Technical Due Diligence
When you are about to invest, the technology is either an asset or a liability. Most of the time, neither the founder nor the pitch deck will tell you which.
Technical due diligence is how you find out. Not a surface-level review of the tech stack, but a rigorous assessment of architecture, code quality, engineering team capability, scalability, security posture, and the technical debt that will determine how much your investment will actually cost to realise.
Boxsail provides technical due diligence for VC and PE firms evaluating investments in technology-driven businesses, with particular depth in financial services including fintech, insurtech, banking, and capital markets.
What makes our approach different
Most TDD engagements rely on interviews, documentation review, and manual code sampling. That approach takes time and depends heavily on what a target company chooses to share.
We combine senior practitioner assessment with AI-powered codebase analysis platform, which connects directly to a code repository and maps the entire codebase in hours, producing architecture diagrams, business logic documentation, dependency maps, and a technical debt assessment. This means our reviews are faster, more objective, and harder to game than traditional approaches.
The result is a cleaner, faster assessment grounded in what the code actually contains, not what management says it contains.
What we assess
Architecture and scalability Is the system built to scale with the business? Are there structural constraints that will require expensive re-engineering as transaction volumes or user numbers grow? We assess current architecture against the growth trajectory implied by the investment thesis.
Code quality and technical debt Poor code quality is a hidden liability that becomes visible after close. We assess maintainability, test coverage, documentation, and the volume of technical debt, and translate that into a realistic cost and timeline estimate for remediation.
Engineering team and SDLC The technology is only as good as the team maintaining it. We assess engineering capability, team structure, development practices, deployment pipeline, and whether the organisation can actually execute its product roadmap with the resources it has.
Security and compliance posture Particularly important in regulated sectors. We assess whether security practices are adequate for the regulatory environment the business operates in, and flag gaps that represent either compliance risk or post-close remediation cost.
Third-party dependencies and vendor risk Concentration of dependency on a single vendor, an unsupported library, or an offshore team can significantly affect the risk profile of an investment. We surface these risks clearly.
AI and data infrastructure Where the investment thesis includes AI capability, we assess whether the underlying data infrastructure, model governance, and engineering capability are sufficient to support the claims being made.
What you receive
A clear written report structured around investment risk, not technical jargon. We translate every finding into business impact terms: what it costs, what it means for the roadmap, and whether it is a blocker, a risk to price, or a post-close action item. We present findings directly to investment teams and are available to discuss with portfolio company leadership where appropriate.
Typical turnaround is five to ten working days depending on codebase size and scope. AI-assisted reviews of well-structured codebases can be faster.
Who we work with
VC and PE firms at Series A through to growth equity and buyout stage. We also work with acquirers conducting pre-M&A technology assessment and with founders preparing for investor scrutiny who want to understand and address their risk profile before a process begins.