Technical Due Diligence: What Founders Should Know
A practical guide for founders preparing for technical due diligence during fundraising or acquisition.
David Okonkwo
Lead EngineerTechnical due diligence can make or break a funding round or acquisition. Investors and acquirers aren't just evaluating your product — they're evaluating the risk of the technology underpinning it.
The areas that receive the most scrutiny: code quality and architecture, security practices, infrastructure reliability, team capabilities, and technical debt levels.
Preparation starts long before due diligence begins. Maintain architecture documentation, keep dependencies updated, implement proper access controls, and have monitoring in place.
Preparation starts long before due diligence begins.
Common red flags: no automated testing, credentials in source code, single points of failure in infrastructure, and key-person dependency where one engineer holds all institutional knowledge.
The companies that navigate due diligence smoothly treat it as an ongoing practice, not a one-time scramble before a deal.