The method behind the screening.
Every company we look at goes through the same structured questions, in the same order, against the same evidence standard. That is what makes two deals comparable, and what lets a one-hour screening hold up next to a month-long diligence.
Five domains, one question set
Each domain has a fixed set of investigation lines. Depth follows the evidence available; the questions themselves never change.
- Core
Technology
Whether the system can carry the plan the company just presented - and what it will cost to get it there.
- Architecture and scalability
- Code and delivery practice
- Security posture
- Technical debt and key dependencies
- Expert partners
Commercial
Whether the market story survives contact with the company's own numbers.
- Market position and competition
- Pricing and unit economics
- Pipeline quality
- Customer concentration
- Expert partners
People & organisation
Whether the team is the one that can execute the next stage, not the last one.
- Key-person dependency
- Capability against the plan
- Hiring realism
- Organisational signals
- Expert partners
Legal
Where ownership, licensing or data practice could change the shape of the deal.
- IP ownership chain
- Open-source and licensing
- Data protection
- Contractual exposure
- Expert partners
Financial
The numbers behind the narrative, read against what the other domains found.
- Revenue quality
- Cost structure
- Cash runway
- Reporting hygiene
How a screening is actually produced
Six steps, run by agents against our own method, with a senior practitioner at the points where judgement - not gathering - decides the answer.
- Agentic
Scope the company
We fix the entity, the market it plays in and the questions that actually matter for this stage of deal.
- Agentic
Gather the signals
Agents collect from 50+ verified public sources - and, at deeper levels, from whatever the company shares.
- Agentic
Turn signals into observations
Raw material is structured against the method: one observation, one source, one date.
- Agentic
Grade the evidence
Each observation is assigned a confidence level based on the strength and independence of its sources.
- Expert
Underwrite the conclusions
A senior practitioner reviews the material findings in their domain, challenges them, and signs them off.
- Both
Deliver a decision, not a dump
You get a verdict with the reasoning attached, and a full trail from every claim back to its source.
Evidence, and how sure we are of it
A finding is only as good as what stands behind it. Every observation is graded on the strength of its evidence, and that grade travels with it into the report - so you can tell a verified fact from a reasonable inference at a glance.
Where the evidence runs out, we mark the gap. We never fill it with a guess.
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Verified
Confirmed in two or more independent sources, or directly in company material we have seen.
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Corroborated
One reliable source, consistent with everything else we found. Good enough to act on, worth confirming.
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Inferred
A reasonable read of indirect signals. Flagged as inference, never presented as fact.
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Declared gap
The evidence is not there. We say what is missing and what it would take to close it.
The same method, at four levels of assurance
What changes as you go deeper is not the questions - it is the access we get, and who puts their name on the answer.
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Agentic screening
1 hour
Access
Public signals only - no contact with the company.
Sign-off
Method-enforced, your experts in the loop.
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Expert-vetted screening
1 day
Access
Public signals plus whatever the company chooses to share.
Sign-off
A senior expert validates every conclusion.
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1-week Due Diligence
1 week+
Access
Documents, technical systems and management calls.
Sign-off
A named practitioner leads each domain.
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1-month Due Diligence
1 month
Access
Full access, recurring sessions with both sides.
Sign-off
A named expert team, through to signing.
What the framework deliberately does not do
Being explicit about the edges is part of the method - here is what a Lab08 screening is not.
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It does not score companies on a curve
There is no league table. A verdict is about this company against this deal thesis, not against a benchmark set.
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It does not replace your judgement
The framework produces evidence and a reasoned verdict. The investment decision stays where it belongs.
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It does not audit
We are not auditors and this is not an audit opinion. Where a formal opinion is required, we say so and hand over.
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It does not guess to look complete
A short report with declared gaps is more useful than a long one that hides them.
See the framework applied
to all the companies
in your pipeline
Public sources only, no company access needed. Your first screening is on us.