Technology Due Diligence for M&A in Houston
You are about to buy a company, and a large part of what you are buying runs on systems nobody outside the seller has ever examined. Technology due diligence tells you what the environment actually is, what it will cost to fix, and which findings are deal issues rather than post close cleanup. You get that in writing before the money moves.
The Problem
Houston deal flow leans heavily on energy services roll ups, physician practice consolidation, logistics and industrial services companies, and professional firms merging to add capability. In most of those transactions the seller's technology story is a vendor list and a comforting sentence about being in the cloud. Buyers learn after closing that the ERP is a customized instance nobody can upgrade, that field ticketing runs on a tower under a desk in a yard office, that dozens of former employees still hold active accounts, or that an incident two years ago was quietly handled and never disclosed. Integration then costs far more than the model assumed, and the first year of value creation gets spent on remediation instead of growth.
The Solution
We run the technical side of diligence on your timeline and report only to you and your advisors. The work is remote first: structured document and access requests, interviews with the target's technology lead and with the operators who actually use the systems, read only review of tenant and network evidence where the seller permits it, and independent verification rather than acceptance of management assertions. Because Houston is home base, we can sit in a management meeting or walk a facility anywhere in the metro when a site visit is part of the process. You receive a findings memo written for a deal team: what is real, what it costs, what belongs in the agreement, and what the first hundred days look like. Fees are scoped on a discovery call before any work begins.
Core Responsibilities
What we examine
Risk and liability findings
Numbers the deal team can use
Engagement Process
Scope and access
We confirm what the transaction actually requires, what the seller will allow, and issue the document and access request list within days of engagement. Diligence windows are short, so we open with the items that most often move valuation.
Evidence gathering
Interviews with the target's technology staff and with the people who run the systems day to day, plus direct review of tenant configuration, backup history, licensing records, and vendor contracts. We verify claims rather than transcribe them.
Findings and costing
Every issue receives a severity, an owner, and a cost range. You see which items are negotiating leverage, which are conditions to close, and which are simply budget lines for next year.
Report and readout
A written memo plus a working session with your deal team and, where needed, your lender. If you proceed, we hand over a first hundred day integration outline that the operating team can execute.
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Common Questions
How quickly can you turn an assessment around?
For a company in the range we serve, most assessments run two to three weeks from the moment access is granted, and we compress that when a bid deadline forces it. The constraint is rarely our side; it is how fast the seller answers document and access requests. We flag a slow response early so you can escalate through the banker rather than discover the problem at the deadline.
The seller will not open their systems to us. Is diligence still worth doing?
Yes, though the confidence level changes and we say so plainly in the report. Interviews, invoices, licensing records, contracts, and screen shared walkthroughs still surface most cost drivers and major risks. Every finding is labeled by how it was verified, so your investment committee knows what rests on evidence and what rests on management assertion.
We are acquiring a physician practice near the Texas Medical Center. What changes?
Healthcare targets carry HIPAA obligations that travel with the entity, plus practice management and imaging systems that are costly to migrate and often locked to a single vendor. We review business associate agreements, access logging, prior breach reporting, and whether patient records can actually be separated from the seller's other operations. Those belong in the agreement, not in a surprise thirty days after close.
Can you help a seller prepare instead of a buyer?
Yes, on separate engagements and never on the same transaction. Sell side preparation is often the better value: finding and fixing the issues a buyer would otherwise use to argue the price down, six to twelve months before you go to market. Buy side work reports only to you and stays confidential to your deal team.
What if the target has no internal technology staff at all?
That is common among smaller Houston services companies where an outside provider or an office manager holds everything. We interview the provider, review the contract for assignability and notice periods, and judge whether the relationship survives the transaction. A target with no internal knowledge is a specific integration risk, and we cost it as one rather than leaving it unstated.
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BOOK A CONSULTATIONTechnology Due Diligence for M&A for Houston, Texas
Houston is a deal town in ways that show up directly in the technology. Energy services companies in and around the Energy Corridor are bought and combined constantly, and each arrives with its own field ticketing system, its own dispatch spreadsheets, and remote sites where the network is whatever the crew could arrange. Physician groups and specialty practices near the Texas Medical Center are consolidating under larger platforms, which turns HIPAA obligations, imaging archives, and practice management contracts into deal terms rather than technical footnotes. Freight forwarders, drayage operators, and terminal service firms around the Port of Houston depend on EDI links and customs software that a buyer cannot simply lift into a new tenant on day one. Aerospace and defense suppliers near NASA Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake bring contract flow downs and CMMC expectations that many financial buyers have not priced into the model. Add Harris County flood exposure, and a target whose only server sits in a ground floor closet in a building that took water during the last storm becomes a genuine continuity question. Houston buyers also tend to move fast on proprietary deals sourced through relationships, which compresses diligence windows and makes it worth having someone local who can be in the room on short notice.
See the statewide overview of Technology Due Diligence for M&A or all services available in Houston.