Capital — diligence
Before you wire seven figures into a digital asset, you should know what you're buying.
I run pre-deal digital due diligence for venture and private equity buyers acquiring digital businesses — agencies, e-commerce brands, content sites, SaaS, marketplaces. Operator-led, opinionated, written for an investment committee.
What we cover
01
Organic search moat
Authority profile, ranking volatility, content quality and gaps, structural SEO debt, dependency on a small number of high-traffic pages, exposure to recent and upcoming Google updates.
02
Paid efficiency
Spend mix, channel ROAS, account hygiene, hidden over-spend, dependency on brand keywords, and recoverable margin if accounts are restructured.
03
GEO and AI-search exposure
How visible the brand is in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot. Is the asset's organic traffic about to be eaten by AI search? This is the single biggest under-priced risk in 2026 deals.
04
Tech and data
Stack health, technical debt, analytics integrity, attribution model, data warehouse maturity, and what it would cost to fix what's broken.
05
Team and process
Key-person dependencies, contractor concentration, hiring runway, and whether the operating model survives founder exit.
06
Brand and reputational risk
Backlink toxicity, review and reputation profile, social sentiment, and any structural issues that could surface post-deal.
Output
What you receive
- Investment committee–ready written report (PDF)
- One-page executive summary with red, amber and green flags
- Quantified upside and downside scenarios
- Ninety-minute walkthrough call with the deal team
- Two weeks of follow-up Q&A inclusive
Engagement tiers
Three depths. Pick what fits the deal.
Express
5 working days
From £6,500
- Top-line moat and risk assessment
- Best for early-stage IOI / pre-LOI sanity-check
- Suitable for asset value up to ~£3m
Most chosen
Standard
10 working days
From £14,000
- Full scope across all six areas
- Best for committed deals at LOI / SPA stage
- Suitable for asset value £3m–£25m
Deep
15 working days
From £24,000
- Full scope plus 100-day post-deal value-creation plan
- Best for platform deals or multi-asset roll-ups
- Suitable for asset value £25m+
Why me
Why have me do this
I run an agency, not a consultancy
What I write reflects what an operator would actually do — and what they would charge to fix it. No theoretical recommendations.
I'm closer to AI search than most
I'm building amivisible.co — a GEO and LLM-visibility audit product. Most diligence reports in 2026 still ignore AI search exposure. Mine doesn't.
I'm an investor too
I write SEIS and EIS cheques into UK scale-ups, so I read decks the same way you do. The report is written for IC, not for SEO professionals.
Brief me
Brief me on a deal.
Tell me the rough size of the target, the deal stage you're at, and when you need the report. Email hello@garethhoyle.com with subject "DD".
Email hello@garethhoyle.com