Tech Due Diligence for VC: What I Check and Why

Tech DD isn't a code review. It's an assessment of execution risk: can this team deliver what the roadmap promises, and is the technical foundation capable of sustaining the growth the investment assumes?

Most funds approach DD too late — when the term sheet is already on the table and time pressure distorts the analysis.

1. Architecture and scalability — Can the system handle 5–10× the current load without a full rewrite? Where are the structural bottlenecks? 2. Codebase quality and technical debt — Not a code audit, but an assessment of what's blocking delivery right now. How much of the team's capacity is consumed by maintenance vs. new features? 3. Release process and delivery predictability — How often does the team ship? How long does a change cycle take from commit to production? Is there a functioning CI/CD pipeline?

4. Product–engineering–data ownership — Who owns the roadmap? Who makes technical decisions and on what basis? Are there clear escalation paths? 5. Roadmap quality and alignment with KPIs — Does the roadmap have measurable business outcomes or just a list of features? Is it tied to the KPIs the fund cares about? 6. Discovery process and product decisions — How does the team validate assumptions before building? Is there evidence of customer insight informing prioritisation?

7. Analytics and metric reliability — Can the team show growth with data, or just with narratives? Are the metrics definitions consistent and independently verifiable? 8. Security, compliance and operational risk — GDPR, data residency, access control, incident response. What's the liability exposure? 9. Leadership competencies and team structure — Is the technical leadership capable of scaling beyond the current stage? What's the single-point-of-failure risk? 10. 30/60/90 plan and implementation readiness — Does the team have a plan for what changes post-investment? Is that plan realistic?

A readiness score (1–10 per point), a prioritised risk map, and a 30/60/90 action plan. Not a PDF that sits in a drawer — a working document the fund can use in post-investment board conversations.

Timeline: 1–2 weeks, remote or on-site.