For VCs, PE and angels
You're pricing a company whose biggest risk might be sitting in a private repo. I've been the CTO many times over, across fintech, e-commerce and legaltech. I read codebases and weigh the teams and roadmaps behind them for a living, and I'll tell you plainly what's real, what's fragile, and what it costs to fix.
A focused review, typically one to two weeks, of what actually matters to the deal: architecture and scalability, code and delivery health, team strength and key-person risk, security posture, AI claims versus AI reality, and the true cost of the roadmap. You get a plain-English report with red flags ranked by deal impact, and a 30/60/90 plan for whatever we find. Written for partners, not engineers.
When the finding is "good business, technology needs an owner," I step into the portfolio company as fractional CTO: roadmap, hiring, architecture, security, delivery. Same operator who wrote the DD report, accountable for fixing what it found. One to three days a week, up to a designed handover to a permanent hire I'll help you make.
A 30-minute call on the deal or the portfolio problem. Confidential, NDA on request.
Scope agreed in writing: questions, access, timeline, deliverable.
The work: repo, architecture, team interviews, infrastructure, security.
Report and a partner-level debrief. If you need hands afterwards, that's a separate decision, never a hidden pitch.
One deal, one portfolio company, or a standing arrangement across the fund. Start with the call.
I take on at most five engagements at a time. DD sprints are scheduled around them.