For investors.
Technology due diligence with the same rigour you apply to financial and commercial assessment.
Technology Advisory Across the Investment Lifecycle
Pre-Deal Due Diligence
Comprehensive technology assessment that informs term sheets and investment committee papers. Delivered in two to six weeks by senior operators, not junior analysts.
Hold-Period Oversight
Periodic audits and fractional CTO placement that protect and enhance technology value through the hold period.
Portfolio Technology Advisory
Ongoing advisory across multiple portfolio companies, providing a consistent technology perspective across your investments.
The Cost of Getting Technology Wrong
Across more than a hundred technology assessments for PE and VC investors, we find material technology risk in the majority of deals — undisclosed technical debt requiring millions in remediation, CTOs misrepresenting platform capability, teams that look impressive on paper but have built something that needs rewriting within eighteen months. These are not edge cases. The question is never whether risk exists, but whether you understand it well enough to price it, plan for it, and manage it. Our assessors are practising CTOs who have built and scaled the systems they now assess, which means they identify risks that non-practitioners consistently miss.
What Makes Us Different from the Alternatives
Operators, Not Analysts
Our assessments are conducted by senior partners who have been CTOs themselves. They have managed teams, owned budgets, and answered to boards. When they assess a technology organisation, they pattern-match against decades of direct experience — not a checklist. The Big Four deploy junior analysts running standardised frameworks. They produce thick reports that tick compliance boxes but rarely surface the operational risks that actually affect investment returns.
DD That Turns Into Operational Value
Our due diligence clients frequently engage us for fractional CTO support afterwards. The partner who conducted the DD already understands the technology, the team, and the risks — so they move from assessment to action without a ramp-up period.
One health technology deal illustrates this: our assessor identified significant gaps between how the technology was presented and its actual state. That assessment led directly to action — we stepped in as fractional CTO, rebuilt the delivery capability, and recruited a permanent replacement.
“It is hard to kid a kidder. There is a reality that if you have been inside those organisations and made those decisions yourself, you recognise what is real and what is theatre.”
Speed Without Cutting Corners
PE deals move fast. After a hundred-plus assessments, we know which questions to ask, how to ask them, and where material risks hide at different company stages. We deliver focused due diligence in two to three weeks when deal timelines demand it, with conversation-based outputs for auction situations where a formal report would arrive too late.
Independence You Can Trust
We have no vendor partnerships, no outsourcing arrangements to sell, and no follow-on products to upsell. Our only agenda is giving you the clearest possible picture.
This independence is structural. Buyers can trust our assessments because we have no reason to distort findings in either direction. Sellers benefit too — an independent assessment adds credibility because the findings are trustworthy. The integrity of the assessment is the product.
Based on more than a hundred technology assessments, we identify the critical risks that impact investment returns
Technology Foundations
Architecture, infrastructure, and technical debt that affects scalability.
Team Capability
Skills, structure, and key person dependencies that impact execution.
Security & Compliance
Vulnerabilities, data protection, and regulatory readiness.
Commercial Technology
Differentiators, IP, and technology moat that drives valuation.
Patterns from a Hundred Assessments
Across our body of work, certain patterns recur with enough frequency to be instructive for investors evaluating technology risk.
Architecture decisions that block scaling appear in more than half of assessments. Structural choices made when the company was smaller now constrain growth. Always fixable, but the time and cost should be reflected in deal models.
Key-person dependencies appear in nearly every assessment. Sometimes a single engineer wrote the entire backend; sometimes the CTO has documented nothing. Knowledge in one person's head is risk that should be priced.
Security gaps are more common than investors expect. No penetration testing, wide-open production environments, no incident response plan — basic hygiene deprioritised in favour of feature development.
Overinvestment in headcount, underinvestment in process. Large teams that ship slowly because the processes, tooling, and architecture to make people productive were never built. It looks like a capacity problem, so the company hires more, compounding the issue.
The AI Question
Investors ask about AI in every deal. The reality for most portfolio companies is far from what public markets suggest is possible. We believe AI will create more software and more distributed development capability, but it will not eliminate engineering roles. The companies best positioned to benefit are those building teams that can rapidly iterate on AI-driven functionality, not chase whatever is trending this quarter.
For investors, the practical questions are: Does this company have a credible AI strategy tied to commercial outcomes? Does the team have the capability to execute? Is the data foundation in place? And is the incentive structure right — does the CTO actually benefit from driving AI adoption? We offer AI readiness assessments that evaluate actual capability against practical opportunity, cutting through the noise.
Three Service Tiers Across the Investment Lifecycle
Pre-Deal Due Diligence
Comprehensive technology assessment before investment commitment. We evaluate across all five pillars, identify material risks, quantify remediation costs, and provide a clear-eyed view for term sheets and investment committee papers. The output is calibrated for investors — strategic framing, investment implications, and actionable recommendations, not a technical inventory.
Hold-Period Audits
Periodic technology health checks on portfolio companies — typically two to three weeks — giving investors visibility into how the technology function performs against the value creation plan. We track progress on DD recommendations, identify new risks, and flag emerging issues. Many investors commission annual audits across their portfolio for a consistent view of technology risk.
Portfolio Technology Oversight
Ongoing advisory across multiple portfolio companies. We provide regular reporting, attend quarterly board meetings, and serve as the fund's technology advisor — available to assess new deals, review strategies, and flag risks across the portfolio. This works well for firms that want consistent technology oversight without placing a fractional CTO in each company.
Our investor services
Supporting Growth Stage Companies
For Private Equity
Technology risk assessment, value creation planning, and portfolio optimisation across the investment lifecycle.
Supporting Venture Stage Companies
For Venture Capital
Comprehensive technical assessment and ongoing portfolio support to de-risk investments and accelerate growth.
Client Testimonials
"Rational Partners has established itself as a vital technical advisor to H.I.G. European Capital Partners. Their unique blend of agility and engineering heritage sets them apart. They move beyond standard 'red flag' reporting to deliver commercially focused, actionable strategies. Whether mobilising for rapid due diligence or architecting complex buy-and-build consolidations, their pragmatic approach translates technical risk into clear investment decisions."
"Rational Partners delivered exceptional technical due diligence on our IMP Software investment, providing the depth and clarity we needed for confident decision-making. We appreciate their collaborative approach and genuine commitment to creating lasting value for both investors and founders."
"We're very happy with the support we got from Rob and his team in diligencing an investment opportunity for PROfounders. They were very responsive, giving clear and comprehensive feedback on the company's technology and engineering team. Their work highlighted the risks and virtues of the opportunity, all of which fed into our investment decision."
Frequently Asked Questions
CONTACT US
Not every investment requires external technology assessment.
We help you determine when independent due diligence adds value, and when your internal resources are sufficient.