Underwrite the codebase, not the demo
Legal diligence gets $40K without a blink. Commercial diligence gets a workstream. The asset you're actually buying — the code — gets a screen-share and a handshake. One in five of your peers has already walked away from a deal over AI concerns. The rest closed anyway.
Deal-speed, contractually
The red-flag call
Within 72 hours of repository access: a verbal read on anything deal-threatening. Walk-away findings don't wait for a bound report.
The IC memo
A scored, benchmarked memo written for an investment committee: five dimensions, risk heatmap, provenance map, cost-to-carry ranges — evidence, not vibes.
Mobilization
Standing vendor terms mean the next deal starts with an email. Fixed per-deal pricing from $15,000 — under half a percent of a typical transaction.
What the memo answers: Is the architecture designed or accumulated? What did the second author write, and can this team answer for it? What does it cost to own — and what should that do to price, escrow, and the 100-day plan?
The honest comparison
| Alternative | Where it's right | Where it fails the deal |
|---|---|---|
| Big-firm tech DD | Excellent — for $100M+ transactions. | Minimums and mobilization built for platform deals; AI-code risk is one slide in an old deck. |
| A portfolio CTO's favor | Trusted, free, fast. | Uncalibrated, undocumented, unavailable at deal speed — and often a future board member grading their own deal. |
| Scanning tools | Cheap continuous signal. | No architecture judgment, no comprehension mapping, no IC-ready narrative, no accountability. |
| "Free audit" agencies | — | The audit is a sales device for the rebuild. Findings inflate by design. Carries no weight across the table. |
| INGENIZE | Independent by contract — we never sell fixes. Senior-only, named reviewers. Fixed price, published. 72-hour red flags, 5–10 day memo. | |
Portfolio Pulse
A quarterly light re-audit across your portfolio: provenance drift, duplication trendline, comprehension coverage — a one-page trendline per company, $3,500 per portfolio company per quarter. The board pack writes itself, and re-underwriting stops being an annual surprise.
The cheapest insurance in the deal
Fixed per-deal pricing, standing terms, 48-hour mobilization. Ask for the vendor pack: sample IC memo, SLA, rubric, and terms in one PDF.