AI Tool for M&A Due Diligence Launches

Commercial due diligence has long been a major bottleneck in M&A, with private equity firms paying top-tier consultancies like McKinsey, Bain, or BCG between $500,000 and $1 million for a single study. These deep dives, which are crucial for vetting an investment, traditionally take six to eight weeks to complete. The founding team's pedigree combines direct industry experience with technical expertise. Frederik Hansen, a former principal at Blackstone, previously commissioned these expensive reports, while co-founder Søren Biltoft spent seven years leading due diligence projects for BCG's private equity practice. They are joined by ex-Google engineer Harshil Rastogi. DiligenceSquared's platform utilizes AI voice agents to conduct customer and expert interviews in parallel and multiple languages. It then automates the synthesis of these findings into an interactive report where every conclusion is traceable to the original transcripts, with senior consultants providing a final layer of quality assurance. This tech-forward approach aims to slash the cost of a comprehensive analysis to around $50,000 while reducing the turnaround time from weeks to just a few days. The lower price point allows investment firms to conduct deep diligence on more potential deals earlier in the process, reducing the financial risk of preliminary research. The startup's $5 million seed round was led by Relentless, the new venture firm founded by former Index Ventures partner Damir Becirovic. DiligenceSquared is also backed by Y Combinator, which has seen a surge in companies building with voice AI. The move to automate diligence is heating up, signaling a broader trend of AI targeting high-cost professional services. Competitor Bridgetown Research recently raised a $19 million Series A co-led by Accel and Lightspeed, showing significant investor appetite for AI-native models that can disrupt the lucrative research workflow in finance.