How Kapor Capital unified people intelligence to scale connections and sourcing

Hilliary Turnipseed runs the platform team at Kapor Capital the way a founder runs a startup. Lean, AI-native, engineered to scale. As Head of Platform at the Oakland-based early-stage impact investment firm, she supports more than 100 portfolio companies across hiring, community, founder programming, and strategic introductions.

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Her recent VC Platform Summit panel on the modern talent tech stack pointed at something funds are starting to recognize: people work is platform work. The platform leader who can hire effectively, map markets, and connect founders with the right operators is a differentiator, not a support function.

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Hilliary's version of that work ran on Getro for four years, hit a ceiling inside LinkedIn Recruiter, and only truly scaled when she turned to Findem to unify the network, external sourcing, and market mapping in one stack.

Warm intros are only a part of the story when there are 1000s of open roles

For four years, Getro has been the critical infrastructure that makes it possible for Hilliary to effectively support 100+ active portfolio companies, serving as the foundation for the firm's job board, talent network, and warm network introductions system. In the past 365 days, that system generated more than 35,000 page views and 730+ applications across portfolio job postings, while giving her a CRM-style view into Kapor Capital's network and where people are in their careers.

“With Findem (previously Getro), we're able to quantify the impact of our network — before that, we were just guessing.”

That capability gave her something most small private capital platform teams do not have: visibility, and proof that the work moves the business.

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The gap was reach. Getro covered Kapor Capital's existing network, but finding candidates outside of it still depended on LinkedIn Recruiter. Over time, that dependency became the constraint.

LinkedIn Recruiter didn’t scale to meet the portfolio’s needs

"LinkedIn Recruiter got more expensive while the data got less reliable. I'd spend hours building the perfect Boolean string, and the profiles it surfaced still were not accurate enough. Findem is easier to use, and I trust the results"

For a one-person platform team responsible for 100+ companies, that tradeoff was untenable. Every hour spent on tool mechanics was an hour not spent acting as a strategic partner to founders. And the cost of LinkedIn Recruiter kept rising while the quality of results moved the other direction.

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The model Hilliary had built was starting to break at exactly the point that should have made it stronger.

Platform support accelerates with a unified view of network and everyone outside it

When the unified Findem and Getro offering launched for VC platform teams, it closed the gap Getro alone could not.

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Findem for Funds gave Hilliary external candidate data at scale across more than 800 million expert-labeled profiles, sourcing projects she could run for founders in 30 seconds instead of hours, rich profile context beyond what LinkedIn surfaces, and market mapping she could bring directly into founder conversations.

"The moment I got access to Findem’s unified platform for funds, I canceled my LinkedIn Recruiter subscription. The thought of going back to LinkedIn, or going back to a Google Form feeding into Airtable as a talent network feels like moving backward.”

Hilliary outlined a concrete example: a founder called asking for help finding a traveling nurse recruiter with previous clinical nursing experience. Hilliary didn't have anyone in her network who matched that specific intersection. Findem had just been rolled out, so she ran the search live on the call. By the time the conversation wrapped, the platform had surfaced candidates she says LinkedIn Recruiter never would have turned up.

"Building a shortlist for a niche role in real time, on a single call, is what allows me to be a strategic talent partner... Finding candidate profiles with rich data in Findem - that you can’t find anywhere else - is a game changer.”

In 2025, Hilliary placed 17 strategic hires across the Kapor Capital portfolio. By May 2026, only five months in, she was already at nearly 10, demonstrating 45% growth in hires since implementing unified people intelligence.

From reactive support to proactive partnership

The biggest shift is the change in approach and partnership with the portfolio. 

With Findem Studio connected to Claude through MCP, the sourcing loop changed shape. Hilliary can pull a list of the top 20 profiles for any niche role inside the LLM she already uses every day, without ever leaving her workflow.

"Having Findem inside the LLM I use daily changed how I think about my job. I can pull the top 20 profiles for any niche, on a live call. The time it saves is hard to even put a number on."

Rather than responding to founder requests as they come in, Hilliary is anticipating needs and acting early. That proactive approach to platform is part of how Kapor Capital wins term sheets in a competitive private capital market.

"I can bring rich profile data and market mapping into a founder conversation, on the spot. That changes the kind of partner I get to be thanks to Findem. While Claude-alone can do a lot for me, without Findem, it would make it really hard to position myself as that strategic talent partner.”

The stack works because everything connects. Talent network, external candidate data across 800+ million expert-labeled profiles, sourcing, market intelligence, and research tools inside her preferred LLM all feed into one system. It's a single source of truth for the people work that runs through Kapor Capital.

"All the data in Findem is connected. The more we can do in one platform, the more I can act as a thought partner, the more time and money I save for myself and my portfolio companies.”

For Kapor Capital, unified people intelligence is the infrastructure that powers Hilliary's approach to scaling portfolio support and reinforces the firm's reputation as a trusted partner to founders.