Operational due diligence for venture capital firms, venture debt funds, lenders, angel investors and family offices. I read how a company runs day to day - processes, systems, people - and tell you where productivity, quality and continuity break against the plan, before you wire the money. Written in 1-2 weeks, at deal pace.
The economics behind DD: read the 10x Rule - operational gaps in target companies become 10x more expensive once the fund owns them.
A fund or a lender rarely needs an operator once. The same execution question comes back at every deal, inside every company that is struggling, and again before every follow-on. What compounds is knowing the operator already, so there is no re-briefing and no second discovery.
Operational diligence on the target. Can the processes, the systems and the team carry the plan being pitched?
1-2 weeks, at deal paceThe 90-day plan executed rather than filed. Interim cover, a stalled migration, board reporting the company cannot build yet.
Per job, as it comes upA readiness check ahead of a follow-on or a refinancing, so the operational story going into the round is the real one.
Ahead of each raiseAn operational dimension added to the underwriting itself, scored the same way every time. Your team runs it. I am not in the loop on future deals.
Once, then it is yoursThree layers - the processes, the systems people use, and the culture around them - read for what they say about productivity, quality and continuity. This is a surface read on how the company runs, not a code audit or a model review. Where a deal needs a specialist, I say so.
Who decides, where work queues, where handoffs drop things, and how long it takes to get from a decision to something delivered. Bottlenecks named specifically, and what breaks at the next headcount step.
The tools people use every day, judged by whether the work goes through them or around them. A team routing around its own systems is visible in a week, and it is usually paid for in hours nobody counts.
What gets redone, what reaches the customer and comes back, and how much of the week goes on that. Rework is capacity, and inside the company it usually reads as a headcount problem.
Where knowledge sits in one person's head, what stalls while they are away, and what the company has never had to run without them. Knowledge silos, governance gaps, single points of failure.
Decision patterns under pressure, how cross-functional work is actually coordinated, and the distance between the stated culture and the observed one. Often the highest-value part of the assessment.
If you invest, what the value creation plan should cover, prioritised. Written so your team can act on it without me.
Every engagement starts with a signed mutual NDA and a written scope before any work begins, and the confidentiality obligations continue after the engagement ends. Access is limited to the systems and documents the specific job requires. Nothing from one client is carried into another, and no client work becomes a case study, named or unnamed, without written permission.
Beyond the paperwork, the model is built to move knowledge into the company rather than out of it. Every engagement ends with a written handover: the root cause, the process change, and what your team now runs on its own. An agency or a retainer consultant has a structural reason to keep that knowledge on their side, because it is what makes the next invoice necessary. Here the handover is the deliverable.
Venture capital firms (seed to growth stage), angel investors, family offices, corporate venture arms, and accelerators. Especially useful for tech-forward funds investing in fintech, SaaS, AI, and early-stage operational companies.
Standard DD: 1-2 weeks. Light DD focused on a specific risk area: 3-5 days. Comprehensive (technical + operational + AI + team): 2-3 weeks. Express DD for time-sensitive deals possible at premium rate.
Confidential 15-25 page PDF: executive summary with a clear execution-readiness verdict, how the work moves and where it queues, whether the systems carry the work, what quality costs in rework, key-person and continuity risk, red flags requiring deal terms or post-close action, and prioritized post-investment value creation recommendations.
Three differences.
1. Faster. 1-2 weeks vs 6-8 weeks. Modern deal pace requires modern DD speed.
2. Operator-led. I spent 10+ years actually building and scaling the systems I assess - building the onboarding that scaled an R&D team from 30 to 150 engineers, shipping regulated banking products to 100K+ users. Pattern recognition comes from earned scars, not framework application.
3. Independent & small. No partner approval cascade, no junior associate doing the first draft. One experienced operator owning the assessment - which means findings are sharp, calibrated, and honest by structural design.
Yes - this is the model I'm building toward. Pre-investment DD followed by continued work with the portfolio company as fractional PM/COO/coach if there's a fit. The same person who diagnosed the issues helps fix them. Cleaner handoff, faster value creation, and a continuous feedback loop that keeps the DD process honest. For VCs whose model accommodates this, it's substantially more efficient than serial consulting engagements.
Yes. NDA is standard. Both with the VC firm and the target company. Findings are shared only with the engaging fund. Data accessed during DD is destroyed after report delivery unless ongoing engagement is contracted.
Three options:
1. Per-deal: Light DD scoped to your budget. Standard DD scoped to your budget. Comprehensive DD scoped to your budget. Express DD (24-48h) scoped to your budget.
2. Retainer: Monthly retainer for funds doing 3+ DDs/quarter. Better economics + faster turnaround.
3. Annual partnership: Discounted rates + first-priority scheduling for funds doing high deal volume.
Strongest fit: fintech, digital banking, SaaS, AI/ML companies, adtech, B2B operational tools, and any tech-forward operating company.
Less ideal: deep tech (hardware, biotech), pure consumer brands without tech component, deeply regulated industries I haven't worked in (med devices, defense).
Honest fit assessment is part of the intro call.
30-minute scoping call. Tell me the deal context, target company, what you're worried about, and timeline. I'll come back with a scoped proposal within 24 hours - or tell you honestly if I'm not the right fit.
Commercial and financial diligence tell you whether the plan is worth backing. They do not tell you whether this company can execute it. The plan assumes a certain speed, a certain scale, and a certain kind of team. I start from the business processes that plan depends on, then ask whether the technology and the people can carry them. The longer argument for why this sits outside the standard diligence pack is here.
Process maturity and how work actually moves: who decides, where it queues, where handoffs drop, cycle time between decision and delivery, and what breaks at the next headcount threshold.
Do the processes that work at 40 people survive the 120 the plan requires?The systems people work in every day, judged by whether the work goes through them or around them - including whether the AI in the deck maps onto a process the company actually runs.
Does the stack carry the work the plan describes, or is the team working around it?Founder dependencies, decision rights, key-person risk, and whether the team can absorb the change the plan demands.
Is this a team that can run at the pace being promised, or one that has never been asked to?One assessment tells you about one company. The more useful version is upstream: most underwriting models weigh market, team pedigree, and financials, and carry no operational dimension at all. That is why the same category of surprise keeps arriving after the close.
This improves how the fund assesses execution capability. It is not investment advice, not a valuation methodology, and not a view on which investments to make. Where and how capital is deployed remains entirely the fund's decision.
An equity investor is underwriting upside, and a company that executes slowly is a dilution problem to be solved at the next round. A lender is underwriting downside. Repayment is mandatory whether the milestone lands or not, and the upside is capped, so the risk that matters is the company failing to do the thing it said it would do.
Which is why this work fits venture debt funds, tech-lending desks, revenue-based financiers and family offices at least as well as it fits equity funds - and why the same read is worth repeating during the loan term, not only before it is written.
A fund cannot put a partner inside every company it backs. I take the operating jobs a portfolio company has no one for, paid by the job, with no retainer to the fund.
This is an operational, technical, and organizational assessment of a target company. It is not investment advice, investment marketing, securities advice, a valuation, an audit, or a legal or tax opinion, and it is not a recommendation to make or refrain from making any investment. May Mor is not a licensed investment adviser, investment marketer, or portfolio manager.
The investment decision, and all responsibility for it, remains entirely with the client. Findings are based on the documents, systems, and interviews made available during the engagement, within the agreed timeframe, and cannot be complete. Where a finding requires a licensed professional - legal, accounting, tax, audit, or regulatory - that is stated in the report and referred out.
Every engagement is covered by a written scope and a mutual confidentiality agreement before work begins.
Book a 30-minute scoping call. NDA-friendly. Fast turnaround. Written scope before we start.