AdTech Investment Due Diligence
Evaluating an Early-Stage Voice Advertising Platform
Technical Due Diligence
Custom Applications
Business to Business
The Challenge
The target had developed a Conversation Ads platform for interactive voice advertising. In a market dominated by passive audio ads, this genuinely novel technology lets listeners have two-way conversations with brands. They had patents, major streaming platform integrations, and impressive growth. But our client needed answers: Was the technology as differentiated as claimed? Could this small team scale? What hidden risks might threaten the investment thesis?
What We Did
We ran a four-week assessment covering everything that matters: technology asset review, team and staffing analysis, development capability assessment, source code audit across all repositories, infrastructure and cost analysis including 12-month hosting expenses, security and compliance evaluation, and IP review of patents issued and pending.
The technology and IP were exactly as compelling as presented. But our assessment revealed that the company had traded process maturity for speed-to-market. By quantifying those risks, we helped the investor price the deal appropriately and plan for post-investment value creation.
The Outcome
The investor proceeded with the deal, using our findings to shape investment agreement requirements for security remediation, a post-close 100-day plan for process improvements, and an adjusted financial model reflecting infrastructure investment needs. They invested knowing exactly what they were getting and what the first year needed to look like.
What We Found
The technology was real—a working, scalable platform with patented core IP. But one developer had written 50-87% of the code across all major repositories. We found production credentials committed to source control, no automated testing, no CI/CD pipeline, and infrastructure costs scaling linearly with traffic. The team had traded process maturity for speed-to-market—a reasonable choice for an early startup, but one that creates real risk at scale.
