Filed under: due diligence
9 storiesThe archive, indexed. Every story carries its tags at the foot of the page.
Six terms to pin down in a letter of intent
Founders argue hard over the valuation and leave payment structure, exclusivity and non-competes to be sorted out later. Later is when the buyer has the leverage.
When hiring fails, some founders buy the firm instead
One founder could not recruit the skills her business needed, so she acquired a company that already had them. The case for treating a small acquisition as a hiring decision.
Inc: 65% of small firms carry a books problem that kills sales
Accounts built to satisfy a tax return are not accounts built to satisfy a buyer. A US report puts the share of small businesses with that gap at 65 per cent.
CaaStle founder Christine Hunsicker sentenced to five years for fraud
The clothing rental company's founder was sentenced after a scheme that prosecutors put at $300m, built on false financial statements and invented growth.
Adviser: bolting on AI can cut what a buyer will pay
Itay Sagie argues that copilots, model integrations and third-party AI tools often read to an acquirer as vendor dependency rather than innovation. His test is whether the AI leaves behind an asset nobody else can copy.
Signing the LOI is where founders start losing the deal
A letter of intent feels like the finish line. Five things go wrong after it, and most of them cost the seller money.
Founder rebuilt her sale process after four deals collapsed
Christine Slocumb says one buyer walked a week before closing. She rewrote how she screened the next one.
Investors sue Wondermind over $1.2m raise, alleging misleading claims
A lawsuit says the mental health company overstated its leadership, its partnerships and Selena Gomez's involvement. The complaint's contents have not been published in full.
$250m exit collapses into fraud and forged-signature claims
VideoVerse's investors are still waiting to be paid a year after the deal was announced. Its founder is now a defendant in a cluster of Delaware cases.