Modernization Shield · Technical due diligence for private equity
Find the technical risk in a legacy-heavy target before it reprices the deal.
The data room tells you what the seller decided to show you. It does not tell you what is in the code. Technical debt shows up after close, in integration timelines, operating costs, and the exit. Evincia surfaces the modernization risk in a legacy .NET and SQL Server estate before you commit the capital, not after.
A fixed-scope, IC-ready read per application, scaled across the portfolio. The signal extraction is deterministic -- the same instrument on every deal, so the evidence is comparable -- and a senior architect interprets it and signs the result: the Legacy Modernization Risk Report (LMRR).
Atlanta-based, serving PE firms nationwide · Read and signed by a senior architect
The questions you cannot answer from the data room.
It shows you the financials, the customers, the leadership, the legal exposure. Not what is actually inside the code. Those technical questions surface later, and they surface expensively.
The sponsor wants a defensible technical view by the IC date and your usual diligence path is not built for legacy .NET systems.
A portfolio company's modernization plan keeps slipping and the operating partner is being asked why.
An undisclosed dependency on an unsupported platform surfaces 60 days after close and reframes the value creation plan.
A bolt-on acquisition runs on technology nobody has fully diagrammed since the founder left.
An IC member asks "did we do technical due diligence?" and the honest answer is "the broker said it was fine."
The portfolio company's CTO needs an outside read because the internal team cannot assess itself.
When one of these questions lands without a defensible answer, the consequence is measured in delayed deals, blown synergies, and value creation plans that miss in ways that show up at exit. Modernization Shield produces an evidence-based answer in ten business days per application, before the question becomes a deal problem. Where that value creation plan rests on someone's modernization estimate, reading the estimate critically is part of the diligence -- see how to read a modernization estimate.
And the diligence itself does not add risk to the deal: the engine runs as a CLI inside the target's environment and creates the initial evidence deterministically -- no AI, and no required network calls outside that environment. Any later AI-assisted synthesis is optional and governed by your rules. Review Security & Data Handling.
What you actually get.
The Legacy Modernization Risk Report (LMRR) is a single decision-ready document plus a structured evidence appendix. It is designed to be read in 30 to 45 minutes by a CTO-in-Residence, then handed to an Operating Partner for a 10-minute scan, then dropped into an IC packet without rework.
What the LMRR contains:
A prioritized Risk Register showing the evidence, probability, impact, confidence, and recommended action for each finding.
Failure analysis showing which hidden dependencies and operating constraints are most likely to disrupt the plan.
A phased plan showing what to fix first, what can wait, and where delays or added capital are most likely.
A Modernization Readiness Score (0 to 100) anchored to a four-dimension Modernization Readiness Radar: Platform Obsolescence, Architectural Coupling, Dependency Risk, and Change Safety. The score is defensible, the findings under it are reproducible, and the result fits on a single slide.
Three companion documents: a System and Architecture Overview for the technical evaluator, a Modernization Blockers document for the value creation conversation, and an Evidence Appendix that connects findings to raw signal data and supporting artifacts.
Every application is read with the same instrument, so the findings are comparable rather than merely similarly formatted. Where a portfolio has two or more applications, that comparability becomes its own deliverable: a portfolio read that scores every application on the same scale and ranks them against each other, so the question "which of these is the problem" has an answer with evidence under it.
Evincia does not sell implementation work. The sponsor gets an independent view of risk before committing to scope, budget, staffing, a delivery partner, or an AI roadmap.
Modernization Shield for private equity is priced per application: a fixed-scope read of each .NET solution, $25,000 to $30,000 depending on the size of the solution, scaled across the portfolio. Same rate for pre-close due diligence and post-close portfolio review. It is the same instrument and the same fixed scope as a standard engagement, at a higher price, and here is exactly what the difference buys: your IC date is a commitment rather than a target, and a multi-application portfolio comes with the portfolio read above. If we cannot hit your date, you will hear that before you engage, not after. No urgency premium and no scope-creep risk -- each application is a bounded, fixed-scope assessment, and a multi-application portfolio is scoped on a short call before work begins.
Against a deal model, the fee rounds to nothing. Twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars per application to surface a platform risk before close is a fraction of a single repriced turn or a remediation line the model never accounted for. On a legacy-heavy target, the diagnostic is the cheap part of the decision.
What we actually look at.
The assessment reads the estate the way it actually runs: the code, the database, the integrations, and the operating constraints. That means looking at:
The .NET target frameworks across the .csproj projects -- what the platform is actually pinned to, not what the wiki says it should be.
The T-SQL, stored procedures, SQL Agent jobs, and linked servers -- where the business logic often hides, well outside the application code anyone thinks to review.
The dependency graph and any unsupported or end-of-life packages -- the parts of the stack that are already past their support window, whether or not anyone has noticed.
Architectural coupling: WCF bindings and the integration seams that make a system expensive to change, and that turn a clean-sounding plan into a multi-quarter one.
Security exposure and access patterns -- how the system authenticates and what it trusts: SQL logins and connection strings, service and app-pool identities, integrated-versus-SQL auth, and what a buyer quietly inherits with them.
Whether planned AI or automation can safely use the current systems, data, and integration paths.
Which risks must be addressed first, which can wait, and which could interrupt operations or change the capital plan.
What it looks like in practice.
For a sense of the diligence-style deliverable structure, review the SocialGoal sample Modernization Risk Report. SocialGoal is an open-source ASP.NET MVC application, and the report runs the full Modernization Shield methodology against it: 194 raw engine findings, consolidated by a senior architect to 16, scored 44 out of 100, Red zone. Findings cite supporting artifacts such as files and dependencies, and because the codebase is public, you can review the evidence against the source.
The sample report shows how technical findings are translated into risk language that leadership and diligence teams can use:
A 0-to-100 Modernization Readiness Score across four dimensions. The sample scores 44: Red zone.
A 16-finding Risk Register where every entry carries probability, impact, confidence, and an automation level that says how much came from the engine versus the architect.
Four-phase sequencing guidance, safety gate first, with a score trajectory a sponsor can fund against.
Three companion documents: Document A, System and Architecture Overview; Document B, Modernization Blockers; Document C, the Evidence Appendix.
A data-room honesty caveat naming what the analysis could not see.
A diligence engagement wraps that same deliverable in the context a sponsor needs. Scoping starts from the deal: the close date, the value-creation plan, the timeline pressure. Stakeholder interviews and business-logic review cover the categories static analysis cannot. Effort and cost are scoped from the engagement, not generated by the engine, and the report says so plainly. The register ships with that data-room caveat, because hidden coupling found late is the classic post-close surprise. When Phase 1 completes, a re-score against the same twelve risk categories shows whether the number actually moved.
The public-codebase example shows those diligence-style sections, the sponsor recommendations, and the data-room caveat, written to demonstrate the deliverable and labeled honestly: no client, no sponsor, no live database, no interviews. It is deliverable proof, not proof of PE adoption, customer validation, or commercial outcomes.
Pages from the sample report: a real public codebase (SocialGoal, an open-source ASP.NET MVC application), scored 44/100 Red. The supporting evidence is checkable against the source.
If your portfolio looks like this -- mid-market, legacy .NET on SQL Server, modernization on the horizon -- this is the report you would receive.
How the Engagement Works
Modernization Shield runs the same fixed-scope engagement for pre-close diligence and post-close portfolio review. From kickoff to an IC-ready report, each application runs on a fixed ten-business-day calendar, weighted toward the analysis in the middle, where engine output and senior architect review identify the hidden liabilities, operational failure modes, timeline risk, and likely capital impact:
The 10-Day Technical Diligence Sprint
Four sequential phases across ten business days per application. The engine and senior architect review phase carries the most weight; kickoff and delivery bracket it.
Day 12345678910
Kickoff1-2 days
Engine + Architect Review3-5 days
Synthesis2-3 days
Delivery1-2 days
Two layers produce the deliverable. The diagnostic engine extracts repeatable evidence from the .NET solution. A senior architect reads the codebase, SQL Server artifacts, and stakeholder context to interpret undocumented decisions, embedded business logic, and operating constraints. The combination makes the LMRR defensible in front of an IC and actionable for the operating team.
The engagement runs against the sponsor's calendar. Pre-close technical due diligence with a tight signing date and post-close portfolio review with a longer planning horizon use the same methodology and produce the same deliverable. The only difference is the kickoff timing.
Who this is for (and who it's not)
This work is for teams who need clarity, not reassurance.
Good fit
A mid-market target or portfolio company on legacy .NET and SQL Server.
Modernization or an AI initiative on the value-creation horizon.
Undocumented systems, or a founding engineer who has already left.
You need a technical read before the number, the plan, or the deal is set.
Not a fit
Greenfield or cloud-native targets with no legacy coupling.
Non-.NET stacks outside current coverage.
You need pure financial QoE, not technical diligence.
View the Sample Modernization Risk Report, then tell us about the deal.
The SocialGoal sample Modernization Risk Report is the fastest way to judge deliverable fit. It takes 30 to 45 minutes to read and shows the structure of the output, from the IC-ready executive summary to the phased plan, using a publicly available codebase rather than a client engagement.
What the first conversation covers -- in writing or on a short call, never a sales pitch:
The platform and rough scope: which legacy .NET and SQL Server systems are in play across the target or portfolio company.
The deadline and the pressure behind it -- the IC date or the close -- so the engagement lands before the number, the plan, or the deal is set.
Whether Modernization Shield is the right next step. If a different approach would serve the deal better, we will tell you.
No implementation pitch. Evincia sells no migration or build work, so there is nothing to upsell on the other side of the diligence.
