Who We Serve · Private Equity
Former competitors, customers, suppliers, and executives from inside your target's market — sourced, conflict-checked, and scheduled inside diligence timelines. With transcripts and synthesis that feed straight into the IC memo.
10 days
Typical diligence window
Diligence-Grade Inputs
Deal teams don't need more opinions — they need operators, customers, and former competitors of the target, cleared of conflicts, on calls that produce transcripts the committee can question line by line.
Across the Deal Lifecycle
Sourcing & Screening
Early operator conversations to test a sector thesis before committing diligence budget — is the dynamic you've spotted real, and who's exposed to it?
Pre-LOI
Fast, discreet practitioner reads on the target's market position, reputation, and the questions worth pressing before you sign the LOI.
Confirmatory DD
Structured expert programmes — former competitors, customers, suppliers, ex-employees — with transcripts and synthesis feeding the IC memo.
Post-Close
Operators who have executed the playbook your portfolio company is about to run — pricing resets, channel expansion, ops turnarounds, add-on integration.
Portfolio
Rolling expert access for portfolio company strategy questions, market shifts, and competitive moves — one relationship covering the whole portfolio.
Exit
Pressure-test the equity story the way a buyer's diligence team will — and close the gaps before they find them.
What Your Deal Team Gets
Compressed timelines, shifting priorities, absolute discretion. The service is designed around the realities of a live process — not a leisurely research calendar.
Start with one deal
Run a single diligence sprint with us — no retainer, no annual commitment — and judge the operator quality yourself.
Submit a Project01
Former competitors, major customers, suppliers, distributors, and ex-employees — recruited for your specific deal questions, not pulled from a generic sector list.
02
Briefs acknowledged same day, initial conflict-cleared profiles typically within days, calls scheduled around your diligence calendar — including evenings and weekends when the process demands it.
03
Experts never learn the fund's identity or that a transaction exists. Briefs are handled by a single project lead under strict access controls — no information leakage across our client base.
04
Verbatim transcripts within two business days, structured summaries per call, and a cross-call synthesis at sprint close — primary evidence your memo can cite and your IC can interrogate.
05
Per-engagement conflict checks, MNPI protocols acknowledged before every call, and documented engagement records. Your firm's own expert network policy applied on request.
06
No retainer, no platform fee, no minimum call package. Pay for the sprint you run — with a free replacement if any expert isn't the right fit.
Strengthen the Evidence Base
A right-sized survey of the target's customer base (50–300 respondents) quantifies what the expert calls surfaced — churn intent, price sensitivity, NPS — under the same scope and timeline.
FAQ
Something specific? Write to sales@astuteconnect.com — we respond within one business day.
Niche targets are where we differentiate. Our team recruits specifically for your deal — adjacent competitors, channel participants, former employees, and customers — rather than relying on whoever is already in a database. If a brief is genuinely hard to fill, we say so upfront.
Experts learn only the consultation topic and that the client is an investment firm — never the fund's name, never that a transaction is underway. Internally, deal briefs are restricted to your project lead. Consultations are framed as market research, not deal diligence.
Most commercial diligence sprints run 5–12 calls across two to four question areas, over one to three weeks. We scope to your IC date and deal questions — a single targeted call works too.
Yes. Portfolio company leadership teams can run their own briefs under the fund's relationship — strategy validation, market expansion, competitive tracking, and operator advisory for value-creation initiatives.
Yes — restricted lists, cooling-off periods for former employees, chaperoned calls, recording requirements. Share the policy once and we apply it to every engagement. We're also happy to walk your compliance team through our framework first.
Send the deal questions — conflict-cleared operator profiles typically within days, synthesis ready for the memo.
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