Technical Diligence Panel: Deep-Tech VC

The core claim was a step-change in process efficiency. The fund needed independent experts who understood both the underlying chemistry and the brutal realities of moving from pilot to commercial plant, and who had no stake in the company or its competitors. The risk was funding a lab result that would never survive an industrial environment.

• +Split the diligence into two questions: does the science work in principle, and does it hold at commercial scale. Staffed each with the right expert
• +Sourced a panel of six: two independent process scientists, three plant and scale-up engineers and one permitting specialist
• +Ran technical deep-dives under strict scope, drawing only on general domain expertise and public disclosures
• +Reconciled disagreements between the scientists and the engineers in a joint follow-up rather than averaging them away

• +A technical risk register ranking the scale-up failure modes by likelihood and severity
• +An independent read on whether the pilot efficiency was plausibly reproducible at commercial scale
• +A capex-and-permitting reality check on the company's stated timeline

• +The fund invested with a milestone-based structure tied directly to the two highest-rated scale-up risks
• +The technical register became the template for the fund's diligence on later hardware deals
• +One failure mode the founder had underweighted was designed into the term sheet as a gating milestone

This is a representative, anonymised composite of a typical venture capital engagement. Client identity is removed and the figures illustrate the format and scale of the work. They are not a record of a single named mandate. Every expert call is scoped to general market knowledge, screened for material non-public information before findings reach a deal team, and documented for audit. See our compliance framework for full detail.