For funded US founders · Seed to Series B
A senior product & engineering partner who plugs in this week — and brings a team when you're ready to scale.
Fractional CTO-grade work, month-to-month. You own the code. You own the hiring plan. We walk out when you hire full-time.
Run by Piyush Pathak · 14+ years · 100+ brands shipped
Work from the team behind
What's blocking you right now
Roadmap ahead of headcount
Your first VP of Engineering is a 4–6 month search. Your roadmap needs someone this week. A senior operator bridges the gap — architecture, hiring filter, hands-on code if it's needed.
Agency burnout
Agencies sell hours and hide juniors behind senior titles. You got shipped features that won't scale, a stack no one on your team understands, and a bill that keeps coming. We don't work that way.
Technical co-founder gap
Technical co-founder left, stayed too junior, or never existed. You need someone who can talk to investors about the stack, recruit senior engineers, and make architecture calls — today, not after a 6-month exec search.
How we work
Most funded founders don't need an agency on day one. They need one senior operator who can own it — and a team that turns on when the revenue warrants it.
Phase 1 — Week 1 to 4
Fractional, 2–3 days a week
Most engagements stay here for 2–3 months before scaling.
Phase 2 — Month 2 onwards
When you're ready, not before
Week one
No "discovery phase." No two-month onboarding. The first week is the week we earn the engagement.
01
Two-day deep dive on your current stack, architecture, team, and tooling. What's load-bearing, what's fragile, what's about to break.
Output
A written assessment you can share with investors — honest, not a sales doc.
02
A roadmap tied to your next real milestone — Series A close, revenue target, pivot proof — not a generic Kanban. We cut what doesn't ship it.
Output
Sequenced plan with weekly milestones and a named owner per track.
03
Which roles to hire now, which to delay, which to fold into the pod. Written specs for the hires you should run. No empire-building.
Output
A hiring plan that saves you 3–6 months of bad interviews.
Selected work
Three chapters, one through-line: build, scale, ship. Roughly the order they happened.
2017 — 2020
Notation Software
Founder
A services studio shipping commerce builds — Shopify, custom storefronts, mobile apps — for early founders across India and the UAE. The playbook for everything that came next.
70+ brands shipped
2020 — 2023
CommerceUp
Founder · Acquihired by Aspire
Turned the services book into a SaaS platform serving 100+ brands across US, UAE, and India. Built product, engineering, enterprise sales, and infra from zero. Acquihired in 2023.
100+ brands · 3 geos
2023 — 2025
Aspire
Head of Product & Engineering
Built and ran Aspire's product and engineering org across India and North America. Hired and managed PMs, engineers, and designers. Shipped against enterprise timelines while scaling the org.
PM · Eng · Design — 2 geos
Today
GK Tech Ventures + Convertly
Founder, CEO, CTO
Running GK Tech Ventures and building Convertly. Bringing the full playbook — building teams, shipping product, winning customers — to funded founders, CXOs, and operators.
In flight
Who you're working with
Founder, GK Tech Ventures
I built and sold two product companies before starting GK Tech Ventures. CommerceUp (acquihired by Aspire, 2023) and Notation Software(2017). I've led product and engineering teams across India and North America, shipped commerce and SaaS for 100+ brands, and hired, fired, and mentored more engineers than I can count.
I do fractional work because funded founders deserve a real operator, not a deck. If we're a fit, I'll tell you on the call. If we're not, I'll tell you who'd be a better fit.
LinkedIn →FAQ
A senior engineering leader who runs your tech org part-time — typically 2–3 days a week — instead of joining as a full-time hire. You get the judgment, team-building, and architecture decisions of a CTO without a $300k salary and a 12-month search. They're not an advisor (who only talks) and not a contractor (who only codes). The right fit for most funded founders in the first 12–18 months.
AI-native across the stack — Claude Code, Cursor, and model APIs are baked into how we plan, build, review, and test. Same senior team, 3–5× the output, meaning fewer people on your engagement and a faster ship cadence. We also advise on where AI fits in your product (and where it doesn't — that part's usually underrated). We don't sell 'AI strategy' as a standalone — it's table stakes for good engineering in 2026.
We cap at 3–5 active engagements at any given time. Not because we can't scale — because we won't. Senior-only, founder-led work requires real attention, and we'd rather say no than spread thin. If we say yes, you get the real thing.
Agencies sell hours and hide juniors behind senior titles. We sell shipped product with a senior-only team, led by a founder who has built, scaled, and exited companies.
Yes — for the right engagements. We offer reduced cash rates in exchange for equity with standard vesting. Alignment beats transactions.
For pre-seed and seed stage, often yes — and usually better than a first-time CTO hire. As you scale past Series A, we help you hire and transition to a full-time leader.
Pre-seed to Series B funded founders, CXOs at established companies scoping a digital build or AI-native rebuild, and bootstrapped operators with real revenue. The common thread: capital to spend, a real thesis, and a willingness to ship in weeks. We don't take ideation-only engagements without capital.
Two weeks from signed agreement to shipping. Often faster.
Both. We have entities registered in the US and India, so we can contract, invoice, and ship from whichever side suits you — US founders get US contracts and USD billing, Indian founders get GST-compliant invoices and INR. The team is global.
Book a call
We'll ask about your roadmap, your hiring plan, and what's actually stuck. If we're a fit, we'll tell you how we'd help. If not, we'll tell you who would.
Loading calendar…
Or email hello@gktechventures.com