From deal close to exit, Starkhorn provides the senior technology leadership PE-backed companies need to hit milestones, reduce risk, and demonstrate EBITDA impact. The person you speak to does the work, briefed within 24 hours, starting within days. No software reselling, no broker commission, no referral fees. A CIO who pays for themselves.
Most portfolio companies between £30m and £4bn in turnover share the same challenge. They need CIO or CISO-grade capability immediately after close, but a permanent hire takes four to six months and carries twelve months of risk before you know if it is right.
In that window, integration stalls. The technology workstream on the value-creation plan slips. Cyber exposure inherited at acquisition stays unaddressed. And the data room for exit is not being built.
Starkhorn steps in at exactly that point. Senior, independent, and deployable within days. Every assessment, recommendation, and board report is framed in EBITDA impact, integration velocity, and exit readiness, not infrastructure jargon.
In 2024-2025, Starkhorn served as Interim Group Technology Director at VetPartners, the GBP 1.2bn PE-backed veterinary group owned by BC Partners.
The business spans nine Western European countries, approximately 14,000 staff, 540 UK and Ireland practices, and over 850 sites.
This was Starkhorn’s founding mandate: interim, commercial, and accountable to a PE-grade value-creation plan, reporting directly into the executive team.
Served as CIO and CISO at Jardine Motors Group, a GBP 2bn-plus business, including a GBP 300m acquisition and a GBP 400m merger completed with zero regulatory findings.
Modernised infrastructure, hardened security posture, and positioned technology as a competitive advantage across a high-transaction-volume, operationally complex business.
Starkhorn works across the full private equity lifecycle, from pre-deal through to exit preparation, with the engagement model flexed to match the stage.
That spans pre-deal and vendor due diligence, post-deal integration aligned to the 100-day plan, value-creation-plan delivery, cyber and compliance uplift, exit and buy-side diligence readiness, and a structured handover to an incoming permanent CIO.
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 value-creation-plan delivery through to exit.
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, aligned to your 100-day plan.
A buyer’s diligence 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, reducing the risk discount before material findings appear in the data room. The goal is 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 tied to value-creation-plan milestones.
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. With 20+ years in technology and security, 15+ of them in leadership roles, we have consistently given boards clarity they didn’t have before. Daniel J. 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 capital.
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 protecting synergies in a live integration, de-risking a portfolio company before exit, or getting independent visibility into technology across your portfolio, start with a conversation. Starkhorn can be briefed within 24 hours.
In their words
Dan served as Interim Group Technology Director at a PE-backed multinational operating across nine countries, shaped by rapid acquisition. He was excellent in that environment, and what sets him apart is his ability to deliver through people.
Common questions
Why do PE firms use a fractional or interim CIO rather than a permanent hire?
Because most portfolio companies cannot justify a full-time CIO, yet technology is either accelerating the value-creation plan or quietly undermining it. You get senior leadership tied to EBITDA without adding permanent cost to a business you intend to exit.
When in the deal cycle should technology leadership come in?
As early as it can. Before the deal, technology due diligence tells you what you are really buying. In the first 100 days it controls integration cost and captures synergies. Through the hold it keeps technology aligned to the plan. Approaching exit it makes sure the technology story stands up to a buyer's diligence.
How do you tie the work to EBITDA?
Every recommendation is framed as commercial impact: cost taken out, synergies captured, risk removed. Most engagements find vendor and licensing savings in the first weeks that exceed the cost of the work, and the larger gains show up as controlled spend and an exit story technology will not undermine.
Can you support several portfolio companies?
Yes. Operating partners use it across a portfolio for fast, comparable, commercially-framed reads on technology, and to lead remediation where needed, without standing up a permanent function in each company.
How is this different from a consultancy or an MSP?
A consultancy delivers a report and leaves; an MSP has an interest in selling you more of its own services. This is independent, embedded leadership, accountable for the outcome, with nothing to sell you but the result.
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.
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