Revelo, a full-stack platform specializing in vetted developers from Latin America, continues to thrive as it connects U.S. enterprises with in-demand tech talent. Founded in late 2014 by Lucas Mendes and Lachlan de Crespigny, Revelo boasts a network of over 400,000 developers, making it a significant player in the recruitment landscape. The platform simplifies the hiring and payment process, which is attractive to a growing number of U.S. companies looking for skilled labor.
In recent years, Revelo has expanded quickly. They’ve raised $48M+ in venture capital funding from notable firms of Social Capital, FJ Labs and Valor Capital Group. This level of financial support has allowed the company to purchase five competitors on the Latin American talent stage. Significant acquisitions Alto and Paretisa, success made possible in the past two and a half years. Revelo’s client roster features major companies like Intuit, Oracle, and Dell, as well as nearly every major hyperscale AI provider.
Mendes wants to focus beyond the major strategic advantages of Revelo’s offerings. With respect to U.S. companies, developers in Latin America are often more convenient still for logistical and operational issues—most notably, on time zones. That makes hiring through their platform even more attractive. “So what would happen usually is that they would hire one or two and really like the quality and especially the quality cost tradeoff and say, ‘Hey, I want more of these, where do I find them?’ he stated.
The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a powerful accelerator, supercharging the expansion of Revelo’s future scope. Even as many companies moved to remote work during this time, the demand for skilled developers increased. While the world has slowly started drifting back to the office, Revelo has continued riding the wave of its impressive growth. Mendes thinks that U.S. companies are fueling the persistent demand due to the “nearshoring” model. She says this model fosters collaboration, because it removes the challenges of large time zone gaps.
The AI landscape is changing dramatically every day. Revelo—which matches companies with engineers trained in using and maintaining large language models (LLMs)—is seeing a boom in demand for this kind of talent. “Coding is one of those tasks. Producing foundational models Last year, we saw a dramatic increase in demand from the companies building these foundational models. So, coincidence or not, they are currently looking for engineers that can act as good subject matter experts and feed the human data they’ll need to improve their LLM coding. In fact, LLM training-related talent hiring made up 22% of Revelo’s revenue as of Q1 2024.
Mendes hopes to see Revelo’s impact grow personally and where it matters most—inside the tech community. He noted that they are laying down a new spine of global talent for the AI centuries. He indicated that this would not be the last acquisition, forecasting further consolidation. Revelo is already preparing to meet the changing needs of the tech industry. It has plenty of competition from companies such as Terminal, Tecla and Near—all three of which link U.S. companies with Latin American programmers.
