Vendor contracts renewing unchallenged. Integration synergies slipping. Cyber posture that won’t survive buyer due diligence. IT managers making decisions nobody qualified them to make. These aren’t IT problems. They’re value creation problems. Starkhorn solves them through interim and fractional CIO and CISO leadership, embedded in your portfolio companies, reporting in the language your investment committee actually reads.
In most portfolio companies, technology sits outside the value creation conversation entirely. Vendor contracts auto-renew unchallenged. Integration timelines slip because nobody mapped the dependencies before close.
The board gets vague answers on cyber posture, or no answers at all. And every quarter, the gap between what technology could contribute and what it actually costs widens. We bring a commercial technology perspective built specifically for PE-backed environments.
Every assessment, every recommendation, and every board report is framed in EBITDA impact, integration velocity, and exit readiness, not infrastructure jargon.
Led technology strategy and operations across a fragmented, multi-country acquisition platform.
Built standardised integration playbooks replacing ad-hoc approaches across hundreds of sites.
Delivered vendor consolidation, platform standardisation, and measurable EBITDA improvement within the first 100 days.
Served as CIO and CISO through a complex ownership transition and major acquisition programme.
Modernised infrastructure, hardened security posture, and positioned technology as a competitive advantage across a high-transaction-volume, operationally complex business.
Led post-acquisition technology integration across healthcare, automotive, and services platforms.
Responsible for vendor rationalisation, duplicate cost elimination, system consolidation, and rapid capability deployment to acquired companies.
The first step in every engagement.
Within the opening weeks, we map your technology estate, benchmark vendor spend, assess cybersecurity posture, evaluate IT leadership capability, and deliver a board-ready report with a prioritised roadmap, all framed in EBITDA impact.
This assessment becomes the foundation for everything that follows: vendor renegotiation, integration planning, security hardening, and long-term technology strategy.
Not a technical audit.
A commercial assessment that identifies specific cost savings, vendor renegotiation opportunities, and efficiency improvements, all presented in EBITDA-impact language.
Most portfolio companies overspend on technology by 15 to 25%. We find it, quantify it, and show you how to recover it.
In the 100 days post-close, operating partners need answers fast.
Which systems standardise immediately. Which vendors consolidate.
Where the integration dependencies sit. Where the quick wins are.
We translate technical complexity into an operational prioritisation that de-risks the integration timeline and starts capturing synergies from week one.
A buyer’s DD team will interrogate your technology estate infrastructure stability, cybersecurity posture, vendor dependencies, data quality, and integration complexity.
We identify everything that could be perceived as a risk to valuation and build the remediation plan before exit conversations begin. The goal: technology that strengthens the exit story instead of discounting it.
Every finding framed in EBITDA impact, working capital efficiency, integration velocity, and buyer confidence. RAG-scored across key domains with a prioritised roadmap at 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months.
Presented to your board in person, not emailed as a PDF. No technical jargon. No infrastructure complexity. Just commercial clarity.
In a typical 4 to 5 year holding period, even modest technology overspend of £50K per year compounds to £200K to £250K of value leakage, value that comes directly off the exit multiple.
The firms that maximise exit value are the ones that get technology leadership involved at acquisition, not 18 months before exit.
Every quarter without independent technology oversight is a quarter where vendor costs drift, integration synergies go uncaptured, and your exit story weakens.
Not a technical audit. A commercial assessment that identifies specific cost savings, vendor renegotiation opportunities, and efficiency improvements, all presented in EBITDA impact language. Most portfolio companies overspend on technology by 15 to 25%. We find it, quantify it, and show you how to recover it.
Post-acquisition technology fragmentation is where value creation plans go to die. We identify what standardises immediately, what consolidates, where the dependencies sit, and how to start capturing synergies from week one, not month twelve.
RAG-scored reporting across key domains with a prioritised roadmap at 30, 90, and 365 days. Presented to your board in person, in the language of value creation, EBITDA impact, working capital efficiency, integration velocity, and buyer confidence. Not emailed as a PDF. Not written in jargon.
Security posture evidenced. Vendor dependencies mapped. Data quality assured. Integration readiness demonstrated. Everything a buyer’s due diligence team will interrogate, assessed, addressed, and documented before they arrive. Technology becomes an asset in the data room, not a red flag.
The Operating Partner Toolkit
Deploy Starkhorn’s free diagnostic tools across every portfolio company. Each management team self-assesses in under 5 minutes. Results flow into a portfolio-wide technology maturity view, giving you visibility across the entire portfolio within a week, at zero cost.
Share diagnostic links with portfolio CEOs
Each company completes in 3 to 5 minutes
Review portfolio-wide maturity scores
Companies that score below threshold are offered a scoping call. No cost to the PE firm. No obligation for the portfolio companies. Starkhorn only engages where we can genuinely move the needle.
The assessment takes 3 minutes. The conversation takes 20. In twenty years, we have consistently given boards clarity they didn’t have before.” Daniel Jacobs, Founder, Starkhorn
The M&A Integration Readiness Assessment is a free diagnostic designed specifically for PE-backed businesses. It scores your acquisition target across four dimensions: deal context, systems compatibility, risk exposure, and integration planning. It tells you where the technology risks sit before you commit.
10 questions. 4 dimensions. Immediate results. No obligation.
We’ll review your target’s publicly available technology indicators, website infrastructure, SaaS footprint, security posture signals, and give you a 15 minute briefing on what we see. No preparation needed from you. No obligation.
Free for PE operating partners evaluating active deals.
Whether you’re looking to protect synergies in a live integration, de-risk a portfolio company before exit, or get independent visibility into technology across your portfolio: start with a conversation.
The Technology Health Check shows where your technology leadership has gaps, scored across eight dimensions with a one-line recommendation for each.
Weekly technology leadership insights.
Read past editions →