For the deal team, pre-close

AI Diligence

A two-to-three-week, confidential review of a target’s AI risk and upside, outside-in and then with management access, ending in an IC-ready memo: where AI moves EBITDA, what is real versus claimed in the target’s AI story, the risks, and a 100-day plan.

Engagement length · 2-3 weeks

Book the sessionDiscuss a deal
Pick a time on the calendar (opens in a new tab)

Outcomes

What the engagement creates.

Each engagement is built around a measured result, and the artifacts and habits your team keeps after it ends.

Where AI moves EBITDA in the target after close, and by roughly how much, with the assumptions shown.

What is real and what is claimed in the target’s AI story: what is in production, who owns it, and what it costs to run.

The AI risks to price into the deal or fix in the first year: data rights, vendor dependence, unowned models, regulation.

An IC-ready memo with a 100-day AI plan the operating team can pick up on day one.

The memo

Four sections, written for the IC.

Diligence is the assess step of assess, prove, ship, measure, run before the fund owns the company and on a deal team’s clock. The memo is the output, and it is written to be argued with in committee.

Confidential by default. Happy to sign your NDA before the first call. Nothing about the target, the fund or the deal is shared or referenced, during the work or after it.

Where AI moves EBITDA

The workflows and product lines where AI would change margin after close, sized against the target’s own cost base, with the assumptions written down.

Real versus claimed

What the target’s AI story says, set against what is actually in production, who owns it, what it costs to run, and what customers use.

Risks

Data rights, model and vendor dependencies, unowned production AI, regulatory exposure, and the team gaps that would slow a value plan down.

100-day plan

The first AI moves for the first months of ownership: owners, measures and dates, ready to hand to the operating team on day one.

After close

The 100-day plan is where the value sprint starts.

If the deal closes, the plan in the memo becomes the first AI value sprint inside the company: prove the case, ship the software with the company’s own team, and measure the return. Nothing about diligence obliges the fund to continue.

See what a value sprint covers

Recent work

What the work looks like in practice.

Portfolio AI AssessmentCompleted

AI maturity assessment of a 30-company PE portfolio

Lower and middle-market private equity firm across business services, franchising, education and engineered products.

Situation
The firm needed to know where AI would move EBITDA across the portfolio, and where to start, before committing a fund-level team.
What we did
Scored each company on five dimensions: data, process, people, product and governance. Grouped them into clusters where one design could be deployed many times, and sized a first wave and a 12-month roadmap.

Outcome

The gap was owners, budget and adoption, not tools. The firm got a ranked first wave, repeatable plays for each cluster, and an AI section for new investment memos.

Engagement Model

How it runs.

This engagement runs 2-3 weeks. Pricing is by scope, not by hours.

1

Outside-in read

Week one: the product, the public footprint, the data room and the deal team’s own materials, scored against the same written rubric used in portfolio assessments.

2

Management access

Short, structured sessions with product, engineering and operations leaders test the hypotheses, see the AI that is actually running, and surface what the data room leaves out.

3

IC-ready memo

A written memo for the investment committee: upside, real versus claimed, risks and the 100-day plan, with a readout to the deal team before the IC date.

The first step

Ninety minutes on one company, or one decision.

Most advisory relationships start with a discovery call that discovers nothing. This one starts with work. Send the context beforehand: the company, the workflows that eat the most hours, the AI pilots already running. We spend ninety minutes on where AI pays back first and what it would take to prove it. You leave with a written point of view: the play to start with, the business case to test, and what the first ninety days look like.

Format

90 minutes, one decision

Deliverable

Written point of view within 48 hours

What follows

Fixed scope, quoted in writing after a first conversation. Never billed by the hour.

If ninety minutes shows this is not a fit, Kevin will say so and point you somewhere better. Confidential by default. Happy to sign your NDA before the first call.

Book the sessionPick a time on the calendar (opens in a new tab)

Fit

Best fit scenarios.

Deal teams whose target leans on an AI story in its growth case or its multiple.

Buyers who need an independent operator’s view of AI risk and upside on a short clock, before signing.

Funds that want the 100-day AI plan written before close, so value creation starts on day one.

Start

Send the context.

Share a little context. Kevin replies within one business day. Confidential by default. Happy to sign your NDA before the first call.

A few quick details

One tap each. They let Kevin come to the first conversation prepared.

Kevin reads every message himself and replies within one business day. Confidential by default; happy to sign your NDA before the first call.