Digital Businesses

Acquire.com transaction diligence

Published · Reviewed by The Diligence Standard Team · Updated

Go beyond MRR/ARR headlines. Rebuild recurring revenue, churn, cohorts, customer concentration, CAC/LTV, technical debt, cloud costs, code/IP ownership and founder dependence.

Diligence focus

  • MRR/ARR quality
  • Churn and cohorts
  • Customer concentration
  • CAC and growth efficiency
  • Code/IP ownership
  • Technical debt
  • Cloud/infra cost
  • Founder/product dependence

First evidence requests

  • MRR/ARR customer export
  • Churn/cohort analysis
  • Processor/bank reconciliation
  • Customer concentration
  • Source repository and IP assignments
  • Architecture/infra costs
  • Product roadmap and incident history
  • Founder/team responsibility map

Warning signals

  • ARR includes non-recurring setup/services
  • Low churn claim lacks cohorts
  • Founder is sole developer/product manager
  • Code contributors lack assignments
  • Cloud/API costs are not normalized
  • Top customers can cancel easily