You may be considering making an investment in a startup that claims to use machine learning/AI and would like an impartial assessment of their technology.

We can perform an evaluation of a company’s technology stack. This should be done in tandem with a traditional due diligence exercise.

You can download our AI due diligence checklist.

Some of the points we will look at include:

• is the product a real product and capable of being sold as is, or just a demo?
• how viable and scalable is the technology long term?
• where will the data for the AI come from? If from users, then does the product suffer from the cold start problem?
• can the product scale in the real world?
• how reproducible is the product?
• how sustainable are the development workflows?
• are code and models documented and under version control?
• are the founders’ credentials and experience valid and as claimed?
• how robust is the organisational structure, does the company have a low bus factor?
• how is the technology licensed?
• how will costs scale as the operation scales?
• if we are talking about a healthcare or medical device, is the product likely to need licensing?
• how reproducible is the technology, irrespective of patents and legal protection?
• what are the future risks from a technology perspective?