Vendor Due Diligence

Vendor selection drives years of cost, switching risk, and operational dependency. The decision is too often based on RFP scoring and incumbent relationships, particularly in categories where the underlying technology landscape is shifting rapidly enough that the vendor selected today may not be the right answer two years into the implementation. A serious vendor diligence treats the vendor as a long-dated investment: assessing whether the platform will remain viable, the roadmap will be executed, and the commercial terms will continue to make sense as the category evolves.

We support private equity sponsors, portfolio companies, and enterprise buyers in evaluating strategic vendor and platform decisions. The work draws on continuous coverage of the emerging technology landscape, direct implementation experience across most of the vendor categories we assess, and a strict vendor-neutral posture: we do not resell, we do not take referral fees, and our diligence is paid for by the buyer.

The work covers:

• Technology assessment including architecture, scalability, security posture, and technical debt
• Financial health analysis including runway, burn rate, revenue quality, and customer concentration
• Roadmap credibility evaluation against engineering capacity and historical execution
• Competitive positioning including assessment of AI-native and emerging alternatives
• Commercial terms review covering pricing trajectory, price protection, and termination rights
• Implementation risk assessment grounded in real deployment experience
• Reference program with structured assessment of vendor behavior under operational stress
• Recommendation memo formatted for investment committee or executive decision