SELLSIDE For founders · 60–180 days before a raise or exit

Read your diligence report before your investors do

It's 11pm and you're staring at the data-room checklist. Somewhere in there is the question you can't answer cleanly: how much of this codebase did AI write, and can your team stand behind it? Your buyer's diligence team will write a report about your code. The only question is whether you've already read it.

§ 01TIMING The three moments findings surface

Every finding surfaces eventually. The price depends on when.

When it surfacesWhat it costs
In your audit
MONTHS BEFORE
You fix on your schedule, at your cost basis, with your own engineers or anyone you choose. The data room opens with "independently audited" in it.
In their diligence
UNDER DURESS
Repricing leverage moves across the table. Escrow holdbacks appear. Roughly a third of deals collapse at this hurdle — mostly on findings that were fixable months earlier. Emergency hardening runs 2–4× the calm-weather cost.
In production
POST-CLOSE
Now it's an incident, a rep-and-warranty claim, or an enterprise contract blocked pending a security review. The most expensive seat at this table.
§ 02MATH The repricing calculator

Put your own numbers in

Documented cost bands, applied to your situation. Estimates, not quotes — the audit replaces estimates with evidence.

HARDENING UNDER DURESS (2–4×)
TYPICAL HOLDBACK EXPOSURE
COST OF A DEAD DEAL

Bands derived from published hardening multiples (2–4×), loaded engineering cost, and standard escrow ranges. Your audit fee is fixed and published: pricing.

§ 03TRUST Confidentiality and risk reversal

Your report is yours. Full stop.

CONFIDENTIAL BY DEFAULT

We never disclose that an engagement exists — not to investors, not in marketing, not as a logo. You decide who sees the report, when, and whether "independently audited" enters your data room.

THE HALF-BACK PLEDGE

If the report surfaces nothing your team didn't already know, we refund half the fee. In practice, the second author has always left something behind.

And the doctrine protects you too: because we never sell fixes, the report has no inflated findings, no rebuild upsell, and full credibility with the other side of the table. Read the doctrine →

Raise on your version of the truth

Founding cohort: AI-Code Risk Audit $6,500 · Technical Integrity Audit™ $12,500. Raising inside two quarters? Say so when you book.

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