At the height of India's consumer-internet funding boom, a North American institutional investor was weighing a position in one of the sector's most prominent companies. Institutional money of that kind cannot rely on the funding-round enthusiasm around a fashionable target; it needed an independent read of the company and its founders before committing.
“The work was delivered inside the window the investment decision allowed.”
The engagement, carried out during my tenure at a global investigations firm, applied the standard investigative method to an unusual company: corporate structure and filings, litigation and regulatory checks, founder backgrounds, and press and market commentary in depth, delivered inside the window the investment decision allowed.
In my observation, integrity work on high-growth targets is often cut short, because the round is competitive and the timetable is tight. The answer is to do the work quickly, within the deal window.