Pre-IC Diligence Brief

A focused diligence brief for teams that need a clearer view before taking an opportunity to IC.

The Pre-IC Diligence Brief is designed for investors, M&A teams, corporate development functions, and advisors who need fast, structured intelligence before committing senior attention, external diligence spend, or formal process resources.

The module focuses on downside control: target positioning, revenue-quality indicators, competitive context, operational risk themes, and the questions that should be tested before moving further.

Turnaround: 72 hours
Delivered as: PDF diligence brief, risk register, and source-linked evidence register.

What this module answers

This module is built around one core question:

What should we understand before this opportunity reaches IC?

It helps clients identify the areas that may strengthen, weaken, or complicate an investment thesis before the opportunity moves into a more formal decision process.

What you receive

You receive a concise diligence brief covering the target or opportunity context, market positioning, competitor landscape, commercial quality indicators, operational red flags, and priority questions for further diligence.

The output is designed to help teams separate genuine concerns from noise, identify areas requiring deeper work, and prepare a more disciplined internal discussion.

Typical use cases

This module is useful when a team is reviewing a potential acquisition, assessing an inbound opportunity, preparing for an IC discussion, pressure-testing an investment thesis, or deciding whether to continue spending time on a target.

It can also support early-stage screening where the core question is not “Should we buy this?” but “Is this worth deeper diligence?”

To begin, we usually need the target company or opportunity description, geography, sector, transaction context if available, and any specific concerns already identified by the team.

If the target is confidential, the brief can begin from an anonymised description with limited identifying details.

What this is not

This module is not legal advice, tax advice, regulated investment advice, accounting advice, valuation advice, or a recommendation to proceed with a transaction.

It is a source-linked intelligence product designed to support pre-IC preparation, risk identification, and internal decision-making.

Use the Pre-IC Diligence Brief when you need a fast, structured, and commercially grounded view of the risks, questions, and context around a target before moving further.