Diligence before the deal.
Turnarounds after.
I read codebases, teams, and AI claims for PE and VC investors. I’ve sat on the other side of the table, building the platform and answering the diligence questions, which is why mine are hard to dodge.
Due diligence
You’re about to write a cheque on the strength of a technology story. I verify the story: whether the architecture holds at the scale in the model, whether the “AI” is a moat or a wrapper, and whether the team that built it can build what’s next. Then I compare delivery history with what management says on the call.
You get a written verdict: what’s solid, what’s fragile, what it costs to fix. Then a call to argue with me about it.
Scope
We define the thesis the deal depends on and what would falsify it.
Read
Code, architecture, infrastructure, delivery history, and interviews with the people who build it.
Verdict
A written report you can circulate to the committee, and a working session on what it means for the deal.
Turnaround
Sometimes the company you already hold is the problem: the roadmap slips quarter after quarter, the platform can’t carry the growth, the CTO seat is empty or shouldn’t be occupied by who’s in it. I step in as an operator: stabilize the team, fix the architecture where it’s the bottleneck, and grow the leadership in place or help you hire it.
I’ve run engineering through hypergrowth, acquisitions, and the quarters that never make the pitch deck. Stalls are legible once you’ve lived a few.