow their team from 4 people to 25 in 3 months and saved them £270,000 in recruitment fees

  • Focaldata

    Focaldata - 6 month Sourcing project

    Focaldata (backed by Redbus Ventures) provides an AI-powered platform for consumer insights, enabling businesses to quickly gather, analyze, and act on data-driven insights to support brand, product, and campaign decisions.

    The Sherpa team supported Focaldata to double their headcount, going from 25 to 50 people in 6 months.

  • Decoded

    Decoded - 125 Hires

    Decoded (London, UK / PE backed) is one of the world’s leading EdTech companies, arming organisations with the skills and mindset they need to succeed in a world that's shaped by technology.

    We hired 125 people and Decoded saved £425,000 in recruitment fees.

Learn more

  • Sherpa worked with 10 of our portfolio companies at Partech Partners VC and had an immediate impact hiring a CFO for series B SaaS Company

    - Keji Mustapha, Head of Talent

    Partech Partners

  • Hiring the best AI talent is competitive and challenging but the Sherpa team have a great process that gets results

    - Will Squires, CEO

    Macrocosmos

  • Paul from Sherpa integrated seamlessly into our recruiting team as our Talent Acquisition function was maturing. He gladly and effectively entered a new market for us, Asia- Pacific, and helped us make hires across Sales, Customer Success, and Product. He was a trusted resource for hiring managers and the People team here at Chainalysis.

    - Hannah Spellmeyer, Global Talent Acquisition Manager

    Chainalysis

  • The Sherpa team worked with us onsite for 18 months and helped us fill over 100 roles. The combination of their Talent Partners, their research team and platform really got us results

    - Kathryn Parsons, CEO

    Decoded

  • Sherpa has done a great job sourcing high quality candidates. They've been instrumental not only finding them, but also helping to close them. This is a key when hiring high quality talent.

    - Sten Saar, Co-Founder & CEO

    Zego