humanitechGlobal People Infrastructure
For VC-backed companies · Series A–C · post-fundraise

We set up and run
international employment.

For VC-backed companies: entity or EOR/PEO, payroll, compliance, benefits. In the US, in Europe, in both directions. One team, fixed fees, no vendor commissions.

€150–400k+
hidden costs sitting in a typical
Series A–C employment stack
0%
vendor commissions.
Full neutrality.
30+
jurisdictions our team
has hired and operated in
Humanitech in one minute

What we do, in one minute.

WHO IT'S FOR

VC-backed, Series A to C

50 to 250 people, hiring in 3 to 10 countries, no senior international People team in-house. If that's you, every month without an owner of this problem is money and risk accumulating.

WHAT WE DO

Audit. Design. Operate.

We audit your entire employment setup, design the right architecture country by country (EOR/PEO or entity, which vendors, what comp and equity), then run it for you on an annual retainer.

WHY IT PAYS

Recovered EBITDA, clean diligence

Hidden costs identified (typically €150–400k+ in a first audit, depending on footprint), compliance risk taken off the table, and a stack your next investor's due diligence walks through without a single red flag.

Somewhere between Series A and Series C, every venture-backed company ends up here: 60 people in 8 countries, on 2 EORs/PEOs, 3 payroll providers, contractor agreements someone found online, and an equity plan that doesn't work in Germany. Your board sees the headcount. Nobody sees the hidden costs.
Every seat at the table

For the CEO, the CFO,
and the board.

FOR THE CEO

Hire anywhere. Move fast. No surprises.

The best candidate is in Berlin, the customer wants a team in New York, the board wants both this quarter. We make every country hireable in weeks, with zero of your time spent untangling providers, and no ugly surprise landing on your desk six months later.

FOR THE CFO

One line in the budget. Real money back.

Today your employment stack is eleven invoices nobody reconciles. We turn it into one fixed, forecastable line, recover the hidden costs sitting inside it, and hand you a quarterly review in EBITDA terms. This engagement typically funds itself in year one.

FOR THE BOARD & YOUR VCs

Risk off the table. Diligence-ready.

Misclassified contractors, permanent establishment, broken equity grants: these are the findings that reprice rounds and kill exits. We eliminate them before your next due diligence, and document it. Your investors get a portfolio company that scales globally without scaling risk.

The transatlantic corridor

Both directions. Both legal systems.
We've run them for real.

Most of our clients are crossing the Atlantic, in one direction or the other. The two journeys fail in completely different ways, and almost nobody in-house has done both.

EUROPE → UNITED STATES

The European scale-up landing in the US

You closed your Series A or B, your investors want US revenue, and your first American hires are signing. Then reality: the US is not one market. It's a federal layer plus fifty state regimes, and every remote hire drags you into a new one.

  • Federal & state compliance: payroll tax registrations in every state you employ in, state unemployment insurance, workers' comp, mandatory postings
  • California is its own planet: overtime, meal breaks, non-compete bans, PAGA exposure
  • Benefits that decide offers: healthcare, 401(k), equity taxation for US employees of a foreign parent
  • Entity & structure: C-Corp subsidiary or EOR/PEO first, Delaware flip questions, transfer pricing basics your CFO will be asked about
UNITED STATES → EUROPE

The US company expanding into Europe, often post-private equity

A growth round or a private equity platform play, and suddenly the plan says London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam. American reflexes (at-will employment, one handbook for everyone) break on contact with European law.

  • No at-will here: statutory notice periods, severance formulas, terminations that require cause, process and sometimes court approval
  • Works councils & collective agreements apply automatically in France and Germany, whether you signed anything or not
  • Every country is its own labor code: 13th-month pay, mandatory benefits, local-language contracts, probation rules
  • GDPR & permanent establishment: employee data handling and tax presence questions your PE fund's diligence team will absolutely ask
Build your checklist

Your corridor, your countries,
your compliance checklist.

Pick your direction and where you're hiring. Get the specific list of what has to be in place, item by item.

WHERE ARE YOU HIRING? (SELECT ALL THAT APPLY)

The hidden cost stack

What it costs
when nobody owns it.

Thirty places money leaks out of an international employment setup. Every figure below is a market range we check line by line in the audit.

Provider & platform fees10 ITEMS
Seat fees past entity breakeven. Above 8-15 employees in one country, EOR/PEO seats cost more than running your own entity.€40-100k+/yr/country
FX conversion spreads. Applied to your entire gross payroll on every run, not just the fees. Invisible inside consolidated invoices.1-3% of payroll
Benefits markups. The premium your provider negotiates, plus their cut on top.5-15% of premiums
Security deposits and prefunding. One to two months of total employment cost locked with the provider. That's your working capital.1-2 months locked
Onboarding and offboarding fees. Charged per movement, in both directions.€250-1,000 each
Off-cycle payroll runs. Bonuses, corrections, terminations outside the calendar.€50-250 per run
Contract amendment fees. Salary changes, title changes, hours changes.per amendment
Equipment logistics markups. Laptops shipped through the provider's channel.10-20% markup
Annual fee indexation. The quiet price increase sitting in your renewal terms.3-8%/yr creep
Immigration and visa markups. The provider's margin on top of government and counsel fees.€1,500-5,000/visa
Country cost surprises8 ITEMS
Employer charges misbudgeted. France ~45% on top of gross, Italy and Spain ~30%, Germany ~21%, UK ~15%, US 8-12% plus healthcare. Budgeting US-style for a French hire is a 30-point miss.up to 45% of gross
13th and 14th month pay. Mandatory or standard in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece; common in Germany. Not optional once the collective agreement applies.+8-17% of salary
Mandatory benefits. Mutuelle and prévoyance in France, pension auto-enrolment in the UK and Ireland, 8% statutory holiday allowance in the Netherlands.per country
Sick pay exposure. Up to two years employer-paid in the Netherlands, six weeks at full salary in Germany.up to 24 months
Severance accruals. TFR in Italy accrues ~7.4% of salary every year. French and Spanish statutory indemnities grow with tenure. It sits on your balance sheet whether you booked it or not.~7.4%/yr (IT)
Vacation liabilities. Accrued untaken leave is a debt, revalued at current salary. It surfaces at termination or in diligence.grows silently
Training and apprenticeship levies. France's formation and apprentissage taxes, and their equivalents elsewhere.~1-2% of payroll
Works council mechanics. Election costs and mandatory consultations that add weeks to every reorg past the headcount thresholds.time + process
Compliance & risk exposure7 ITEMS
Contractor misclassification. Back social charges, penalties, benefits arrears. Criminal exposure for directors in France and Germany; in the US, up to 100% of FICA plus state penalties.6-7 figures
Permanent establishment. Local sales or management activity can create a taxable presence: retroactive corporate tax, filings and penalties.retroactive tax
Late registrations. State payroll registrations, URSSAF, social security: penalties and majorations that compound quietly.penalties + interest
Wrongful termination. Prud'hommes awards run 8 to 24 months of salary. US juries are their own lottery.8-24 months salary
Equity misgrants. Options granted without a local sub-plan can be taxed at vest instead of exercise; a missing 409A valuation triggers a 20% penalty tax for US employees.employee-borne, then yours
Employee data (GDPR). Transfers to US systems without a legal mechanism, missing privacy notices.up to 4% of turnover
Immigration non-compliance. Fines per worker plus, in several countries, personal director liability.per worker + liability
Time & vendor waste5 ITEMS
The lawyer reflex. Operational questions routed to law firms by default, 3 to 5 billable hours each, dozens of times a year.$600-900/hour
Redundant stack. Two HRIS, three payroll providers, and the spreadsheets that glue them together.tools + reconciliation
Founder and CFO hours. 5 to 15 hours a month on payroll operations makes your CFO the most expensive payroll clerk in the company.5-15h/month
Payroll errors. Corrections cost money; wrong paychecks cost trust, and sometimes the employee.cost + attrition
Lost offers. A mispriced package or a missing benefit fails a signed-in-principle candidate: weeks of re-recruiting at full cost.weeks of hiring cost

Your investors read the same P&L you do.

The lawyer reflex

Stop paying $700 an hour
for questions that aren't legal.

When a US company operates in Europe, every employment question goes to a law firm by reflex: a notice period, a contract template, a probation extension, a bonus clause. European companies do exactly the same in the US. Here's the uncomfortable truth: around 80% of those questions are operational, not legal. They need someone who has done it, not a memo.

THE REFLEX TODAY

Every question, a law firm

  • $600 to $900 an hour, 3 to 5 billable hours per question
  • Dozens of questions a year as you scale: it compounds into serious money
  • A one-week turnaround for an answer your team still has to execute alone
  • The memo tells you what the law says. Nobody runs the payroll, files the registration, or fixes the contract
WITH HUMANITECH

Operations answered. Counsel where it counts.

  • The operational 80% answered in days, inside your fixed retainer, then executed end to end
  • The genuinely legal 20% (litigation, for-cause terminations, immigration filings) goes to independent local counsel we engage and brief
  • Rates agreed upfront, one scope, one invoice: ours
  • For most clients, the legal-spend reduction alone covers the retainer
The missing layer

Platforms execute.
We're accountable.

Global employment platforms are extraordinary infrastructure, yet structurally incapable of neutral advice. Every recommendation they make ends in buying more of their product, and their terms of service disclaim responsibility for your decisions. We sit above the platforms: designing the architecture, operating the whole, and answering for it.

YOUR TEAM
builds the company
focus
▲  ▼
HUMANITECH
designs · operates · accountable end-to-end
this layer
▲  ▼
DEEL · REMOTE · RIPPLING · ENTITIES · COUNSEL
execute transactions
rails
How it works

Three steps. Fixed fees. No day rates.

1

The Audit

A full teardown of your employment stack: every country, contract, vendor, cost line, compliance exposure, and equity gap. Three weeks, fixed fee.

3–4 WEEKS · FIXED FEE
2

The Blueprint

Your 24-month infrastructure roadmap: EOR/PEO vs. entity by country, vendor consolidation, compensation architecture, and a prioritized fix list your board can read.

DELIVERED WITH THE AUDIT
3

We operate it

The Infrastructure Retainer: we run the stack (vendors, compliance calendar, payroll oversight, new-country hires) and review it quarterly with your CFO, in EBITDA terms.

MONTHLY · ANNUAL CONTRACT

We take no commissions from any vendor. That's why our recommendations can be trusted.

The Infrastructure Retainer

Your Global People Infrastructure department.

One accountable partner instead of eleven vendors. We run the entire employment stack so your team can build the company.

What's inside, every month
  • Vendor management & escalation: we fight Deel's support queue so you never do
  • Compliance calendar: every deadline, in every jurisdiction, owned
  • Payroll oversight: across all providers, reconciled and reviewed
  • New-country hires: end to end, from offer to onboarded
  • Policies maintained: handbooks, contracts, templates kept current
  • Comp & equity questions: answered in days, not billable weeks
  • Quarterly infrastructure review: with your CFO, in numbers
What we'll never do
  • Take vendor commissions or resell platform seats
  • Bill you by the day or by the hour
  • Replace your platforms. We make them work harder for you
  • Deliver licensed legal or tax opinions ourselves. We engage independent local counsel on one invoice: ours
  • Send juniors to learn on your payroll
Retainer tiers

Priced by footprint.
Scales with you automatically.

Core
Fixed monthly fee
≤ 4 countries · ≤ 100 FTE
  • Full operating scope
  • Named Infrastructure Lead
  • Quarterly CFO review
  • Annual contract
ScaleMost common
Fixed monthly fee
5–9 countries · ≤ 250 FTE
  • Everything in Core
  • Dedicated delivery pod
  • Country launches at partner rates
  • Annual comp & equity refresh
Global
Custom scope
10+ countries or 250+ FTE
  • Everything in Scale
  • Custom scope & SLAs
  • M&A / diligence support
  • Fractional Head of People option

The anchor math for your CFO: a typical Series B company spends €400k+ a year on its employment stack. Our retainer costs less than one senior People hire, and the hidden costs a first audit typically identifies (€150–400k+: EOR/PEO fees past breakeven, FX spreads on payroll volume, benefits markups) cover it several times over. Fees are fixed, quoted after the diagnostic call, and scaled to your footprint.

Start here

The Global People Infrastructure Audit.

Three weeks. One fixed fee. A complete map of what you're running, what it really costs, where it breaks, and the 24-month blueprint your board and your investors can hold you to.

45 minutes. No forms. No SDRs.

What we tear down

  • Every country, contract type, and vendor in your stack
  • Your full cost base: EOR/PEO fees, payroll, benefits, counsel, hidden spreads
  • Compliance exposure: misclassification, permanent establishment, works-council triggers
  • Equity plan viability in every jurisdiction you employ in
  • EOR/PEO-to-entity breakevens, country by country

What you walk away with

  • A risk-and-cost map your board can read in ten minutes
  • The 24-month blueprint: EOR/PEO vs. entity by country, vendor consolidation, comp architecture
  • A prioritized fix list, ranked by exposure and savings
  • A documented savings estimate, typically €150–400k+ in year one depending on footprint
The engagement
ScopeFormatTimeline
Up to 5 countriesFixed fee, quoted after the call3 weeks
6–12 countriesFixed fee, quoted after the call4 weeks
Portfolio package (via your VC or PE fund)Ask your platform teamPriority

No day rates, no open meters: one fixed fee, agreed before we start. Most audit clients convert to the retainer within 90 days. The others keep a blueprint their board and their investors can hold them to. Both outcomes are fine with us.

Two-minute check

How exposed is your setup?
Six questions.

Named projects · fixed prices

Country launches.
EOR/PEO-to-entity transitions.

The two highest-stakes moves in international employment: productized, priced, and delivered on a playbook we've run before. Transatlantic corridor specialists, in both directions: European scale-ups entering the US (federal and state compliance, entity structure, benefits), and US companies expanding into Europe after a growth or private equity round (labor codes, works councils, statutory terminations).

PROJECT / 01

Country Launch Sprint

Entity-vs-EOR/PEO decision, incorporation orchestrated, payroll and benefits stood up, compliant employment contracts, registrations filed, first hires onboarded. Four to eight weeks, depending on jurisdiction.

  • Banded by complexity: US/UK · Germany/France · Brazil/Japan
  • US launches include federal and state-by-state registrations, benefits setup and equity tax review
  • European launches include labor-code compliance, works-council mapping and local-language contracts
  • Independent local counsel engaged and briefed, one invoice
  • Handover pack your team can actually run
FIXED FEE PER COUNTRY · QUOTED BY JURISDICTION BAND · PARTNER RATES FOR RETAINER CLIENTS
PROJECT / 02

EOR/PEO-to-Entity Transition

At roughly 8–15 employees in one country, entity economics beat EOR/PEO economics, often by six figures a year. No platform will ever tell you this; it cuts their revenue. We productized it.

  • Breakeven analysis on your real numbers
  • Entity setup + employee migration, protections intact
  • Savings documented, line by line
FIXED FEE + SUCCESS FEE ON DOCUMENTED SAVINGS · WE ONLY WIN IF YOUR EBITDA DOES
Worked example

Germany, 11 employees on an EOR/PEO.

EOR/PEO fees (11 seats, blended)€ 79,200 /yr
FX + benefits spread (typical)€ 21,000 /yr
GmbH running cost (payroll, accounting, filings)− € 38,500 /yr
One-time transition, all-in (advisory, counsel, filings)− € 31,000
Net savings, year one≈ € 30,700
Net savings, every year after≈ € 61,700 /yr

Illustrative, on typical market rates. Your audit runs this on your actual invoices. The point stands at almost any headcount above ten: the EOR/PEO was the right answer at 2 employees and the wrong one at 12. Someone neutral has to tell you when the line is crossed. That's us.

Run your own numbers

EOR/PEO or your own entity?
Calculate it now.

Market-rate estimates. The audit runs the same math on your actual invoices.

EOR/PEO, all-in per year (fees + typical FX and benefits spread)€ 0
Own entity, year one (setup + running costs)€ 0
Own entity, every year after€ 0
Difference, year one€ 0
Difference, every year after€ 0

Estimates on 2026 market rates (EOR fees, 1.5% FX/benefits spread, local setup and running costs). Not advice: your contracts, benefits and provider terms change the math.

For venture capital & private equity platform teams

Protect your portfolio's EBITDA. We're the answer you keep on file.

Every fund's platform team gets the same messages after a round closes: "who can set up our US hiring?", "are we compliant in Germany?", "should we leave our EOR/PEO?" Send them to us, and get answers for your own diligence questions, free.

PORTFOLIO / 01

The portfolio package

Preferred terms for your portfolio companies and priority scheduling in the two quarters after any round you lead. Hidden costs recovered in the portfolio are EBITDA your fund keeps.

PORTFOLIO / 02

The annual readiness session

A yearly "global employment readiness" working session for your portfolio: real numbers, no pitch, your logo on the invite.

PORTFOLIO / 03

The platform-team hotline

Your team's own questions (diligence, expansion sanity checks, vendor comparisons) answered in 48h. No strings, no fee.

We take no commissions from any vendor we place your companies on. The recommendation your portfolio gets is the one we'd give our own board.

About

Why Humanitech exists.

Because when a company hires across borders, it ends up with platforms, providers and law firms that each do their part, and no one responsible for the whole. We take that job.

Why it had to exist

Everyone sells you something.
Nobody owns the whole.

The platforms are extraordinary infrastructure, and their terms of service disclaim your decisions. The Big Four can't profitably serve a 120-person company. A fractional HR lead is one person's calendar, not a system. We sat in the client seat for years, inside VC-backed companies scaling across Europe and North America, and watched the same gap swallow money at every round.

So we made it our job.

YOUR TEAM
builds the company
focus
▲  ▼
GLOBAL PEOPLE INFRASTRUCTURE
designed once · operated continuously · accountable
humanitech
▲  ▼
DEEL · REMOTE · RIPPLING · ENTITIES · COUNSEL
execute transactions
rails

We take no commissions from Deel, Remote, Rippling, or anyone. A firm that takes vendor money can't design your stack objectively. We can.

How we deliver

Run by people who lived it.
Signed by licensed counsel.

Humanitech's team comes from Global People leadership seats inside VC-backed technology companies, on both sides of the Atlantic. Country expansions, EOR/PEO implementations and exits, payroll, immigration, compensation, board-level People strategy. When a matter requires a licensed professional, an independent employment lawyer in the right jurisdiction handles it, inside one Humanitech scope.

  • We operate; we don't just advise. Defined responsibilities, a compliance calendar, a quarterly review in numbers.
  • Fixed fees, agreed upfront. No day rates, no meters running, no scope surprises.
  • One category, done to a standard. No staffing, no recruiting, no enterprise, no pre-seed.
  • Coverage across 25+ jurisdictions. Europe and North America, from first hire to full team.