How Drive Capital built a talent advantage for 150+ portfolio companies

A leading venture capital firm unified talent intelligence and network-driven hiring to find the right candidates faster, creating a competitive advantage for every portfolio company.

Drive Capital is a venture capital firm investing in high-growth startups across the Midwest and beyond. With more than 150 portfolio companies and multiple IPOs, the firm's success depends not just on capital, but on helping founders build strong teams.

That's why Drive Capital built something most VCs don't have: a dedicated, in-house talent function that operates as a strategic recruiting partner across the portfolio.

To scale that model, Drive Capital relies on Findem.

With Findem — and Getro as part of the platform — Drive Capital has a unified approach to finding, engaging, and keeping talent connected across the portfolio. The result is faster hiring, stronger pipelines, and a competitive advantage for every founder Drive Capital backs.

“Findem is the most modern way to source. Once I define what I need, every candidate I see is high quality.” -  Maria Moore, Talent Acquisition Manager, Drive Capital

The challenge:

Finding the right candidates was too manual and slow for startup urgency

Drive Capital's talent team supports founders from pre-seed to growth on their most critical hires — positions like Founding Software Engineer or Head of GTM that can't be filled with a keyword search.

They're looking for candidates who have built products from zero to one, scaled through specific funding stages, bring niche technical or domain expertise, and can operate in high-velocity startup environments. Identifying who actually fits that profile is a different task than finding people who look like they might.

The team was delivering. But the approach wasn't built to scale. Every search required manually stitching together company lists, scanning hundreds of profiles, and inferring relevant experience from incomplete signals. Outreach ran through LinkedIn and manual follow-ups with no visibility into whether a candidate was already somewhere in their network. 

Across 150-plus portfolio companies, keeping warm candidates connected to the right opportunities was its own ongoing effort.

The work was getting done, but too much recruiter time was going to sourcing instead of advising founders. This created a ceiling on how fast and broadly the team could operate.

"It was all manual. I was digging through profiles, trying to piece together the story myself — and it just wasn't scalable." - Maria Moore, Talent Acquisition Manager, Drive Capital

The solution:

Precision sourcing, scalable outreach, and portfolio-wide talent networks on one platform

Drive Capital chose Findem to bring more signal and precision to every search.

Precision sourcing with talent intelligence

Findem Sourcing lets the team define candidate profiles around the signals that actually predict fit — not just titles or keywords.

For a Director of Product Design, the requirement was growth-stage startup experience — specifically candidates who had joined a company at Series B, C, or D — combined with demonstrated B2C product background. Findem's filters let the team isolate that combination directly, surfacing candidates who matched the actual profile rather than ones who simply held the right title.

For a Director of Marketing Strategy, the role demanded deep domain experience in specific industries. The team used Findem's pre-built company lists for robotics and logistics/supply chain, layered with startup experience filters, to narrow the field to candidates with the right industry grounding and the right operating context.

What once required hours of manual research, from building company lists to scanning profiles, now happens in seconds.

“Everything I used to do manually, Findem does in seconds. It finds exactly the kind of candidates I’m looking for.” -  Maria Moore

Scalable, high-performing outreach

With Findem Campaigns, Drive Capital runs personalized outreach sequences at scale. Response rates outperform LinkedIn, and the team reaches candidates in a way that actually gets responses.

“Email just works better than sending messages via LinkedIn. With Findem, we can reach candidates in a way that actually gets responses.” -  Maria Moore

Extending impact with talent networks

Drive Capital has a centralized job board and talent network spanning its entire portfolio. Recruiters can surface all relevant roles across 100-plus companies, keep silver medalists warm, and turn networking conversations into future hiring opportunities.

“If a candidate isn’t right for one role, I can immediately show them every opportunity across the portfolio. That’s incredibly powerful.” - Maria Moore

The result:

Faster hiring, stronger pipelines, and a recruiting model that scales

With Findem, Drive Capital shifted from manual sourcing workflows to a signal-driven approach, one that lets recruiters spend more time advising founders and less time triaging profiles.

Key results

• 100% of 2025 hires responded through Findem campaigns
  Every successful hire engaged via Findem-powered outreach
• 50% of hires sourced directly through Findem
  Even during a transition year, Findem became a primary hiring channel
• 50% reduction in LinkedIn Recruiter seats
  Findem is now the primary sourcing platform; LinkedIn is secondary
• 11,000+ job board views in 3 months via Getro
  Expanding visibility across the entire portfolio
• 30,000+ annual views across portfolio opportunities
  Strengthening Drive Capital’s brand with candidates at scale

Looking ahead: A talent function that keeps getting sharper

Venture capital is competitive, and the firms that win deals increasingly do it by offering founders something beyond capital. Drive Capital's ability to help portfolio companies hire faster and better has become a meaningful part of what it brings to the table.

By combining deep portfolio context, a dedicated talent team, and Findem's unified sourcing and network capabilities, Drive Capital can deliver something most VCs can't match: a signal-driven approach to building teams across an entire portfolio, at scale.

“Findem helps us find the right people faster. Getro helps us keep them connected. Together, it changes how we hire.”

- Maria Moore