- HQ: Paris, France
- Company size: 501-1000
- Funding raised: $577M
- Lead investors: 10T Holdings, 2Shares, Cathay Innovation
- Team location: Eastern Europe
- Cooperation time: since 2020
- Product: Security and infrastructure solutions for digital assets
- Notable clients: Firi, VirgoCX, Boson Protocol, Nexo
Ledger is a software product company from France that develops hardware wallets for purchasing, storing, swapping, growing, and securely managing cryptocurrencies and NFTs through sensor data, IoT, and ICOs. Ledger has clients in over 200 countries and has already sold more than 6 million devices, securing 20% of the world’s crypto assets. In 2021, Ledger received $380 million from 10T Holdings and became a French unicorn company.
Issue
In 2020, Ledger decided to establish a development hub in Eastern Europe with 10 QA engineers. At that time, our client had a few tech experts in their EE team, operating from a co-working space, while their core team was based in Paris.
To make their expansion to EE as effective as possible, Ledger required professional tech recruitment and legal services, such as tax management, labor law guidance, IP rights protection, and employment contract support.
In order to successfully navigate these complex issues, Ledger turned to Alcor, a trusted service provider of software R&D center solutions that builds teams from 0 to 100 Valley-caliber developers with unmatched savings in Eastern Europe and LATAM.
Solution
Alcor's skilled headhunters handled full-cycle tech hiring for Ledger: from sending the first CVs of pre-vetted candidates for approval in just 5 days and conducting interviews to making job offers to top-notch QA specialists.
Despite Ledger's management being based in Paris, we maintained seamless remote communication. To streamline recruitment, we suggested conducting all stages in a single day in our office. After Ledger’s managers arrived in Kyiv, we interviewed 5 candidates and made an offer to a QA Manager on the same day.
What is more, our legal and finance specialists helped our client comply with the EU & Ukrainian legislation, enabling transparency in all operations without requiring the registration of a legal entity in Ukraine. Currently, our team continues to work with Ledger, providing tech recruitment and Employer of Record services.
Results
FAQs About Setting Up Your Software R&D Center With Alcor
What is Alcor and why is it a better long-term alternative to outsourcing or generic EOR platforms?
Alcor builds software R&D centers and hires remote development teams for US and European tech product companies. Since 2017, we’ve been helping our clients scale in Latin America and Eastern Europe from 10 to 100 developers in a year.
Our solution is designed only for the tech industry:
- hiring in top tech talent markets,
- benefiting from tax incentives for tech, and
- managing all the necessary contracts for tech (NDAs, IP rights protection agreements, etc.).
Alcor lets clients easily track andd manage payroll, benefits, and more via a cloud platform – Alcor OS.
However, unlike other global payment platforms, our clients don’t just get robotic support; they work with a dedicated human Customer Operations manager.
Our solution is 50% more affordable than hiring in the US or tech outsourcing, plus we provide custom pricing and volume discounts for even more cost savings – no setup or hidden fees.
What services does Alcor provide to clients?
Our all-in-one solution includes tech-focused Employer of Record, full-cycle tech recruitment, and operational support, such as:
- hardware procurement,
- office/coworking leasing,
- insurance provision,
- employer branding,
- HR services,
- remote/office/hybrid strategy support,
- sysadmyn support,
- business/travel visa support,
- stock options & IP agreements – you name it.
We go the extra mile for clients, so they can get everything they need without engaging third parties.
What do you get with our tech-focused EOR service?
First of all, you don’t have to spend 3.5+ months on setting up your own legal entity and other infrastructure like a bank account, a local team, etc., in a new tech market. We’ll hire talent on your behalf right away.
Secondly, our EOR service covers everything: payroll, compliance, benefits, onboarding, offboarding, and other services. We commit to onboarding talent in 10 business days and provide free offboarding.
Last but not least, you’ll hire talent in top talent markets for tech – across Latin America and Eastern Europe – with 3.5+ million IT specialists and fast-growing tech industries.
But our solution is not just another HR payments platform – with us, you get EOR, plus tech recruitment from scratch with full operational coverage in one place.
How do you handle compliance, risk, and data protection?
Alcor acts as a legal shield, providing 100% compliance with the labor laws in the countries of our operation and IP protection. We protect clients from risks related to worker misclassification, social security, and tax obligations while providing GDPR and CCPA solutions. We also provide the background check service for our clients upon request. What is more, Alcor has a mature policy set consisting of publicly available Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms of Use, Security Policy, and Code of Ethics.
Does Alcor provide a full-cycle tech recruitment service?
Yes. With the help of our 40 in-house tech recruiters and researchers, we hire Silicon Valley-caliber talent from scratch. You can get 5 developers in the first month, 30 in 3 months, and 100 in a year. You get the first CVs of pre-vetted candidates in 5 business days, while one vacancy is typically closed in 2-6 weeks. These are your people from day one who become part of your in-house team and culture, with no buyout process and fees if you later insource.
Which geographies and seniorities can you cover?
We hire top-10% engineers across Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and Bulgaria – with a focus on senior, lead, and C-level talent. To ensure you get the best talent on the market, we prepare a location strategy and consultation from the start.
What is the quality of your candidates?
To present you with the best candidates, we use an internal database of 253k software engineers and external resources. 80% of CVs that we send to clients are approved, 8 CVs are needed to get an accepted offer, and 15% of vacancies are closed from the first CV. If a client wants to increase the quality of the candidate pipeline even more, we offer an Engineering Manager screening service. As a result, 98.6% of developers that we hire for clients successfully pass probation.
How long do software developers that Alcor hires stay with clients?
90% of talent that we hire for clients stay with them long-term, while the average tenure of developers is 2.5 years. In case you’re unsatisfied with our hire or vice versa, we offer a 3-month free replacement warranty. What’s more, you can increase the retention rate among your R&D team with the talent retention strategy developed for you by our HR professionals.
Is Alcor’s pricing transparent?
We don’t have setup fees, tricky rate cards, or expensive pricing wrappers. Also, our model doesn’t presuppose regular cost increases with no visible returns. Instead, we have custom pricing for each client, set and revise individual compensations, and give contractual volume discounts.
Who owns the team and assets and can we insource later?
You own everything from day one — the team and all procured assets (hardware, software, office/coworking arrangements, and related records). You can insource the team at any time for free, with no buyout or lock-in.
Who manages the team day to day?
You do. We act as the official employer (EOR) for compliance and payroll, while decision-making, roadmap, and performance management stay on your side.
What documentation and visibility do we get?
You get full transparency – employment contracts, SLAs, and supporting documentation are shared with you from the start.
How is IP handled and who can access our code?
IP remains 100% yours, protected by compliant IP rights agreements from day one. Alcor does not access your source code, product docs, or other sensitive materials.
Who bears compliance and other employment-related risks?
Alcor bears 100% of employment and compliance risk in each country by acting as your legal shield for labor, tax, and regulatory matters.
Who are the clients of Alcor?
Our clients include tech product companies from the US and EU – People.ai, BigCommerce, Grammarly, Sift, Ledger, Pindrop, Chartbeat, BIScience, ChargeAfter, Tubular Labs, and Teladoc – from domains like AI/ML, ecommerce, cybersecurity/fraud prevention, crypto/fintech, media & marketing analytics, and digital health.
Does Alcor have any industry awards, or is it featured in ratings?
Alcor has gotten into the top recruiting, IT & business services, HR outsourcing, and legal outsourcing companies ratings on Clutch, become the #1 HR Services Agencies on SuperbCompanies, and won The Legal 500 EMEA Awards. We are also featured on Clutch, TrustPilot, G2, and GoodFirms.
What is the team behind Alcor?
We’re a 100+ in-house team with deep bench strength – 40 tech recruiters and 60 back-office specialists across 8 key locations, with 93% CSAT and a 93% Net Promoter Score.
Leadership is hands-on and accessible: Founder & CEO – Dmytro Ovcharenko; COO – Viktoriia Keliar; Director of Technical Recruiting – Kassandra Ruiz; Head of Customer Operations – Oksana Petrus; Head of Legal – Oleh Danylchenko.
Supporting leaders include Head of People & Culture – Hanna Koval; Head of IT Recruitment – Maryna Panchuk; Senior Legal Adviser (LATAM) – Gilda Orozco; Country Manager, Mexico – Javier Preciado; plus regional recruiting leads in Poland, Romania, and LATAM for on-the-ground execution.
How do you make cross-region collaboration work – overlap windows, English proficiency, and executive availability?
We run teams across the USA, Latin America, and CEE – covering GMT-7, GMT-6, GMT-5, GMT-4, GMT, GMT+1, GMT+2, and more. That footprint lets us engineer reliable overlap windows: typically 5–8 hours within the Americas or Western Europe, and 2–5 hours between US time zones and CEE with modest schedule shifts.
English proficiency runs from intermediate to native, with customer-facing roles staffed at advanced/native levels. For leadership accessibility, we align recurring exec-level touchpoints inside overlap windows and keep async updates flowing so decisions don’t wait on the clock.
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