What this is
Technical due diligence gives you a written report on a software company or product before you commit money to it. We read the code, the architecture, the delivery process and the security posture, then tell you in writing what you are actually acquiring. This is technical due diligence for software, not property or construction. Fixed fee, two to four weeks, and the report is written for the person signing rather than for engineers.
What the engagement covers
- Code quality, structure, test coverage and the parts only one person understands.
- Architecture and whether it survives the growth the business plan assumes.
- Security and compliance exposure, including dependency and secret handling.
- Delivery process: how often they ship, how often it breaks, how long a fix takes.
- Technical debt, quantified in work rather than adjectives.
- Key person risk, licensing, and anything that would complicate a transfer of ownership.
See an anonymised sample report
Who this is for
Investors and acquirers who need a technical view before a deal closes. Boards deciding whether to fund a rebuild or extend what exists. Companies that have inherited a system through acquisition and have no idea what is inside it. If you need an answer in days rather than weeks, ask about the five day Technology Health Check instead.
What we actually look at
The scope is fixed, so you know what you are buying. Six areas, each producing findings ranked by what they would cost you to ignore.
We work from read access to the repositories, a walkthrough with whoever knows the system best, and access to the issue tracker and deployment history. No production credentials are needed.
- Code and maintainability, including how much of it only one person can safely change.
- Architecture and scalability against the growth the business case assumes, not against a generic benchmark.
- Security posture: dependencies, secrets, authentication, data handling and known exposure.
- Delivery and operations: release frequency, failure rate, recovery time, monitoring.
- Data: quality, ownership, migration difficulty and anything that blocks a separation.
- People and licensing risk, which is what actually delays deals more often than code does.
What the report looks like
A short document written for a decision, not a dump of tool output. Anyone can run a scanner and paste the results.
It opens with the answer in one page: what we found, how serious it is, and what it means for the decision in front of you. Then ranked findings, each with the evidence behind it, the cost of leaving it alone, and what fixing it would take in weeks. Then a prioritised plan for the first ninety days.
We present it live for ninety minutes and you keep the document. If the answer is that the asset is in better shape than expected, that is what it will say. We have written that report too.
What it costs, and how the fee comes back
Published, because a page about a service that hides its number wastes your time.
A full due diligence runs €18,000 to €35,000 over two to four weeks. The five day Technology Health Check is €4,500 to €6,500 and covers a narrower scope with the same method.
- The full fee comes off your first invoice if we go on to build or take over the solution.
- Valid for six months from delivery of the report.
- Applies to projects above €50,000, and it is a one time credit rather than a running discount.
- If you take the report to somebody else, it is yours and you owe us nothing. That happens, and it is a fair outcome.
When you do not need this
Three situations where we will say so on the first call.
The system is small enough that a senior engineer could read all of it in two days. Pay for the two days, not for a process. The deal is not real yet, so the diligence would go stale before it mattered. Or the decision has already been made emotionally and the report is wanted as cover, in which case it will not change anything and everyone knows it.
We would rather lose the engagement than write a document nobody will act on.
Questions we get asked
How long does technical due diligence take?
Two to four weeks for a full assessment, depending on how many systems are in scope and how quickly we get access. The narrower five day Health Check exists for deals that move faster than that.
What access do you need?
Read access to the repositories, a walkthrough with whoever knows the system, and visibility of the issue tracker and deployment history. No production credentials, and we work under NDA as standard.
Is this only for mergers and acquisitions?
No. Roughly half of this work is companies assessing something they already own, usually before committing to a rebuild or after inheriting a system whose authors have left.
What are the most common findings?
Undocumented knowledge held by one person, dependencies years out of date, no meaningful test coverage around the riskiest logic, and a deployment process that only works when a specific person runs it.
What happens after the report?
Your decision. If you want us to fix what we found, the fee comes off the first invoice on projects above €50,000. If you want a different supplier or your own team to act on it, the report is written so they can.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, as standard. We sign yours or send ours, whichever is faster, and we do it before you share anything.
How much does technical due diligence cost?
€18,000 to €35,000 for the full report, fixed fee, depending on how many systems are in scope. When the deal moves faster, the five day Technology Health Check covers the riskiest areas for €4,500 to €6,500.