14 days from teaser to IC. Get an AI lens on the target by Wednesday.
Nerdster Scout is an AI-native diligence layer for every PE target. A senior engineer scores the target on five dimensions of AI readiness, sizes displacement risk and opportunity in pounds, and delivers a one-page IC-ready report in 48 hours. £1,500 per target. Your first report is free.
Every PE deal in 2026 needs an AI lens. Whether the target is at risk of AI displacement, whether AI can lift the post-deal operating margin, whether the moat survives the next eighteen months, the IC will ask. The fund needs an answer in the memo, not a hand-wave.
The traditional commercial DD firms take four to eight weeks and cost £50k–£250k per target. Useful, but slow and oversized for one specific question. Your internal team is excellent on revenue quality and customer concentration, but they are not specialist AI diligence, and they bill at £200–£400 an hour fully-loaded. There is no AI-specific diligence SKU sitting on the menu at any of the major firms.
Nerdster Scout fills that gap. A senior AI engineer reviews the target across five dimensions, scores it 0–100, sizes the risk and opportunity in pounds, and sends the report in 48 hours. It sits next to your commercial DD, not in place of it. Your first report is free so you can judge the work before you commit.
AI-native delivery, not AI-themed pitching.
A senior engineer uses Claude Code plus a purpose-built scoring rubric to compress what would normally be a one-week analyst job into four-to-six hours of focused review. The data ingestion runs in parallel against filings, LinkedIn, hiring signal, web traffic and patent data. The judgment layer stays human.
We do not sell AI-flavoured slideware. We use AI to deliver AI-grade due diligence at a speed and price the market has not seen before.
1. Data Hygiene
Quality, completeness and structure of the data the target sits on. Without clean data, no AI deployment ever ships. Scored on coverage, freshness, schema discipline, governance posture.
2. Talent & Capability
The target’s engineering and data team. Headcount, seniority mix, AI-relevant experience, recent hiring signal. We read LinkedIn, GitHub, conference talks, and recent role openings.
3. Infrastructure
Cloud posture, AI-tooling already in place, integration maturity. Whether the target can ship AI in three months or three years from a standing start.
4. Workflow Maturity
Which workflows are best-positioned for AI lift. Volume, repeatability, error-tolerance, and where the cost concentration sits. Sized in hours and pounds of opportunity.
5. Governance & Risk
EU AI Act readiness, GDPR exposure, sector-specific rules (FCA, SRA, ICO). Disqualifying gaps flagged. Compliance-cost estimate for the first year post-acquisition.
+ Moat & Displacement
Cross-cutting view: does the target’s competitive moat survive the next 24 months as AI reshapes the sector? Revenue lines at risk, sized in pounds.
Talent & Capability · 58
Infrastructure · 67
Workflow Maturity · 54
Governance & Risk · 60
↑ Deployment opportunity: £7.8m EBITDA uplift in 24 months
● Moat: defensible if AI investment begins in 12 months
Submit · Hour 0
Send target name, sector, and IC deadline through the form below. NDA signed before any work begins.
Confirm · Hour 4
Senior engineer confirms receipt, ETA, and flags anything we cannot cover (rare). You get a confirmed delivery time you can quote in the deal plan.
Deliver · Hour 48
One-page IC summary plus methodology appendix, delivered as a signed PDF and a portal link. Confidential, ready to forward to the deal team.
Debrief · Optional
Fifteen-minute call with the senior engineer to walk through nuance, defend a number, or pressure-test the moat assessment. Included free.
| What you get | Internal analyst | Commercial DD firm | Nerdster Scout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per target | £1.5k–£3k loaded | £50k–£250k engagement | ✓ £1,500 fixed (first free) |
| Turnaround | 5–10 working days | 4–8 weeks | ✓ 48 hours |
| AI domain expertise | Generalist team | Generalist team | ✓ Senior AI engineer signs every report |
| Output format | Slide deck or memo | 100–200 page deliverable | ✓ One-page IC summary + methodology appendix |
| Scoring rubric | Per-analyst, varies by deal | Bespoke per engagement | ✓ Same five dimensions every report, comparable across deals |
| Refresh cost | Re-do from scratch | New engagement | ✓ Quarterly refresh included in Active Diligence tier |
| Best used for | Revenue quality, customer concentration | Market sizing, competitive landscape | ✓ Specialist AI lens, sized in £ |
| Target | Score | Displacement risk | Deployment opportunity | What the rubric saw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octopus Energy · utility · today | 85/100 | £0 (24 month) | £280m EBITDA (24 month, incremental) | Future-built band. Kraken platform IS the moat. CH-verified: 9-director board, transparent PSCs, clean filings, charges are commodity-trading collateral not distress. |
| Made.com · e-commerce · June 2022 snapshot | 49/100 | £18m (24 month) | £12m EBITDA (24 month) | Emerging band. AI was not the deciding factor. The collapse was freight + demand reset, neither AI-fixable. AI lens flagged none of it, correctly. |
| Cazoo · used-car retail · December 2022 snapshot | 61/100 | £25m (24 month) | £48m EBITDA (24 month) | Scaling band. AI capability was strong. Collapse was capital structure + used-car price reset, not technology gap. The Cazana acquisition put real ML talent in-house. |
What this table shows: the rubric reports what it sees, not what the post-mortem narrative says. Made.com and Cazoo were not AI-readiness failures, the methodology flagged that. Knowing where AI cannot tell you the answer is as important as knowing where it can.
Scores produced from public information only. Reports SCOUT-2026-0001/0002/0003 held in internal portfolio. Available for inspection by qualified PE counterparties under NDA.
- · One target, one report
- · 48-hour turnaround
- · One-page IC summary + appendix
- · Senior signature
- · Optional 15-min debrief call
- · NDA before any work
Best for: trying us on one specific deal before committing to a programme.
- · Up to 15 targets per quarter
- · 48-hour turnaround on every target
- · Effective £800 per report at volume
- · One partner review session per quarter
- · Quarterly refresh on prior targets included
- · Slack channel with the senior team
Best for: funds running three-to-eight processes a quarter.
- · Unlimited targets
- · Four quarterly partner reviews
- · Portfolio competitive-intelligence dashboard
- · Onboarding workshop for the deal team
- · Custom rubric weights (optional)
- · Direct line to the senior engineer
Best for: funds processing >30 targets a year or wanting a portfolio-wide view.
Twenty years building, shipping and operating production systems across fintech, e-commerce, and B2B software. Hands-on with Claude Code, GPT-4 and Gemini in client delivery since 2024, not as a spectator. Every Scout report is signed personally; every debrief call is taken personally.
As Nerdster Scout grows, additional senior engineers will be named on individual reports. Today, every report is signed by the founder. You always know who wrote what you are reading.
References from current clients available on request, post-NDA. We will not publish client names or scores without explicit permission.
How can you deliver a credible AI diligence report in 48 hours?
Because we are AI-native. A senior engineer uses Claude Code and a purpose-built scoring rubric to compress what would be a one-week analyst job into four to six hours of focused review. The work is real; the speed is the product. We have run the same rubric across hundreds of internal dry-runs before letting it ship.
Is this really IC-ready? Our team writes the IC memo.
Yes. The front page is a one-pager: AI readiness score, displacement risk in pounds, deployment opportunity in pounds, moat-defensibility paragraph, senior signature. You lift sections directly into your IC memo or appendix. The methodology page is in the appendix so anyone on the IC can audit how we scored.
How is this different from our internal tech diligence?
Your internal team is excellent on revenue quality, customer concentration, and tech debt. They are not specialist AI diligence. And they cost £200–£400 per hour fully loaded. Scout is an additive AI lens, not a replacement. The two reports sit side by side in the data room.
What if the deal moves fast and we need it in 24 hours?
Rush is available at 1.5× standard fee. Honestly, the 48-hour turnaround already accommodates most teaser-to-IC windows. We have only had three rush requests in the last fifty reports.
Will you sign an NDA before we share the target name?
Yes. We sign yours by return, or send ours if you do not have a standard. Target names and our findings stay confidential. We do not publish, cite, or share who we have scored.
Who actually signs the report?
A senior AI engineer with named bio on the report. The same person is on the 15-minute debrief call if you want one. Not a junior analyst, not a sales rep, not a partner pitching for a follow-on engagement.
What if we get the report and decide not to proceed with the deal?
That happens. The report is yours to keep regardless. No refund mechanic, no win-fee twist, no awkward ownership of the analysis. Many funds use the report to walk away cleanly with documentation in the IC minutes.
What happens after the free sample report?
If it was useful, you decide what comes next. Single target at £1,500 per pop, quarterly active diligence at £12,000, or annual portfolio platform at £45,000. No follow-on sales call. We send the first report and let it speak.