What actually is due diligence? How does it work and how should you if you find yourselves approaching one best prepare for it? Barr Blanton CEO of Crosslake Technologies, whose strapline is “private equity and management teams trusted advisor for technology”, and half of whose business is doing due dil joins us to outline what due diligence is and how to handle it best for both buyer and seller (or in the case of VC raises when raising). Crosslake advise 500 Private Equity firms worldwide and have done an amazing 3,500 due dils in recent years so who better to ask?

Due diligence is a topic that few of you may have come across but it’s an absolutely vital one to know about – not least of which as the most common case is that VCs/PEs funding offers are always dependent on due diligence – rather like your offer to buy a house is conditional on a survey first.

There is a parallel here with another funding phase change stage that of IPOing. As we have heard in prior LFPs on How To IPO unsurprisingly the companies who get themselves in shape well ahead of deciding to IPO fare best. The same applies to due diligence yet the realpolitik is that plenty leave the shall we say “internal tidying up off the office” to roughly the day before the inspector comes round leading to a non-ideal experience.

Topics discussed include:

• Barr’s extensive international business experience

And much much more