Revelo Co-Founder Lucas Mendes, talks about its position as the largest platform for sourcing, hiring and managing remote tech talent from Latin American for US companies and new acquisition of Listopro, Mexico's largest tech talent marketplace.

VMblog:  To kick things off, please give VMblog readers a quick overview of Revelo.

Lucas Mendes:  Revelo is the largest platform for sourcing, hiring and managing Latin America-based remote developers and other tech talent in US time zones. We have a network of 300,000 high quality, pre-vetted talent with fluent English, ready to work remotely in US time zones. Revelo not only helps source and hire remote developers, but also manages payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance so that clients have an end-to-end solution for hiring remotely without hassles. We have seen tremendous demand for remote tech talent over the last few years. We've grown 5.5X in Annual Recurring Revenue within the last one year and almost 2X just within the first 5 months of 2022.

VMblog:  What is your primary message for the tech industry in the US right now?

Mendes:  As remote work has become more the norm, particularly among engineering and tech teams, companies now have access to a much larger talent pool - one that's not constrained by geographical boundaries. At the same time, talent shortage has become increasingly severe in the US. For US companies to be able to thrive, it's imperative that they look beyond geographical boundaries for hiring remote talent. Platforms such as Revelo, specializing in making remote hiring seamless, are an important solution that makes this possible. Especially in the current economic landscape, companies actively need to think about their talent acquisition strategy to help them achieve business outcomes most effectively.

VMblog:  What market needs or problems are you taking on as a company, and how do you solve them?

Mendes:  We are addressing one of the most challenging problems companies are facing today in the United States - a shortage of tech talent. The competition for talent is simply going to intensify with the continued rapid pace of innovation from Web 3.0 to metaverse and beyond.

Revelo has taken a tech-first approach to solving this. Since the company's founding in 2015, we've been laser-focused on building the largest network of pre-vetted, high quality developers in US time zones. During that time, we've processed and ranked over 1.3 million resumes and profiles, and placed over 7000 engineers across 3 continents. Having vetted and placed candidates at such a scale, we have gotten exceptionally accurate at finding the perfect matching candidates for positions that our clients are looking to hire for. The second aspect of the solution is the management of the talent itself. It's not easy for a company to set up the infrastructure and processes required to manage teams across multiple countries. To take the hassle out of hiring remotely from other countries, we've built an end-to-end solution where Revelo handles payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance, so our clients can simply focus on getting the best talent available.

VMblog:  Tell our readers about Listopro, the company you're acquiring. What do they bring to the table for Revelo and ultimately for your clients? 

Mendes:  Listopro is the largest platform for hiring tech talent from Mexico. This acquisition adds 50,000 pre-vetted developers to Revelo's already huge network of 250,000, making it 300,000 strong. Revelo's existing network consists of talent from 13 Latin American countries, with a heavy presence in Brazil. With the addition of this massive network in Mexico, Latin America's second largest economy behind Brazil, we are now the undisputed leader in Latin American tech talent. It's important to note that setting up local talent networks in different countries is not easy. Owning the largest tech talent networks in the largest economies of Latin America gives us a competitive advantage that is extremely hard to replicate by a new entrant or an established company operating out of a different region. For our clients, a larger network offers better matching candidates and hence, faster hires.

VMblog:  What are some top challenges and priorities for recruiting developers and other top tech talent in the US?

Mendes:  Talent shortage and the consequent competition is the biggest challenge for recruiting developers and tech talent in the US. This has been further exacerbated by the Great Resignation. Based on research we conducted in April-May 2022, the biggest challenge that tech teams stated as a barrier to hiring tech talent was availability, ahead of affordability.

VMblog:  In what ways do you believe Revelo holds a viable solution to these challenges?

Mendes:  Tech teams, today, need access to high quality talent that speaks fluent English and can work in US time zones. From our research, over half the respondents were somewhat or very open to hiring remotely outside the US. Add to that the ease of managing payroll, benefits and compliance, and you have the perfect solution from Revelo to address the tech talent needs of US companies.

VMblog:  Why are you making this acquisition, especially now when signs seem to indicate continuing cuts and downsizing in the tech sector for the foreseeable future?

Mendes:  There is no question that the tech industry has been going through some tough times over the last few months, which is likely to continue for some time. However, we've seen tremendous growth despite these market conditions. Revelo has grown almost 2X in Annual Recurring Revenue within the first 5 months of 2022. This acquisition helps us keep up with the demand we've been seeing. In the long run, we believe that whichever company owns the largest talent network will emerge as a leader in this space. With Listopro's acquisition, we are solidifying our leadership in tech talent in US time zones.

VMblog:  What are your plans to leverage the acquisition of Listopro?

Mendes:  With Listopro's large network of tech talent in Mexico, we now have a much stronger presence across all time zones of the US. It enables our platform to find better matching candidates for roles from across the US. Better matches lead to faster hires and happier customers.

VMblog:  What trends is Revelo seeing this year that we, as an industry, should be aware of the rest of the year? 

Mendes:  The most prominent trend we are all seeing is the turmoil in the tech industry and tightening of capital markets. I think this will affect different companies differently. While some may not survive, others will get to sustainable growth and cashflow positive sooner than they were planning to, which will make them stronger in the long term. Based on research we conducted as recently as May 2022 and the demand we are experiencing despite the recent downturn, we see the trend for hiring remotely continuing. With companies reevaluating strategies and expenses, we will see more companies building proactive talent strategies alongside tech and product strategies. What a company needs most during trying times is great talent.

VMblog:  What are Revelo's plans for the future as a company?

Mendes:  Our vision is to become synonymous with remote hiring of tech talent in US time zones. The size of our talent network and the technology we've built around it to deliver the talent and a seamless experience, end-to-end, position us to achieve this. We are constantly striving to eliminate barriers and build solutions to make the process of hiring remotely from Latin America as easy as possible.

VMblog:  There's some serious competition in this space, what makes you confident you'll be able to prevail?

Mendes:  We firmly believe that the companies with the largest talent networks will emerge as leaders in this space. We've got that covered. Also important is our focus on time zone alignment with the US. There isn't another player in the space that has as strong a presence in Latin America as we do. Couple this with our focus on exceptional client experience and driving client outcomes, we're confident we'll  emerge as the long term leader in remote hiring.

VMblog:  Finally, what does your innovation roadmap look like?

Mendes:  Our innovation roadmap is strongly aligned with the entire process of sourcing, hiring and managing remote tech talent. Today, companies that engage with Revelo are able to see a shortlist of matching candidates within 3 days and the majority hire within 3 weeks. That's incredibly fast by any standards. We continue to find innovative solutions to make this process even faster and better. On the other side of the network, we are working on providing the talent an exceptional experience working for a Revelo customer. This includes improving benefits and payroll solutions, seamless onboarding, reducing churn, etc. We believe that great code comes from happy engineers and happy engineers come from Revelo. This principle guides our innovation roadmap on the talent side.

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