From Code to Cash · For teams acquiring repeatedly
Integration is where the deal delivers.
Technology due diligence and post-merger integration, from one firm.
Most acquirers buy well and then integrate on paper. We cost the integration during diligence, before you sign, and the people who wrote the report are the people who run it: Day 1, the systems, the teams and the savings you priced the deal on. Ten diligences a month, ensuring quality over quantity.
I lead corporate development
You've inherited a process that won't survive the next few deals.
The last round was heavier than it needed to be, the acquisitions were integrated in name only, and the pipeline is about to get busier. You want to be able to say the team is ready for multiple acquisitions and mean it.
For corporate development teamsI'm an investor
You're buying into a sector nobody in the room can judge.
You need someone who can tell you how real the technology is, what it will cost to fix, and what to ask for, before you sign rather than after.
For investors and buyersPeople ask us this constantly, so here it is plainly: yes, we do technology due diligence and integration, and we also cover the people side, HR and P&C, organisational design and management training. One firm, before the deal and after it.
Thirty minutes, free
Bring us the target. We'll tell you what we'd worry about.
No scope, no proposal, no obligation. Thirty minutes on the phone and you'll leave with the two or three technology and people questions we'd want answered before anyone signs. If it isn't useful, that's the end of it.
And if we do go further, the scope is proportionate to the deal, with a cost against every recommendation. Investors have told us for years that blanket reviews cost more than they return.
What ten years looks like
Nobody's estate is as clean as the data room suggests.
10
diligences a month. Quality over quantity.
Capacity is capped on purpose. The pattern behind the judgement comes from 200+ deals assessed in a decade.
50+
deals for a single acquirer
Diligence and integration back to back for one client, the same people each time. Another ran 30 with us.
~£250k
average unbudgeted spend uncovered per deal
The range runs from £20k of housekeeping to several million for a full rebuild. Two fully green reports, ever: every other target had something the buyer needed to price before signing.
8 in 10
leadership teams need support to reach the next stage
One CTO the investors were ready to lose is still in post five years later, running a bigger business than the one we met.
Who we are for, and who we are not
We would rather turn the wrong deal away than take it.
Where we do our best work
- UK-headquartered acquirers, typically 4,000 people and up, in health, finance (not fintech), public sector, or construction and the built environment.
- A CxO or VP one to two years into the role, inheriting the process rather than having designed it.
- A pipeline of repeat bolt-ons, not a single transaction.
- Teams who want the capability built in-house, and who bring us in before the deal rather than after the problem.
Where we are not the right firm
- You want a single commodity diligence report at the lowest price. We will say so on the first call.
- You want the report handed over and the adviser gone. We stay through Day 1 and the savings.
- The problem has already landed and you need someone to sign off a decision that is made.
- You are buying once. Our work compounds across a programme, so one deal is the expensive way to use us.
What nobody else brings
A people practice inside the deal, and software behind it.
The people layer
Kolbe psychometrics run inside the integration, not beside it.
Integrations fail on people before they fail on platforms. We profile both leadership teams and design the operating model around what they can actually do.
The people practiceThe software
Three products, built from the work.
Lens: Merger OS for diligence, Ascend for post-deal back-office, MyCareer for professional services firms. Repeatable method, not bespoke slideware.
See the productsTake something with you
The twelve scope areas, and what they cost.
Our IT diligence checklist and papers, free to download. Useful before you ever speak to us.
Download the checklistThe paper
Who The Hell Knows: pricing AI in a deal.
Why nobody can confidently price AI right now, and what you can actually test for instead. Written for the room, not the conference stage.
Read the paperTrusted by investors and operators
- IRIS Software Group (Hg)
- Civica (Blackstone)
- Citation Group (Hg)
- Equiniti
- Acacium Group
- Puma Growth Partners
- Blixt
- Mobeus Equity Partners
- DJH
Why Beyond
The report is not the job. Landing it is.
Most diligence providers hand over the report and leave. We write the report so it can be delivered, and then we deliver it. Commercially focused CTOs and operators from PE-backed firms, three of our own software products, and a Kolbe practice for the way technology teams actually work.
One team from the first look at a target to the day the savings show up in the numbers. Over 200 diligences behind it.
In their words
From code to cash.
What changes when the people who found the problem are the people who fix it.
Our method
The Code to Cash Method.
Four stages, Assess, Diligence, Integrate, Optimise, run through one lens: TIE. Stage 03 is the one the deal is judged on, and it is the reason for the other three.
Assess
Outside-in read of a target before you spend on full diligence.
Diligence
Twelve scope areas, sized to the deal, every finding with a cost, an owner and a date.
Integrate
Day 1, the systems, the teams, and the savings you priced the deal on, delivered.
Optimise
Platform consolidation, spend out, AI put to work, exit readiness.
Before and after signing
Code to cash. Both halves of the deal.
Four practices and three products, held by one team, so nothing found before the deal gets dropped after it.
All servicesPre-deal
Outside-in assessment
A cheap read of a target before you spend on full diligence. Technology, team and market signals, from the outside, in days.
Learn moreDiligence
Technology due diligence
Twelve scope areas, sized to the deal. Every finding carries a cost, an owner and a date, so the report doubles as the first hundred days.
Learn morePost-deal
Post-merger integration
Day 1, exit from transitional services, platform consolidation and the savings you priced the deal on, run by the people who wrote the report.
Learn morePeople
The psychology of technology teams
How the two technology teams actually work, where they will collide, and what to do about it. Kolbe, organisational design, HR and P&C, and management training.
Learn morePowered by our products
Software built from the work itself.
Lens
The Merger OS
Run diligence and integration evidence in one system: secure dataroom, structured Information Requests and AI grounded in your own sources, every answer cited.
Ascend
Post-deal back-office consolidation
Most mergers leave the back office fragmented and the savings unbanked. Ascend is the structured programme that consolidates it after the deal.
MyCareer
Operating system for professional services firms
An operating system for professional services firms: career frameworks, capability tracking and progression.
Where we are different
Anyone can hand you a verdict. We stay and merge the thing.
Repeat acquirers and larger groups keep us because integration is the practice we are built around: Day 1 readiness, exit from transitional services, consolidation, and the savings and gains the deal was priced on.
And because integration fails on people before it fails on platforms, the Kolbe people work runs inside it, not beside it.
Day 1 readiness
What has to work on the first morning, who owns each piece, and what happens if it doesn't.
Transitional service (TSA) exit
Separation and carve-out sequenced and costed, so the clock the deal set is one you can actually meet.
The savings you priced
Tracked against the plan the deal was priced on, by the people who wrote the report it came from.
The people underneath it
Them and Us mapped and worked, role fit tested, and the knowledge holders retained before the reorganisation, not after.
Who we serve
Built for investors and the people they back.
Corporate Development
You've inherited a process that won't survive the next few deals.
The team that writes the diligence runs the integration.
- Pipeline triaged before it eats the team's week
- A tech verdict that arrives as a hundred-day plan, not a risk list
- Integration costed before you sign, not discovered after
Investors & Private Equity
The IC meets on Thursday and nobody can price the technology.
A number your IC can act on, then the work to deliver it.
- A commercial opinion your IC can price, in plain English
- Red flags surfaced before full diligence spends the budget
- Hands-on delivery and exit preparation after the deal closes
Founders & CFOs
A buyer is about to ask questions you haven't been asked before.
Get investment-ready before investors ask.
- An honest read on what a buyer will challenge, while you can still fix it
- Technical strategy, vendor decisions and AI enablement
- The org and team design the next stage actually needs
Operating principle
TIE. The lens inside the method.
Truth, Immediacy, Efficacy. Three questions we ask of every difficult discussion, decision and direction, internally, with investors, and at every stage of the Code to Cash Method.
It is also what we look for, or find missing, inside the target.
How we operateTruth
Honest assessments, even when uncomfortable.
Immediacy
Decisions and responses when they are needed, not later.
Efficacy
The most effective route for the business and customer.
Beyond have been a brilliant partner to work with from start to finish. We engaged them to help with a number of strategic initiatives, and we have made huge strides forward with a number of critical company objectives. Their skills, understanding and output has been excellent and I would strongly recommend them for anyone looking to drive their business forward.
The scale behind the cases
Integration is where the deal delivers, and it is where most of our decade has gone.
200+
integrations over the decade
80
engagements for two acquirers alone
50+
deals for a single acquirer
10+
years of repeat programmes
Named clients behind the work
- Equiniti
- Acacium Group
- IRIS Software Group
- British Land
- Norton Rose Fulbright
What changed
Three deals, three outcomes.
Not project titles. What was different for the buyer once we were done.
All case studiesClient closed a £9m round
A profitable SaaS firm had never been diligenced. A three-month remediation programme and an investor-ready evidence pack got their round away.
Read the caseDay One, minimal incidents
A 200-person FinTech split out and merged into a BPO acquirer, with the critical IP preserved and the technology team retained through transition.
Read the caseInvested with eyes open
A VC backing a Web3 platform got a straight opinion: the technology claim held, the team did not yet, and the remediation list was defined before the cheque.
Read the caseInside the work
What you actually receive.
Every engagement leaves something behind, written for the investment committee, usable by the operating team. No abstract frameworks, no theatre.
See full scope
Pre-deal Assessment
- Outside-in technology and digital footprint analysis
- Hidden risk signals from public and proprietary sources
- Commercial red-flag triage report
- Go / no-go recommendation with confidence levels
Technology Due Diligence
- Scope sized to the deal, not a blanket review: people, process, platform, security, data, AI, resilience, scalability, obsolescence risk, cost, roadmap
- A report non-technical readers can use, written for the investment committee
- A costed roadmap: every recommendation with a cost, a timing and an owner
- Recommendations that drop into a 100-day plan, plus carve-out and integration risk
AI in the Deal
- Capacity today: what is actually in production, what it costs to run, and who owns it
- Potential: what this estate could become, and what the value-creation plan is quietly assuming
- Disruption from outside: competitors shipping the same capability, and customers building their own
- Decay: how long the position holds, and what has to be true for it to still be worth something at exit
Sell-side & Vendor Diligence
- Vendor tech DD report in buyer format, written to survive a buyer's own diligence
- Costed remediation roadmap: every gap with a price, a timing and an owner
- Management preparation for the investor room, including the questions that land hardest
- AI narrative that stands up to scrutiny rather than inviting it
Post-Merger Integration
- Day 1 readiness: what must work on the first morning, and who owns each piece
- Transitional service exit and carve-out separation, sequenced and costed
- Platform and back-office consolidation (see Ascend)
- The savings and gains tracked against the plan the deal was priced on
People & Kolbe Practice
- Kolbe assessments for leadership and tech teams
- Merger team mapping & friction prediction
- Role fit between an entrepreneurial founder-CTO and a governed operator
- Restructure and operating model design
Bespoke AI for Portcos
- Data readiness: lineage, licensing, governance and AI usage policy
- PE-grade architecture: model routing, evals, observability, human-in-the-loop
- Bespoke build aligned to one clear value-creation hypothesis
- Taking a generated prototype to production: ownership, testing, security and support
Products
Software built from the work.
Three products born from real M&A engagements. Each solves a problem we kept seeing.
All productsLens
The Merger OS
Run diligence and integration evidence in one system: secure dataroom, structured Information Requests and AI grounded in your own sources, every answer cited.
Ascend
Post-deal back-office consolidation
Most mergers leave the back office fragmented and the savings unbanked. Ascend is the structured programme that consolidates it after the deal.
MyCareer
Operating system for professional services firms
An operating system for professional services firms: career frameworks, capability tracking and progression.
In their words
Trusted by investors and the teams they back.
We engaged Beyond for technical due diligence, and their expertise was outstanding. Thorough, insightful, and actionable assessments that exceeded our expectations.
Great due diligence leaves the management team with a sharper view of their business and enhanced motivation. Beyond M&A does great due diligence.
Beyond have been a brilliant partner to work with from start to finish. We engaged them to help with a number of strategic initiatives, and we have made huge strides forward with a number of critical company objectives. Their skills, understanding and output has been excellent and I would strongly recommend them for anyone looking to drive their business forward.
Hutton and his team strike a good balance between technical and commercial skills. The output is an easy to read, concise report with no jargon.
Sectors
Across regulated and complex markets.
- Financial Services
- Insurance
- Fintech
- Retail
- Luxury Retail
- Manufacturing
- Health
- Property
- Construction
- Legal Services
- Education
- Utilities
- Human Resources
- Business Outsourcing
- Betting & Gambling
- Cruise Liners
- Local Authority
- Law Enforcement
