For private equityOne independent measure across the whole portfolio
Code-level diligence before the deal, and a day-one baseline after it. The same independent measure across every company you own, so software health reads on the same terms from acquisition to exit.
The problem
Software you own but cannot see
For a software-intensive holding, most of the value and most of the risk live in code you cannot read from a board pack. Diligence is often interview-led and one-off, and once the deal closes the visibility does not carry through to ownership.
The cost of getting it wrong is concrete: failed technical due diligence costs acquirers around 25% of deal value on average (Deloitte and Patsnap, 2026), and hidden technical debt, with duplicated code blocks up 81% since AI (GitClear, 2026), quietly erodes the thesis after close.
What is missing is one independent measure that runs from diligence into ownership, and reads every company in the portfolio on the same terms.
- Of deal value is what failed technical due diligence costs acquirers, on average. (Deloitte and Patsnap, 2026)
- 25%
- Of deal value is what failed technical due diligence costs acquirers, on average. · Deloitte and Patsnap, 2026
- Increase in duplicated code blocks, the kind of debt most often hidden at deal time. (GitClear, 2026)
- +81%
- Increase in duplicated code blocks, the kind of debt most often hidden at deal time. · GitClear, 2026
- The estimated cost of poor software quality in the US. (CISQ, 2022)
- $2.41tn
- The estimated cost of poor software quality in the US. · CISQ, 2022
What you get
Pre-deal diligence
An independent, code-level read of what a target is really worth and what it is carrying, fast enough to fit the deal timeline.
A day-one baseline
The same reading becomes the baseline for the asset you now own, so integration and oversight start from evidence.
One measure across the book
Every portfolio company read on the same independent scale, so software health is comparable holding to holding.
Value-creation tracking
Output, quality and the AI shift tracked over the hold, so the technology part of the value-creation plan is measured, not assumed.
How a deal team uses it
The same lens from first look to exit, so a portfolio stops being a collection of separately reported companies.
01Read the target before you sign
Diligence from the codebase itself rather than the data room: what the software is really worth, what debt is buried in it, and how much of it is AI-generated. Days, inside a live process.
02Turn the diligence into the day-one baseline
The reading taken before the deal becomes the opening line of the value-creation plan. No re-baselining six months later from management's own numbers.
03Put the whole book on one scale
Every company measured the same way, so portfolio reviews compare like with like instead of comparing each management team's reporting style.
04Track value creation rather than activity
Whether the engineering investment in each company is turning into output and quality, quarter by quarter, independently of the story being told internally.
05Arrive at exit with the evidence already in hand
A documented, independent record of what the software estate produced under your ownership. Otherwise a buyer's own diligence discovers it first, and prices it.
Questions
The questions worth asking
How fast can diligence run inside a live deal?
The first reading lands within days and includes history, so it fits a diligence window rather than extending it. It does not depend on interviews or workshops with the target, which keeps it discreet.
What access is needed, and is it secure?
Read-only access to the repositories in scope, with the deployment model chosen to suit the process, including inside a controlled cloud environment. Sandboxed and audit-trailed, and the source code is not stored.
Can you roll it out across an existing portfolio?
Yes. The same measure applies to every company, so an existing portfolio can be read on consistent terms, not just new acquisitions.
Sources
- Deloitte and Patsnap, 2026 Failed technical due diligence costs acquirers around 25% of deal value.
- GitClear, 2026 Maintainability Gap study, 211M lines of code: the share of new code rewritten within two weeks rose from 3.3% to 7.1%; duplicated code blocks up 81%; cross-file reuse down 35%; refactoring moves down 70%.
- CISQ, 2022 Cost of poor software quality in the US at least $2.41 trillion, of which ~$1.52 trillion is accumulated technical debt.
Read every company in the portfolio on the same independent terms.