Illustrative deliverable 01
Deal Technology Due Diligence — Red Flag Extract
A compact decision view showing how technical evidence is translated into investment implications and explicit next actions.
Illustrative sample — not client work
Executive decision view
Proceed with conditions.
Fictional B2B software company being assessed for a growth investment. The illustrative investment thesis assumes continued enterprise expansion and faster product delivery.
Illustrative — medium confidence
Illustrative technology verdict
Proceed with conditions
The scenario supports continued diligence subject to explicit technology conditions and a funded post-close plan.
Strengths
- Core product architecture can support near-term growth with targeted remediation.
- Customer-facing product and roadmap are coherent with the stated market direction.
- Engineering team has strong product knowledge and acceptable delivery cadence.
Conditions
- Reduce deployment and database key-person dependency within 100 days.
- Formalize privileged-access governance and production access review.
- Fund the highest-priority scalability remediation before the next major customer cohort.
Red-flag register
Evidence → implication → action.
Severity is not a substitute for judgment. Each finding should show the evidence basis, why it matters to the investment and what action would change the risk.
| Severity | Finding | Evidence | Investment implication | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Deployment and database administration depend heavily on one senior engineer. | Illustrative interviews, access map and operating runbook review. | Execution and resilience risk; absence or departure could delay releases and recovery. | Dual ownership, runbook completion, privileged-access review and tested recovery handover. |
| High | Privileged production access is broader than the target operating model requires. | Illustrative identity-role export and management confirmation. | Raises the probability and impact of accidental or unauthorized production change. | Reduce standing privilege, introduce named roles and quarterly access attestation. |
| Medium | One analytics vendor is deeply embedded in reporting and customer workflows. | Illustrative architecture and contract dependency review. | Potential switching cost and pricing exposure as transaction volumes scale. | Quantify exit cost, add contract guardrails and document the replacement path. |
| Medium | AI roadmap is ahead of data-governance maturity. | Illustrative roadmap, data inventory and governance review. | AI delivery could stall or create avoidable privacy, quality and model-risk exposure. | Sequence data ownership, permitted-use rules and model controls before broad rollout. |
How to read the output
The report is useful only if the evidence changes a decision.
01
Observation
What did the evidence show?
02
Business effect
What could it change operationally?
03
Investment implication
Why could it matter to value, timing or risk?
04
Action
What should be resolved, funded or tested next?
Next step
Use the sample to judge the reporting style—not to infer a client outcome.
A live diligence scope would tailor materiality, evidence access, workstreams and decision timing to the transaction.