Walk into your Series A technical due diligence with everything the partner is going to ask for already on the table.
A fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement that turns 8–12 weeks of structured work into the technical narrative, due-diligence pack, and 18-month roadmap that European Series A funds expect to see — across software, electronics, and hardware.
Founders who arrive at the partner meeting without confident, evidence-backed answers to the technical questions either fail to raise, accept materially lower valuations, or take term-sheet conditions that constrain optionality.
The questions are pointed. Is the architecture sound enough to scale through the next 18 months? Is the IP cleanly owned? Is the team strong enough to execute the plan? Is the AI governance defensible? Is the security posture investor-acceptable?
A great deck and strong revenue numbers are not enough. The partner will ask the architect questions, and the founder needs to answer them.
Strong engineers do not automatically produce DD packs. The roadmap, the risk register, and the investor narrative are a different discipline.
IoT, medtech, cleantech, dual-use — DD now covers firmware OTA, certification readiness, BOM, and supply chain. Generalist software CTOs cannot answer those questions.
Training data provenance, model governance, and AI Act compliance are now standard checks. Funds expect documented answers, not hand-waving.
Each with a defined format and quality bar. Designed to satisfy DD requests from top-tier European and US funds without further rework.
A complete documentation set covering architecture, security posture, IP ownership and OSS compliance, AI governance, data privacy, and infrastructure scalability.
A plain-language story for the founder to tell investors: how the technology creates defensibility, how the architecture supports the growth thesis, what the team will build next.
A milestone-based plan synchronised to the planned use of funds. What gets built when, what risks need monitoring, and how technical milestones map to the commercial milestones the company will sell to investors.
Role-by-role hiring sequence for the runway. Target levels, compensation bands by market, time-to-fill estimates, and the order in which roles should be hired to de-risk delivery.
Documented current-state architecture, recommended future-state architecture, and the migration path between them. Risk-flagged areas of technical debt with prioritised remediation.
All material technical, security, IP, and regulatory risks identified during the engagement, prioritised by business impact. An internal management tool and an investor-facing document demonstrating organisational maturity.
Kick-off with founder and any technical lead. Access to repositories, infrastructure, documentation, cap table, prior investor materials. NDA execution. DD scope agreement.
Stakeholder interviews: founder (commercial thesis), tech lead (architecture rationale), product lead (roadmap dependencies), key investors if available. Map current architecture, hardware-software integration points, IP chain of title.
Hands-on review of code, infrastructure, security, IP, OSS compliance, AI training data provenance, hardware design files, firmware update path, certification readiness. Static analysis with industry-standard tools. Cap table and IP assignment review.
Construction of the 18-month roadmap, hiring plan, architecture evolution plan, and risk register. Iterative review sessions with the founder to align technical plan with commercial milestones and investor narrative.
Compilation of the DD pack, investor narrative, pitch deck slides, and Q&A library. Founder rehearsal of the technical pitch. Practice DD calls with the consultant playing the VC role.
Final presentation to the founder and (optionally) advisors or existing investors. Walk-through of every deliverable. Embedded CTO retainer proposal for execution support during the actual fundraise and after the close.
Cash retainer at near-market rate, plus a small advisor equity grant for ongoing alignment, plus a performance-based completion bonus paid in equity on milestone achievement. Cash-only fallback available at a 15% premium where the cap table cannot accommodate.
SaaS or platform · pure cloud architecture · raising €5–10M Series A
IoT · medtech · cleantech · industrial automation
Layered onto Standard or Extended for material AI components
Cash retainer plus small advisor equity grant (typically 0.10–0.25%) plus a performance-based completion bonus paid in equity on milestone achievement. The aligned-operator structure that European Series A funds expect to see on the cap table — not an open-ended retainer.
Most founders convert the engagement into an Embedded CTO retainer for the months around the actual raise — partner meetings, technical reference calls, term-sheet negotiation, and the first ninety days post-close. The DD pack is the artefact; the operator is the safety net.
A 30-minute discovery call. We map your funding timeline, your current technical state, and the gap to investor-ready. If there is a fit, you receive a written diagnostic brief within 48 hours — before any contract.
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