The read before you wire.
Independent, fixed-price diligence for family offices and private investors doing direct venture deals without an in-house venture team. A written verdict on a fixed clock, from someone who has built technology for 25 years, runs a seed fund, and takes nothing from the founder.
Not a consultant's report and not your gut. The deal you are already leaning toward, read by someone paid only by you.
- 01IP assignment from the founders' prior employer
- 02A paying customer outside the founders' network
- 03Round label matched to the actual pre-money
Built for investors who write the check without a venture team.
Deals arrive through friends, the deck is the diligence, and the cost of a bad check is the whole check. The cost of a rigorous read is one to three percent of it.
Single family offices doing directs
Three or more direct private investments a year, typically $100K to $2M a check. A CIO or principal who decides, and nobody in-house who can read a cap table, a technical architecture, or an IIA grant agreement.
Multi-family offices, RIAs, wealth advisors
Clients bring you directs and ask for a view. You carry the relationship risk and cannot do the work. The memo is the written answer, and the liability cover.
Angel groups, syndicate leads, small funds
Screening on volunteer time, distributing memos to backers, or needing surge capacity on a co-invest. Sold per deal or as a group license rather than a retainer.
The Israeli corridor, both directions
US investors looking at Israeli companies who need someone who reads IIA transfer restrictions, Section 102 plans, Delaware flips and reservist realities. Israeli investors looking at US deals who want a US-based GP's read on terms and market.
The practice keeps its independence by turning work away. These are declined in writing, every time.
- 01Founders or companies wanting diligence on themselves. Declined every time; that is where the conflicts start.
- 02Institutions with an in-house venture team. You already have the read.
- 03Private equity, real estate, and public market investors. Outside the edge.
- 04Anyone who wants the memo to say yes.
Every engagement produces the same memo.
Same format every time, so your team learns to read it fast and passes it around. The product is the verdict and the three things that would change it. The evidence is there to check the verdict, not to pad it.
The verdict
One of four words, on page one, not buried in a conclusion.
Three things that would change it
What new fact, document or call would move the verdict, and in which direction.
The cheapest experiment before wiring
A reference call, a document request, a technical test. The one thing to do this week.
Three-axis score
Business, integrity, and fit to your stated criteria. Scored independently, so a great business with a founder problem reads as exactly that.
Red flags first. Every claim sourced.
Nothing goes in the memo that cannot be sourced or is not labeled as inference. Nothing is conceded that is not built. Delivered as a branded PDF with a 20-minute debrief call.
Request the redacted sample memoFixed price. Fixed clock.
A Full Diligence at $8,500 is 3.4 percent of a $250K check and under one percent of a $1M check. The Screen exists so there is always a yes available: $2,500 to find out whether the deal deserves the full read.
Pre-Wire Screen
Stage 1 screen only: a six-section structured verdict, the top red flags, and a go / no-go on whether the deal deserves deeper work.
Full Diligence
The full two-stage pipeline, nine-expert council review, the complete memo, and a 20-minute debrief call.
Doing more than one deal a quarter? Core costs less than two ad hoc reads.
Capacity is capped at four to five retainers so turnaround never slips. Monthly, in advance.
Core
- One Full Diligence or three Screens per month
- On call for term-sheet and follow-on questions, up to 2 hours a week
- Memo archive access
Partner
most_common- Two Full Diligence per month, unlimited Screens
- Monitoring for up to five portfolio companies
- Quarterly portfolio review call
Anchor
- Four Full Diligence per month, 72-hour priority turnaround
- Participation in founder calls and a seat in your investment discussions
- Monitoring for up to ten companies
- Unused memos roll over one month, then expire. This is a standby service, not a bank.
- Minimum term three months, then month to month with 30 days' notice.
- Annual prepay: 10 percent off.
- Founding client rate: the first five retainer clients lock 20 percent off for 12 months in exchange for a testimonial and a reference call.
- Ad hoc work is invoiced upfront and starts on payment. Retainers are invoiced monthly in advance.
Independent, structurally.
Adam runs a seed fund and holds no securities registrations. The practice stays clean because these seven rules are absolute, not because of a disclaimer. Any request for an introduction fee is declined in writing.
- Not a broker, placement agent, or fundraising advisor. Never compensated by the company being reviewed, never compensated on whether money moves.
- Not a legal, tax, or valuation opinion. Those are referred out; the memo says where they are needed.
- Not a generalist consultancy. No strategy decks, no market studies without a deal attached.
- Not investment advice. You make the decision; the memo is the research that informs it.
Engagements run under a one-page letter: scope, confidentiality both ways, the disclosures above, liability capped at fees paid, Texas law. Client owns the memo.
Intake to debrief, in five business days.
The pipeline is already built and has run on live deals. It is fast because the structure is fixed, not because steps are skipped. The human review at the end is the step that is never skipped.
Intake
Deck, data room, term sheet or SAFE, cap table if you have it, and your own criteria: check size, sector, stage, what you care about. Anything you have already done, so it is not repeated.
Stage 1 screen
Structured six-section screen. If the engagement is a Pre-Wire Screen, this is formatted and delivered inside 48 hours.
Deep dive and council
Seven-area investigation, then a nine-expert adversarial review scoring business, integrity and fit independently.
Human review, memo, debrief
Every HIGH red flag re-verified against primary sources by Adam, every inference labeled. Branded PDF, then a 20-minute call walking the verdict.
The questions everyone asks.
- We do our own diligence. Why would we need this?
- Then this is the second read on the deals you are least sure about. Send the one you are stuck on. Most clients find at least one thing in the first memo they did not have.
- You run a fund. Aren't you conflicted?
- Every memo carries a written disclosure of whether Olivent has looked at the company or holds a position. Olivent Diligence takes nothing from the founder, ever, and is not paid on whether you invest. The judgment you are paying for is the same judgment Adam uses with his own money.
- Can't I just do this with AI?
- You can, and you will get a fluent, confident answer. What you will not get is a sourcing discipline that separates verified fact from inference, a structured adversarial review, or someone accountable who has read cap tables and codebases for 25 years. The failure mode of an AI-only read is that it looks right.
- Isn't $8,500 expensive?
- Against what? On a $250K check a Full Diligence is 3.4 percent of it. On a $1M check it is under one percent. The cost of a bad check is the whole check. If the number is still a stretch, start with a $2,500 Pre-Wire Screen and find out whether the deal deserves the full read.
- We don't have a deal right now.
- Then start with monitoring on what you already hold, at $750 per company per month. When the next deal comes, the intake and the criteria are already set up.
- Our lawyer does this.
- Your lawyer checks the documents. Nobody checks whether the technology exists, whether the round label matches the pricing, or whether the IP sits in the entity that is raising.
- What does the client provide?
- The deck, data room access, the term sheet or SAFE, the cap table if available, your stated criteria, a founder contact if the engagement includes a call, and any prior work so it is not repeated. Handing over a deal takes about five minutes.
- Is the memo investment advice?
- No. It is independent research on a specific company. It is not investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, and the decision to invest is yours alone. Where a legal, tax, or valuation opinion is needed, the memo says so.
The first read is free.
Send the deal you are closest to wiring on. You get page one in 72 hours and a 20-minute call to walk it. Live deals only, capped at 4 a month so paying clients never wait.
email :: adam@olivent.vc
Olivent Diligence provides independent research on specific private companies. It is not investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The decision to invest is the client's alone. Findings are based on information available at the delivery date.