Consulting service
M&A & Commercial Due Diligence
Commercial due diligence tests whether a target company's market, customers and growth story support the valuation. Douglas Insights delivers CDD for private equity, venture and corporate acquirers, sizing the real demand, stress-testing the pipeline and benchmarking the target against competitors inside deal timelines.
The problem
Where this usually goes wrong
Management-case optimism
The CIM forecast assumes share gains in a market nobody has independently sized.
Customer concentration blind spots
Three accounts carry half of revenue and none of them has been interviewed.
Deal-speed shortcuts
Diligence windows are short, so market work gets skipped and priced in as risk instead.
Overpaying for a mispriced market story is the most expensive research you never bought, and it is discovered in year two of the hold period when the growth plan misses.
Our approach
How Douglas Insights solves it
Frame the deal questions
The three to five market questions the valuation actually depends on, agreed with the deal team.
Size and test the market
Independent bottom-up sizing and forecast, compared line by line with the management case.
Interview the market
Customers, churned accounts, channel partners and competitors, under NDA-safe protocols.
Report for the IC
Findings mapped to the investment thesis with clear support, challenge and risk flags.
What you receive
Named deliverables, not vague workstreams
- Independent market size and growth forecast
- Management case versus market case bridge
- Customer and churn interview findings
- Competitive position and threat assessment
- Key risk register with materiality ratings
- IC-ready report and red flag summary
- Post-deal 100 day market priorities where engaged
Where this applies
Typical situations
Every figure ships with a numbered source. Interviews, filings and trade data are logged in a source register, and the working model is part of the deliverable.
Read the methodology →Common questions
M&A & Commercial Due Diligence: frequently asked questions
Can you work inside a two to three week window?
Yes. CDD engagements are staffed for deal timelines, with an interim findings call in week one and the IC report at the agreed date.
How do you handle confidentiality?
Work runs under NDA, interviews use disclosed but unattributed protocols and reports are prepared for defined recipients only.
Do you cover niche industrial markets?
Yes. Bottom-up methods work best precisely where syndicated coverage is thin, which is where most mid-market deals live.
Can the same team support us post-close?
Yes. The analysts who ran the diligence can carry the model into 100 day planning and annual strategy work.
Scope a m&a & commercial due diligence engagement
A 30 minute call to define the question, then a fixed fee proposal within 48 hours with named deliverables and timeline.