Eight areas to assess before you acquire or invest in a software company — what to verify in each, and why the answer is only as good as where you read it from.
A technical due diligence checklist (sometimes called an engineering due diligence checklist) is the set of questions a buyer or investor needs answered about a software asset before a deal closes. The eight areas below are the ones that decide whether you keep, fix, rebuild, or walk.
One caveat worth stating up front: a checklist tells you what to look for, not what's true. The same eight items answered from a three-day round of management interviews produce a very different picture than the same items answered from the code, commit history, and dependencies. Use the list to scope the work — then insist the answers come from the system itself.
Every item above can be marked "done" and still miss the thing that costs you — because the value is in how each is answered. Read from interviews, the checklist reflects what the team believes. Read from the code, commits, and dependencies, it reflects what is actually there. Our technical due diligence answers all eight from the system itself, in two weeks, as evidence traceable to the commit.
No. A checklist tells you what to look for, not what's true. The same checklist answered from interviews versus from the code itself produces very different results. The checklist is necessary; reading the actual system is what makes the answers defensible.
Largely the same thing — both assess a software asset's real condition for an investor or acquirer. Engineering due diligence sometimes weights the team and delivery process more; technical due diligence emphasizes code, architecture, and risk. The eight areas apply to both.
Yes — that's our technical due diligence. Two weeks, fixed price, read-only, with every finding answered from the code, commits, and dependencies and formatted for an investment committee.
Two weeks. Fixed price. Read-only. One conversation to start — we'll tell you if we can't help.
Get a Read