You bought a good company. It still runs on legacy.
We join the acquired companies to rebuild the legacy systems and add AI where it is needed.
By transforming legacy risks into modern operational strength, we do the heavy lifting and empower your team to build a clear, cost-effective future without ever slowing down your business.
All companies have legacy systems and the cost of technical debt is often overlooked
Key painpoints you might have faced when acquiring a company
The important things are not written down
Customers, price exceptions and supplier terms sit with one or two people, and in WhatsApp threads. The seller usually leaves within three years and that knowledge leaves with them.
Excel is the ERP
Quotes, orders, scheduling and follow-up are done by hand. Each step depends on someone remembering it, and there is no record of what happened.
The monthly numbers take a week to assemble
Investors ask for figures the company cannot produce quickly. The data is spread across spreadsheets and an accounting package nobody queries.
The IT spend is not managed
Software is bought when something breaks and contracts renew without review. Nobody has a list of what the systems cost, or what to change first.
What the old systems cost
IT is rarely the largest line in the accounts, which is why it goes unexamined. The three figures below are the ones we can source. The same McKinsey survey puts technical debt at 20 to 40 percent of the value of a company’s entire technology estate.
On €20 million of revenue, 3.1 percent is roughly €600,000 a year. Most of that keeps the current systems running rather than improving them.
Overlapping software is a real post-close cost
“It started as an AI tool … that replaced four separate SaaS subscriptions and cut mid five figures a year in spend.”A searcher on Searchfunder · Austin, TX · Searchfunder
What we do
We are a hands-on IT and AI operating partner. We join the management team of the company you bought and report to the CEO. We ask to be in the meetings where operating decisions are made. We do not take the CEO seat and we do not source deals.
We modernize the IT systems and operations from inside the business.
Three stages, from the map to a team that can run it
The true state of the systems
We document how the company earns money and what the current systems cost to run: contracts, licences, manual steps, and who holds the knowledge. You get a written map of the true state of the systems, a list of risks, a ranked plan of what to change first, and the savings modernization can bring. It can be done before or after close. If little needs changing, we say so.
Rebuild the legacy stack
We rebuild the processes that carry revenue: quoting, order intake, scheduling, follow-up and reporting. Old systems are replaced or wrapped, and they keep running while that happens. We use AI where it removes manual work.
Train the people who stay
We implement the plan and train the company's tech team so they can operate what we built. The company should not need us at the end of it.
Areas of expertise
We have 20+ years of experience rebuilding IT systems for S&P 500 companies, using these fields of expertise to see the whole organization — not just the tech.
Industrial engineering
Lean management and process improvement. We measure how work flows through the company before changing the software underneath it.
Product management
Innovation and architecture, judged against the P&L. What to build, what to buy and what to leave alone, costed before anything starts.
Technology
AI and the modernization of legacy systems. We replace or wrap the old stack, and keep it running while the work is done.
Who this is for
Private equity, asset managers, search funds, family offices, and anyone else who buys a company that already depends on software to operate. Before close, if you want the systems assessed. After close, if the company is recently acquired.
Talk to us if you recently bought a company, or you are planning to
We can discuss the first diagnosis with you, and implement the transformation if we move forward.