The Complete Guide to Tech Due Diligence

During a fundraising, a merger or acquisition or a strategic partnership, the Technological Due Diligence is the key step in assessing the strength of a company's IT assets. It involves analyzing software, infrastructure, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and technical organization to identify hidden risks…but also the differentiating assets.

Summary

  1. What is Tech Due Diligence?
  2. Why is it essential?
  3. What does a Due Diligence audit cover?
  4. The 5 critical points that investors look at
  5. Conclusion

What is Tech Due Diligence?

Tech Due Diligence is a structured audit of a company's digital assets and technical organization.
Objective : detect red flags (poorly managed licenses, excessive technical debt, critical dependencies, poor security) which can block or renegotiate a deal.

Unlike a simple technical audit, it goes beyond the code to challenge the company's ability to deliver its roadmap and support its Business Plan.

Why is it essential?

Tech Due Diligence allows you to:

  • Identify the deal breakers before they explode in full integration.
  • Evaluate the scalability and maintainability of the technical stack.
  • Check the legal and regulatory compliance (GDPR, licenses, IP).
  • Measure the organizational maturity teams (dev methods, product culture, DevOps).
  • Prepare a successful integration during a merger or acquisition.

In short: it is better to anticipate risks than to suffer them after signing.

What does a Due Diligence audit cover?

A complete audit generally includes three components:

1. Technical audit and scalability

  • Stack and architecture analysis.
  • Code quality, automated testing, technical debt.
  • Security and GDPR compliance.
  • Infrastructure resilience (backups, disaster recovery, peak load management).

2. Organization & process audit

  • Methodology (Agile, DevOps, CI/CD).
  • Project management tools.
  • Product culture, UX, taking customer feedback into account.

3. People audit

  • Team sizing vs roadmap.
  • Distribution of skills, dependencies on key profiles.
  • Recruitment, onboarding and retention processes.

The 5 critical points that investors look at

  1. Codebase : quality, maintainability, technical debt.
  2. Intellectual property : open source licenses, patents, code rights.
  3. GDPR & Compliance : data management and compliance with legal obligations.
  4. Security : cybersecurity, secure development practices.
  5. Scalability : ability to support future growth and volumes.

A well-conducted Tech DD audit not only helps secure a deal, but also highlight technological value of a startup.

Conclusion

Tech Due Diligence isn't just a formality: it's the assurance of a controlled investment. It reveals a product's real strengths, while identifying critical weaknesses before they become financial or strategic risks.

These operations often take place in a tight deadline (1 to 3 weeks) : it is better to arrive prepared.

👉 At SOS-CTO, we offer rapid and modular audits, with a clear deliverable:

  • Executive Summary with the Red Flags,
  • Prioritized recommendations,
  • Organizational, technical and human analysis.

Because a deal can be lost over a technical detail, it's better to have the audit than not to have it. Even if it's a short notice, we can help you urgently – appointments within 24 hours!

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