Private
Equity
Theory Intelligence provides private equity investors with verified primary research for commercial due diligence, portfolio value creation and exit preparation: customer, operator and competitor interviews where every participant is identity checked, every claim is traceable, and a named researcher signs the recommendation.
- Commercial due diligence Signal Brief: 6 to 8 verified customer or operator interviews in 10 business days, USD 7,500 to 12,000
- Full Decision Study for a platform acquisition: 15 to 30 interviews in 4 to 6 weeks, USD 25,000 to 75,000
- Compressed 3-week Decision Study available for deal timetables
- Every interview verified; no expert-network recycling; no synthetic respondents
- Provenance appendix satisfies investment committee and lender questions on evidence
The problem with diligence evidence
A commercial due diligence report usually rests on two things: a management presentation written to sell, and a set of customer calls that are hard to audit after the fact. In the last two years both have become less reliable. AI-drafted market sections have been found with invented citations. Customer reference lists are curated. Expert network calls are efficient but the same experts appear across many deals, and no one on the buy side has checked who they really are.
The cost of that unreliability lands at the investment committee, where a partner is asked whether the revenue retention story is real and has to answer on the basis of a deck. Theory replaces the deck with evidence that can be traced.
What we do for investors
Pre-LOI and confirmatory diligence
A Signal Brief in the first two weeks answers the one question that determines whether to proceed: do customers actually behave the way the CIM says they do. Six to eight verified customer or channel interviews, verbatim quotations, a signed two-page read. In confirmatory diligence a Decision Study covers the full commercial case: market size from the bottom up, customer retention drivers, competitive threat, pricing power, with fifteen to thirty verified interviews and every management claim tested against them.
Value creation
After close, the questions become operational: which segment to prioritise, whether to raise prices, whether the sales motion works in a new geography. An Intelligence Retainer gives the portfolio company and the deal team a monthly verified read on customers and competitors without adding headcount.
Exit preparation
A vendor due diligence built on verified interviews and a provenance appendix is a different document from one built on a management survey. Buyers' advisers can check every claim. That speeds the process and supports the price.
Why verified matters here specifically
Deal evidence is adversarial. The seller has selected what you see. Experts on networks are paid for their time and are not always who their profile says. Online survey panels, sometimes used to size markets, are 30 to 40 percent compromised according to Kantar. In that environment, the fact that every Theory participant is identity and role verified, and that the report shows how, is not a nicety. It is the difference between evidence and anecdote.
Independence
Theory has no relationship with the sell side, with expert networks or with technology vendors. When the evidence contradicts the thesis, the report says so, and the researcher signs it.
All work is delivered under The Theory Standard. See services and prices.
Questions from private equity clients
How fast can Theory support a live deal?
A Signal Brief starts within five business days of order and delivers in ten. A compressed Decision Study can be delivered in three weeks. We will tell you at scoping what the compression costs in interview count.
Do you use expert networks?
Not as a substitute for our own recruitment. We recruit and verify participants directly. Where a network is the only route to a particular person, we still verify that person ourselves and say so in the provenance appendix.
Can the report be shared with lenders and co-investors?
Yes. The deliverable is yours to share with advisers, lenders and co-investors under the engagement terms. The provenance appendix is designed to answer their questions.
A private equity question worth answering properly?
Write to info@theoryintel.com with the decision. A researcher replies within one business day with a fixed price and a start date.
Start a brief