Will it work?  Really?  How do you know?

Due diligence seeks to mitigate risk by answering hard questions.

Factotem’s Technology Due Diligence practice has worked with dozens of investors and entrepreneurs, content providers, IP developers, licensors and licensees, to help wrap a little reality around a hazy transaction:

1. Claims discover and verification represents over half of all due diligence engagements – show me, show me, show me – a Missourian’s approach to dealmaking. The diligence exercise documents claims – how many? how fast? how strong? how well?  Then, for each claim, the diligence officer simply verifies and validates.  The findings are presented to the client, along with analysis and recommendations.
2. Financial Review and Modeling are a mainstay of all diligence engagements, as assumptions and risks are translated into dollars and common sense.
3. Secondary research is commonly employed in diligence engagements, for benchmarking or market validation. Compiling existing research is often faster (read: cheaper) than conducting a study, and can be used as examples, footnotes or see-I-toldja’s.
4. Primary research is still useful, in a diligence context, especially when testing novel applications.  Factotem executes studies ranging from HR/360′s to pricing elasticity, leveraging client relationships and the expertise of the Constellation.
5. Intellectual Property and Legal Diligence adds a vital perspective to many M&A and Licensing projects.  Factotem has consulted on a range of licensing models (including Open Source), and advised clients on trade secret and patent/defense strategy.