For investors
Technology due diligence, and the deal around it
A diligence is worth paying for when it changes what you do — the price, the structure, a condition, or the first three hires after close. Mine is written to be argued with in an investment committee, not filed.
What is technology due diligence?
Technology due diligence is the pre-investment review of a target's technology: its architecture and code, what it costs to run and maintain, the team that keeps it alive, its security and compliance exposure, and whether it can carry the growth in the investment case. It exists to price technology risk and to surface the spend a buyer inherits after close.
Scope
What I look at
- 01
Architecture, against the plan
Not whether it's elegant — whether it takes the volume, the geographies and the product changes the case assumes. A monolith in a stable domestic business isn't a finding. The same monolith under a buy-and-build thesis is the whole deal.
- 02
Total cost of ownership
Run cost, licences, cloud, and the contractors who turn out to be load-bearing. This is where the first year of most plans quietly disappears, because sellers manage EBITDA into a process by deferring maintenance.
- 03
Technical debt, priced
Not a list of complaints. What each item costs to leave alone, what it costs to fix, and which ones block the plan rather than annoy the engineers.
- 04
The team
Who actually holds the knowledge and how concentrated it is, what they cost at market rather than on the payroll, and whether the leadership scales to the size the plan implies.
- 05
AI claims
Whether the AI is a model the company owns and improves, a vendor API with a markup, or a roadmap slide. Those are worth very different multiples, and this is where diligence goes wrong most often right now.
- 06
Carve-out feasibility
For assets leaving a parent: what genuinely separates, what needs a transitional services agreement, how long it runs and what it costs both sides. This line is underestimated more reliably than any other.
- 07
The hundred-day plan
Findings converted into a sequenced plan with owners and money against it, so the work starts on day one instead of after the first board meeting.
- 08
The rest of the deal
I've sat on both sides of M&A — post-merger integration of two banks, buy-side and sell-side diligence, and preparing a company for sale as its chief executive. That tends to make the technology view more commercial than technical.
When to call
Where I'm useful
- Buy-side diligence inside an exclusivity window, on your timetable rather than a standard methodology.
- Vendor-side preparation, so the technology story holds up when a buyer's adviser pulls on it.
- A second opinion when the report you already have reads as thorough but doesn't answer what the investment committee asked.
- Portfolio reviews across several assets, where you want one comparable view rather than five report formats.
- Post-deal, when the plan has stalled and somebody has to say out loud which part of it was never going to work.
Questions funds ask
How is an independent different from a large firm here?
You get the senior person for the whole engagement, not for the kick-off and the read-out. The report is shorter, takes a position, and names the things a partner-signed document tends to hedge. Where a mandate needs more hands, I bring them in through Velchanos Partners and tell you who's doing what.
Can you work inside a short exclusivity?
Yes. I cut the scope to the questions that can still change your decision and read out when you need it, not when the document is finished. Tell me the date and I'll tell you what's answerable by then.
Do you cover AI specifically?
Yes, and it's where I'd focus. The question isn't whether the company uses AI — it's whether that AI is a defensible asset, a supplier dependency already priced into the margin, or a claim with nothing running behind it. I've built and sold AI products, which is a different vantage point from having read about them.
Which sectors?
Retail and consumer, telecoms, financial services and insurance, business software, healthcare and hospitality. Those are the ones where I have operated rather than only advised.
Where and in what languages?
Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. I work in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.
Got a live process?
Sector, size and the date. I'll tell you within a day whether I can be useful and what I'd scope.