Case study
Aspora – Building their first UK based Tech team
Aspora is a London-based FinTech startup that provides financial services for the Indian diaspora, previously known as Vance. The company offers a digital platform for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to send money, invest, and manage banking needs across borders, with a focus on connecting them to India. Aspora is building a cross-border financial system with plans to expand into the US, Canada, Australia, and Singapore, in addition to its existing presence in the UK, UAE, and EU.
Having raised a large Series A, they needed to rapidly scale their tech team by over 70. Due to our success with them as an Agency, and because we therefore knew their business well, they used our Embedded Talent Solution to deliver on their growth ambitions
Length of engagement
9 Months
Size of company
10 – 50 Staff
Number of hires
7
Money saved vs agency
£25,000+
Countried sourced from
5
NPS Score
98%
The challenge
Aspora had recently relocated their HQ to London after building their founding team in India; after receiving significant investment at Series B from Hummingbird Ventures & Sequoia, they wanted to build a lean, high-performant Engineering hub within their London offices to work alongside their India based team. As the first recruitment partner they had worked with they needed support on establishing processes, assessing and improving interview stages, and a full source & screen solution that could manage the end-to-end recruitment cycle.
As this team were going to be the second round of Founding Engineers, the list of technical requirements was exhaustive and required a highly targeted search criteria as well as an in-depth screening interview to ensure only the most relevant and qualified candidates were entered into the process.
The roles were across Senior Backend Engineers (Java) and Senior Mobile Engineers (iOS and Android)
Java Engineering
Android Engineering (Kotlin)
iOS Engineering (Swift)
The solution:
Our embedded consultant took ownership for all tech hiring. This meant:
- Direct sourcing of candidates from across Europe, identifying talent that was ready to relocate to the UK offices
- Implementation of a stage 1 screening that ensured candidate’s met the technical requirements, as well as had the passion and ability to join a business at an early stage of their high-growth journey
- Owning the full end-end recruitment process, from conducting initial interviews, managing the interview process, to offer stage
The result:
Delivered all Engineering hires for this new team, allowing Aspora to 2X their Engineering output and delivery new products and features to their customers significantly faster
- Provided 9 hires across all tech functions, originating from 5 different countries
- Consulted with the team and HR Director to improve their interview process, including the introduction of a detailed scoring system to better evaluate candidate performance, and ensure detailed feedback to vastly improve candidate experience
- Supported on candidate relocation, as well as ensuring Aspora were positioned as a company of choice among candidate that were consider multiple opportunities in a competitive hiring landscape
“We got introduced to Venture Up on the recommendation of one of our key investors, Sequoia. Choosing to work with them was a no-brainer. Jake and Kevin were smart, intentional, genuine and most importantly – they were people we could trust to help us build our first engineering hub in London. From day one, the team stood out—not just for their capability, but for their genuine alignment with our mission.
Jake’s deep connection with India and enthusiasm for our product immediately resonated with us, while Kevin’s technical depth gave us confidence we were in good hands.
We decided to work with their RPO as we needed full time project support and a partner that could own the entire recruitment process end-end and also provide us with market intelligence and insight.
Despite our requirements being tough, they delivered a steady stream of high-calibre candidates from across Europe, drawing talent from some of the region’s top tech companies. Behind the scenes, the team screened thousands of LinkedIn profiles and conducted hundreds of interviews to ensure only the strongest profiles made it through to us.
What impressed us most was their willingness to go beyond sourcing. They sat in on interviews, provided detailed feedback, and helped us refine our interview process to make it more robust, structured, and appealing to top-tier candidates. They were helping us build a team in the truest essence.
Their contribution has been instrumental in helping us establish a world-class engineering presence in the UK, and we’re excited to continue the partnership as we scale.”
– HR Director, Vance
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We’ve worked with dozens of clients on a range of requirements, delivering bespoke hiring solutions across agency (permanent and contract), retained and RPO. Get in touch with us to discuss your needs, and how we can mould our services to meet your hiring objectives