Scope the decision
We agree the decision to be made, the evidence required, access, and the people involved before the engagement begins.
Engagement
Quant and investment technology due diligence
Commissioned by investors, acquirers, and allocators who need to know whether the technology and research behind a firm is what the deck says it is. I assess what exists, what it depends on, and what it would cost to keep running.
How it works
Start with the decision. Examine the evidence. Put the conclusion in writing.
Review the evidence
I work through the research, data, code, systems, and claims relevant to the agreed scope.
Put the answer in writing
Findings, supporting evidence, priorities, and unresolved questions are delivered in writing and discussed with your team.
Scope
Diligence areas
IP and key-person concentration
What is documented, what lives in one person's head.
Code quality and reproducibility
Can the results be regenerated from source today.
Data rights
Licensing, redistribution terms, vendor concentration, cost trajectory.
Track record verification
Claimed vs. demonstrable, and what the gap consists of.
Infrastructure cost and scalability
Unit economics at 3× and 10× current AUM.
Security and operational resilience
Access control, recovery, single points of failure.
Technical debt
The remediation cost a buyer inherits, quantified where possible.
Remediation paths
For each material finding, what fixing it realistically requires.
Further detail
Findings come with options, not just severity
A risk rating tells you something is broken. It doesn't tell you what to pay for it. For every material finding I set out the realistic paths - rebuild in-house, replace with a vendor, or contain and live with it - with indicative cost, elapsed time, and the dependency each one creates. Where a vendor or an open-source component is the obvious answer, I name it and say why.
This is scoped to inform the transaction. Designing and sequencing the target architecture is a separate engagement.
Further detail
What this typically surfaces
Concentration risk and reproducibility gaps, more often than code quality. A track record that cannot be regenerated from source is not a code problem - it is a valuation problem.
Output
Deliverables
- 01
Diligence report with risk-rated findings and supporting evidence
- 02
Red-flag summary for investment committee use
- 03
Remediation options per material finding - typically two or three paths, with indicative cost, timeline, and what each leaves unresolved
- 04
Management Q&A session and one follow-up round post-report
Decision
Outcome
A view of technical and research risk you can price into the deal or the allocation - with a costed remediation picture, so the number you negotiate against has something behind it.
Recommendations are vendor-neutral. If a QuantJourney component is relevant, I disclose the overlap explicitly and treat it as one option alongside external or internal alternatives.
Engagement
Start with the decision you need to make.
2-4 weeks. From $15,000. Final scope and fee are confirmed after a 30-minute call.