Programs

Strategy · Facilitator-led

Due Diligence Sprint

Sourced diligence on a target and its market

Six rooms: five research reports and one guided document, assigned by the deal lead. Each room is built around the deal team's own situation and the target it names. Unlimited attempts.

6 rooms · about 1 hour 35 min

Start program

Who it's for: Deal teams at investors, private equity firms, corporate development teams and lenders weighing a target before a bid, term sheet or credit decision.
Format: Facilitator-led
Program sessions: 6

Who it's for

Deal teams at investors, private equity firms, corporate development teams and lenders weighing a target before a bid, term sheet or credit decision.

Output

Five sourced reports on the target and its market, each with a confidence rating on every section
A deal decision document tested against strategic fit, economics, governance and integration risk, with a clear go or no-go verdict
For the deal lead, every report and the decision document in one place, ready for the investment committee
Every report rests on named, cited sources; the deal decision is built from what the team states and pressure-tested by Ren

Program contents

Outside view · Company Profile
Financial trajectory · Financial Health
Strategic exposure · Company Deep Dive
Market picture · Market Intelligence
Competitive position · Competitive Landscape
Deal decision · Partnership Evaluation

How the program works

A six-week program for deal teams doing early due diligence on a named investment or acquisition target, assigned by the deal lead, built on Renatus. Five research rooms and one document room · Six weeks, one room a week · Every room can be run again · Ongoing thereafter.

The rooms

Company Profile

Research

The owner names the target, its region and the team's role.

Financial Health

Research

The owner names the target, its region, the team's role, and the ticker if the target is listed, or "private" if it is not.

Company Deep Dive

Research

The owner names the target, its region, the team's role and the decision the deep dive is feeding, for example growth equity, a minority stake, or acquisition due diligence.

Market Intelligence

Research

The owner names the industry, the sub-sector, the region and the countries the target's market spans.

Competitive Landscape

Research

The owner names the same industry, sub-sector and region, and the team's role in the market.

Partnership Evaluation

Framework

The team names the target as the counterparty, what the deal is meant to achieve, what each side gets, how decisions will be made after close, and what has to integrate operationally.

Why this program exists

Early diligence is usually done by the most junior person on the deal, under the most time pressure, and written up in a memo nobody can trace back to a source. Management's own deck ends up shaping the picture, because it is the best-organised document in the data room, and by the time a commercial diligence provider is engaged the partner has often already formed a view. This program prepares the deal team through research and one decision room. Ren researches the target and its market from named sources and writes a sourced report on each, then turns the team's own findings into a deal decision, tested against strategic fit, economics, governance and integration risk, with a clear verdict.

What you'll achieve

Five sourced reports on the target and its market, each with a confidence rating on every section
A reconciliation against the data room and a ranked list of questions for management, built one report at a time
A deal decision document tested against strategic fit, economics, governance and integration risk, with a clear go, go-with-conditions or no-go verdict
Unlimited re-runs of any report or the decision document, each a new, dated version, for as long as the deal is live

At a glance

Who it's for: Deal teams of two to five: venture and growth investors between a first meeting and a term sheet, private equity teams before a first-round bid, corporate development teams before a letter of intent, and lenders sizing a credit. It is assigned by the deal lead running the process; the deal lead's lines are for whoever that is. The target can be listed or private, and every research room takes it as the team names it: its own name, its region and the team's role. It assumes the team already knows how to read a filing and a data room.
Cadence: 6 weeks
1: Outside view · Company Profile · Read the report and the one finding not on the target's own website
2: Financial trajectory · Financial Health · Read the numbers against management's deck
3: Strategic exposure · Company Deep Dive · Read where the target is exposed; decide whether the company picture justifies week 4
4: Market picture · Market Intelligence · Read the reconciled market size
5: Competitive position · Competitive Landscape · Read where the target sits and the battlegrounds named
6: Deal decision · Partnership Evaluation · Read the verdict before it goes to committee

Session by session

Week 1: Outside view

Get the outside view of the target before management's own deck shapes it.

Company Profile

Week 2: Financial trajectory

Get a sourced read of the numbers.

Financial Health

Week 3: Strategic exposure

Understand how the target operates strategically, and where it is most exposed.

Company Deep Dive

Week 4: Market picture

Establish whether the market is real, growing, and where the opportunity sits.

Market Intelligence

Week 5: Competitive position

Place the target against the players that matter, and name the fight that decides its position.

Competitive Landscape

Week 6: Deal decision

Turn five weeks of findings into a tested deal decision.

Partnership Evaluation

Five sourced reports and a deal decision, one a week for six weeks.

Start program

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability