AI due diligence and portfolio value creation
Two questions a deal team needs answered quickly: what is this target's AI exposure actually
worth, and what can be realised in the first year of ownership. We answer both with the same
method we use to deliver.
Most AI diligence produces a maturity rating. A rating does not tell you what
to underwrite.
We assess targets the way we assess our own engagements: which workflows are consuming
expensive capacity, what each would be worth if addressed, how ready the organisation is to
execute, and which of the three failure paths the existing programme is already on. The
output is a sized pipeline, not a score.
The same team then delivers against it post-close, which means the value case and the
people accountable for realising it are not two different firms.
Two engagements
One for the deal window, one for the hold period.
AI Value Diligence
Deal timeline · fixed fee
A commercial read on a target's AI position, built on the Value Creation
Sprint method and compressed to fit a diligence window.
- Where the target is losing capacity, and what it is worth annually
- Sized pipeline of realisable initiatives with effort and timing
- V.I.S.T.A. readiness assessment — can this organisation actually execute?
- Existing AI spend reviewed: what is earning, what is stranded
- Risk read on governance, auditability and regulatory exposure
Portfolio Implementation
Post-close · fixed fee or retainer
Delivery against the value case, in the portfolio company, with results
measured against the baseline captured at diligence.
- First production agent live in 8–12 weeks
- Reporting against the diligence baseline, not a fresh one
- Repeatable across portfolio companies with similar workflow profiles
- Capability left behind, so value does not walk out with the adviser
Why this team
Diligence advice is cheap. Diligence advice from people who then have to deliver it is a
different proposition.
Operators, not analysts
Our founder built and ran the Automation & AI Centre of Excellence inside Australia's
largest retailer. The value cases we write are ones we have had to deliver against.
Numbers that survive the IC
Delivered engagements have returned 114% to 455% at project level, with annual net
benefit measured against a pre-deployment baseline rather than modelled.
Built for scrutiny
ISO 27001 certification underway, targeting early 2027, with EU AI Act and GDPR compliance programmes being built alongside it —
relevant when a portfolio company operates in a regulated sector.
The fastest way to test the fit is a live target.
Bring one business you are looking at, or one portfolio company that has spent on AI
without a clear return. Thirty minutes is usually enough to tell you whether there is a
value case worth sizing properly.
Bring the workflow that's costing you most
Thirty minutes. It is the opening exercise from our Value Creation Sprint, scoped to one
workflow you choose. You leave knowing what the first agent would be and roughly what it is
worth — whether or not we end up working together.
