Stop relying on what the pitch deck says about the tech. TechSignal reads the codebase directly - continuous signals in minutes, structured due diligence in days, and an AI CTO available on demand.
Built by fractional CTOs who have completed 80+ technical due diligences across Europe.
Signal · Due Diligence
Code Quality
78
Complete
Security
61
Complete
Scalability
Analysing…
Stability
Pending
Product
Link a repo. Run a signal. Ask the AI CTO anything. Here's exactly what it looks like inside.
Repository
stripe/stripe-node
Last commit · 2 hours ago
Read-only · No code stored
Team
john@sequoia.com
sarah@sequoia.com
Invite pending
dev@stripe.com
Run 3
Latest1 critical
3 moderate
API keys hardcoded in 14 files. Flag before any public disclosure.
Ask the AI CTO
Not an AI wrapper. The product has 3 proprietary data models and a custom event pipeline processing 2M+ events daily. Infrastructure complexity would take 12–18 months to replicate. The LLM integration is less than 8% of the codebase and is modular.
Recommendation
Strong moat. Flag dependency count (450+ packages) but proceed to IC with confidence.
The problem
Three problems have been normalised for too long. Each one costs investors and founders more than they realise.
Early-stage deals move fast. Tech DD feels expensive and slow. So it gets skipped. Then the problems surface post-close, where fixing them costs 3–5× more. Not doing DD is not a time saving - it is a deferred liability.
Software systems evolve constantly. Decisions made under pressure accumulate between funding rounds. A report delivered at entry tells you nothing about where the codebase is today, or whether the team is actually improving it.
70% of deal failures are linked to tech issues. Most investors had the signals long before close - they just had no mechanism to track them. Findings in a PDF without a shared platform to act on them are worth nothing.
Turnaround
Traditional
3 to 6 weeks
Monitor
On demand
Tech DD
2–7 days
Cost
Traditional
€5k to €100k+
Monitor
from €99/mo
Tech DD
from €1,500
AI analysis
Traditional
No
Monitor
✓
Tech DD
✓
Ask AI CTO
Traditional
No
Monitor
✓
Tech DD
✓
Weekly signals
Traditional
Never
Monitor
✓
Tech DD
✓
CTO review
Traditional
Sometimes
Monitor
No
Tech DD
✓ (always)
Full report
Traditional
Sometimes
Monitor
✓
Tech DD
✓
Code stored
Traditional
Sometimes
Monitor
Never
Tech DD
Never
| Traditional TDD | TechSignal Monitor | TechSignal DD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turnaround | 3 to 6 weeks | On demand | 2–7 days |
| Cost | €5,000 to €100,000+ | from €99/mo | from €1,500 |
| AI analysis | No | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ask AI CTO | No | ✓ | ✓ |
| Weekly signals | Never | ✓ | ✓ |
| CTO review | Sometimes | No | ✓ always |
| Full report | Sometimes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Code stored | Sometimes | Never | Never |
Use cases
Ask the hard questions before the wire clears. How deep is the IP? What's the dev effort to scale 5×? Are there hardcoded secrets? Get answers in minutes, backed by code - not by the founder's pitch deck.
Follow specific signals week by week. See whether issues flagged last month were fixed or quietly deprioritised. Catch technical drift before the next board meeting - not after the next capital call.
Before a major marketing push or growth sprint, get a clear read on whether your architecture is ready. Identify bottlenecks before they become crises - not after traffic spikes and the product goes down.
Use TDD Preparation templates built for specific rounds. Run the same analysis framework investors use. Fix what needs fixing before they ask. Show up with 6 months of improving scores - not a codebase full of surprises.
Ask the AI CTO
Stop reading 60-page reports to find the three sentences that matter. Ask the AI CTO directly - get a code-backed answer in under five minutes. Available to investors before the deal, founders before the raise, and portfolio teams between board meetings.
Ask the AI CTO
Is this a real AI moat or just an API wrapper?
Real moat. Three proprietary data models, a custom event pipeline processing 2M+ events daily, and 14 months of training data competitors cannot replicate. The LLM accounts for less than 8% of the codebase and is modular - swappable without rebuilding the product.
Technical moat: strong. Estimated rebuild effort: 18–24 months.
What breaks first if we scale 5×?
The jobs queue. It has no backpressure mechanism and will saturate at roughly 3× current load. Estimated fix: 2 sprints. Flag it before the Series A - it is the kind of thing that surfaces in a growth sprint and surprises everyone.
How it works
You might have direct access to the repo - or you might need to invite a developer to connect it. Either way, setup takes minutes and nothing gets stored.
If you have access, link it yourself via our read-only GitHub App. No access? Invite a developer from the team - they get a one-click connection request. No credentials shared, no code stored.
Select a signal template or trigger a full scan. A fleet of AI Agents analyses the codebase in an isolated environment across code quality, stability, scalability, and security. Results in under 5 minutes.
Get answers to the questions that matter - is this an AI moat? What breaks at 5×? What are the top 3 risks? Every answer is backed by code evidence, not summaries.
Connect once and TechSignal runs a fresh analysis every week. See if scores are improving, flat, or slipping - and whether the team is actually acting on what was flagged.
When signals aren't enough, book a CTO-led engagement directly from your dashboard. Code analysis, five structured sessions, and a full report in Investor, Founder, and Developer tones.
Above The Clouds - we use TechSignal as the brain behind every Tech DD we run.
From automated business context collection to five CTO-led sessions, report drafting, and final delivery - TechSignal powers the full engagement.
From: TechSignal <signals@techsignal.app>
Weekly Engineering Digest: Startup A
Monday, 5 May 2025
This week's scores
Top finding this week
New dependency with a known CVE added this week. Update to version 4.2.1.
Weekly signals
Portfolio companies monitored continuously do not surprise their investors. Connect a repo once, set a signal goal, and TechSignal runs a fresh analysis every week - delivered straight to your inbox. No dashboards to check. No manual runs.
Coverage
Architecture decisions, test coverage, technical debt, and engineering discipline. Is this a team that ships with care?
CI/CD pipelines, error handling, monitoring and deployment practices. Will this hold up after the money wires?
Database design, caching strategy, infrastructure choices, and known bottlenecks. Can this handle 10x the current load?
Exposed secrets, dependency vulnerabilities, auth patterns, and data handling. What are the liability risks in this codebase?
Security
In a traditional TDD, your codebase gets cloned onto someone's personal machine, shared over email, or opened in unaudited tools. We built a different model - and it matters.
We never ask for personal GitHub credentials. Developers connect via a GitHub App with read-only scope. No write access. No secrets. The connection can be revoked at any time from GitHub settings.
The code is pulled into a secured, ephemeral instance solely for analysis. AI Agents and our CTOs work inside that environment. The source code is never saved to disk, never indexed, and purged after every run.
Your intellectual property stays yours. The only output we retain is the structured findings and scores - never the source code that generated them. Founders keep full control of their codebase at every stage.
Pricing
Continuous monitoring is a SaaS subscription. Technical due diligence is a professional service. Both live in the same dashboard.
Continuous monitoring
First signal free. No credit card required.
For active founders and individual investors.
For angels, small funds, and serial founders.
/ month per firm
For VC, PE, and angels running a live deal pipeline. Volume pricing for 10+ portfolio companies on request.
Talk to us →Due diligence engagements
A proper technical due diligence is not a report. It is a professional service. CTO-led, meeting-based, and bookable directly from your dashboard.
Delivered in 2–3 days
Delivered in 5–7 days
Traditional boutique firms charge €10,000+ for the same scope, with turnarounds of 3 to 6 weeks. TechSignal delivers it in 5–7 days, from €7,500.
Not ready for a full engagement?
Run the DD Preparation signal template first. It runs the same analysis framework in under 5 minutes, surfaces the critical gaps, and gives founders a clear view of what to fix before an investor comes knocking.
Behind TechSignal
TechSignal is a product of Above The Clouds. We are fractional CTOs and builders who have completed 80+ technical due diligences across Europe for leading VC and PE funds. After doing this work for years, we reached a conclusion: the way tech DD is done is fundamentally broken. Episodic. Disconnected from the relationship. Never acted on.
We built TechSignal to fix that. The AI does the heavy lifting. Our CTOs bring the judgment. That is the combination no one else offers.
Read our Tech DD Manifesto→Run your first signal free. No credit card. No repo access needed to get started.
Run your first signal→