Colabra vs Traditional advisory diligence
Carry specialist analysis into the buyer’s decision.
Carry specialist analysis into the buyer’s decision.
Colabra supports the work of combining financial, legal, and commercial findings into an investment view. Keep the evidence, assumptions, and unresolved questions connected to the work product. Choose it when the deal team needs a clearer way to review and use the analysis delivered across workstreams.
Inspect the supporting evidence
Keep the basis of material findings available to the investment team.
Connect overlapping issues
Bring the related financial, contractual, and commercial questions into the deal review.
Build the investment work product
Carry the supported conclusions into the models and memos used for the decision.
A workspace can support the engagement; it does not replace its specialist responsibility.
Evaluate where your process loses time: gathering evidence, reconciling schedules, preparing questions, reviewing findings, or transferring the adviser’s conclusions to the investment case. The right tool should improve those handoffs while preserving clear responsibility for analytical methods and final advice.
Traditional advisory diligence
Advisory diligence combines specialist analysis, management discussions, evidence gathering, and professional conclusions. Financial, tax, commercial, and operational engagements can have different scopes, methods, and deliverables.
Colabra
Colabra is an AI workspace for M&A due diligence, organized around deal files, review requirements, findings, requests, and reports. Its focus is helping buy-side teams turn sell-side material into source-linked findings, financial models, and investment memos.
Explore the Colabra workflow →Where each approach fits
Consider Traditional advisory diligence when…
The transaction needs specialist financial, tax, commercial, or operational work and accountable professional conclusions. Compare the actual engagement, methodology, and deliverables rather than assuming that every adviser follows a wholly manual process.
Consider Colabra when…
You need clearer coordination and evidence handoffs around the engagement. Evaluate whether the workspace helps the investment team inspect assumptions, resolve questions, and incorporate reviewed conclusions into the decision.
Using them together
Keep responsibility for methods and advice explicit. The adviser can deliver reviewed analysis while the buyer owns the investment conclusion. Agree which source schedules, assumptions, and unresolved questions accompany the handover and who handles subsequent changes.
Three tasks to bring to the pilot
Use a management earnings bridge, supporting ledgers, an adviser adjustment, and a related commercial assumption. Give both workflows the same scope, access, and expected deliverable: a reconciled finding and its effect on the buyer’s investment case. Have the people who will own the work perform the review.
- 01
Reconcile one material adjustment
Ask the adviser to show the source, method, and rationale for a proposed earnings adjustment. Have the buyer reproduce the bridge and identify assumptions requiring further management evidence.
- 02
Connect overlapping workstreams
Use an issue affecting both a customer contract and the revenue forecast. Ask the legal, financial, and commercial reviewers to explain their respective conclusions and identify unresolved dependencies.
- 03
Compare the final handover
Give the deal team the deliverables and source package without a live adviser walkthrough. Assess whether they can update the investment case and identify the questions that remain open after the engagement.
Judge the reviewed result
Agree the acceptance criteria before the demonstration. Record the evidence behind each assessment so the decision can be revisited after the pilot.
| Criterion | Question to answer | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence quality | Can a reviewer locate the controlling source and explain how it supports the exact conclusion? | Record unsupported statements, incorrect references, and ambiguity that the output hides. A source link is useful only if the source substantiates the claim. |
| Coverage and exceptions | Can the team tell what was reviewed, what failed to process, and what is still missing? | Seed a missing attachment and an unreadable file. The reviewer should distinguish incomplete evidence from a clean result and know what to request next. |
| Revision and handoff | Can another person challenge the finding and update the work after new evidence arrives? | Repeat one material change. Count the places that need manual updates and check whether the new memo still agrees with the supporting analysis. |
| Operating effort | How much setup, specialist review, administration, and coordination does the completed task require? | Measure total reviewer time through an accepted deliverable. Include correction and handoff time, not only time to the first generated draft. |
Use a simple result for each criterion: demonstrated, requires configuration, or unresolved. Do not turn an unanswered question into a feature claim. Ask for a follow-up demonstration when a material requirement remains unresolved.
Inside the work product
Explore a
diligence review
Browse a sample investment committee memo, the findings behind it, and the requests that move the review forward.
Investment team · Working review
Investment committee memo
Executive view
Resolve the earnings adjustment and currency difference before finalizing the investment case. Keep customer consent visible in the closing discussion.
Matters for attention
Earnings adjustment
The adjustment combines remediation with support. Separate ongoing costs before accepting the full add-back.
Management earnings bridge · note 4Currency reconciliation
The stated rate implies $1,296,000, leaving a $24,000 difference to explain.
Revenue schedule · European subsidiaryCustomer consent
Confirm whether the proposed transaction triggers consent before relying on the contract at close.
Acme customer agreement · §12.3Evidence reviewed
- Management earnings bridge
- Subsidiary revenue schedules
- Key customer agreements
Source-linked findings
Risk register
Earnings adjustment
The adjustment combines remediation with support. Separate ongoing costs before accepting the full add-back.
Inspect the source
$230,000 cybersecurity remediation and support included in adjusted EBITDA.Management earnings bridge · note 4
Currency reconciliation
The stated rate implies $1,296,000, leaving a $24,000 difference to explain.
Inspect the source
EUR revenue: €1,200,000. Translation rate: 1.08 USD/EUR. Consolidated amount: $1,320,000.Revenue schedule · European subsidiary
Customer consent
Confirm whether the proposed transaction triggers consent before relying on the contract at close.
Inspect the source
Assignment, including by change of control, requires prior written consent.Acme customer agreement · §12.3
Outstanding evidence
Seller request list
Earnings adjustment
Provide invoices and the statement of work, separating one-time remediation from recurring support.
Currency reconciliation
Provide the translation-rate policy and reconciliation for the $24,000 difference.
Customer consent
Provide written consent or confirm the status of the customer discussion.
When the response arrives
Review the supporting document against the original question, then update the finding and the review conclusion.
Compare the cost of the complete workflow
Start with licenses and services already in place. Add implementation, permitted usage, storage, external reviewers, specialist review, support, and the internal time needed to maintain the process. Request a written quote for your actual configuration; a generic seat price will not describe every deployment.
Before the pilot
Confirm the product edition, available connections, document limits, access roles, and who can configure the workflow. Agree which sample material is authorized for the evaluation and which deliverables the reviewers must produce.
Before adoption
Review the proposed data handling, retention, access, and contractual arrangements. Test export and handoff with the people who will own the deal record after close. Include source references and unresolved questions in that final package.
Compare total effort through the first accepted result and one meaningful revision. If your existing workflow performs well, keeping it is a valid outcome. If another approach wins, identify the specific task it improves and the changes needed to make that improvement repeatable.