Engineering Transition Partner  ·  Fractional CTO  ·  Platform Scale

We Help Companies Outgrow
Startup Engineering

When growth makes your software mission-critical, the problem is no longer just code. We help companies professionalize their engineering leadership, modernize their platforms, and build the systems and teams needed for the next stage of scale.

Trusted by

LaunchGood Patronicity EarthHero Lyrics2Learn ClearHealth
$873M
Raised on LaunchGood — all on our platform architecture
30+
Years of engineering leadership across domains
12+
Years with LaunchGood — from early startup to global platform
5
Industries: crowdfunding, fintech, healthcare, edtech, e-commerce

Signs You're in the Transition

Most of our engagements start with one of these.

Growth has exposed architectural weaknesses that weren't visible at smaller scale.
Investors or acquirers are asking harder technical questions than the team can answer confidently.
The founder is still acting as the de facto CTO, and it's becoming a bottleneck.
AWS, payments, data, or operations have become business-critical with no clear ownership.
Deployments feel risky. The team is cautious in ways that slow everything down.
You need senior technical leadership before you are ready — or able — to hire it full-time.
Engineering has slowed under the weight of accumulated technical debt.
The platform works, but nobody is confident it will hold up at the next level of scale.

We Fix the Transition,
Not Just the Ticket Queue.

We embed as senior technical leadership to stabilize platforms, clarify priorities, guide teams, and leave behind stronger engineering organizations.

Founder-Led Engineering Has Hit Its Limit

Fractional CTO and senior architecture leadership for companies that need executive-level technical direction before they are ready for a full-time hire.

Your Platform Needs to Scale

Architecture modernization, cloud infrastructure, deployment systems, observability, and technical strategy for platforms that have become revenue-critical.

Your Engineering Team Needs Operating Rhythm

Team structure, hiring support, mentoring, delivery process, incident response, and engineering management practices that help teams ship reliably.

You Need Technical Confidence Before a Deal

Technical due diligence for investors, acquirers, and leadership teams: architecture, codebase, security, team capability, operational risk, and hidden liabilities.

See How We Work

Long-Term Partnerships,
Not One-Off Projects

We stay through the scaling pressures, the architectural crossroads, and the leadership transitions — until the organization is ready to stand on its own.

Crowdfunding & Fintech

LaunchGood

Over 12+ years, we helped LaunchGood grow from an early-stage startup into a global crowdfunding platform serving communities in 100+ countries. $873M raised on systems we built. As LaunchGood continues bringing engineering in house, that transition is exactly what a successful technical partnership should make possible.

Civic Technology

Patronicity

Patronicity's platform connected local governments and nonprofits to community crowdfunding. We served as lead architect through platform modernization, search, analytics, and deployment systems — keeping the platform reliable while the business scaled.

Sustainable E-Commerce

EarthHero

A mission-driven sustainable commerce marketplace needed its architecture, payment systems, and cloud infrastructure to keep pace with catalog and customer growth. We led that work — keeping operations stable while the business expanded.

See All Our Work

We're not a dev shop.
We're your technical leadership team.

Martell Ventures was founded by Ryan Martell, a 30-year engineering veteran who has designed and led platforms through exactly the kind of scaling crises and leadership transitions that define this stage of growth. Alongside business strategist Bob Weins, we bring the technical depth and business clarity that helps organizations navigate from startup engineering to operational maturity.

Our clients don't hire us to write code. They hire us because consequential technical decisions are being made without a senior technical voice at the table — and they cannot afford to get those decisions wrong.

The best consulting relationships do not create dependency. They create capability.

Meet the team →
Duke
CS + Electrical Engineering — Ryan Martell
Bungie
Marathon & Myth: The Fallen Lords
U of M
Law & BBA — Bob Weins
30+
Years of combined technology and business leadership

Is your engineering stuck in startup mode?

The transition to mature, scalable engineering is predictable — and manageable with the right leadership. Let's talk about where you are.

Talk Through Your Engineering Transition