Due diligence: the human factor behind the numbers

Written by Guillaume Pouillier, CNAPS-licensed private detective, licence no. AGD 095-2024-03-06-20190240581 · Last updated: July 12, 2026

Most business disasters do not come from a misread balance sheet but from a misjudged person: the associate already behind two discreet liquidations, the executive whose “American MBA” does not exist, the partner whose sister company competes with yours. Human due diligence, our speciality, completes the financial and legal audit with what no data room contains. From our agency at 10 rue de la Paix, we conduct it in France and internationally through the Prometheus Group network. This page explains what we add, when it matters, and how it works.

What does a detective add to classic due diligence?

The accounting and legal audit analyses what the target chooses to show; the investigator documents what it does not: the directors’ actual track records, disguised past failures, undisclosed litigation, conflicts of interest, effective reputation in the sector. The human factor, verified at the source.

A data room is an exercise in communication as much as transparency: the documents in it are chosen. Our work begins where it stops, in the public registers nobody cross-checks, in old local press, in the legal publications of the structures “forgotten” from the CV, in the spontaneous testimony of former partners, and in the field when needed. An unverifiable detail is never innocent: most of our findings start there, with the one date or diploma that refuses to line up.

The result is not one more opinion but a factual, sourced report that confirms or contradicts the other side’s narrative. In a negotiation, that recovered information asymmetry is often worth several points of valuation. And when everything checks out, which happens, you sign with a serenity no warranty clause will ever buy you.

When is human due diligence indispensable?

Whenever a signature binds you durably to a person: a new shareholder, an acquisition or sale, a fundraising round, a joint venture, the hire of a key executive, a strategic partnership, all the more with a foreign counterparty, or one in a hurry to close.

• Partnership and capital: an associate is harder to leave than to choose, verify before the shareholders’ agreement
• Acquisition / sale: who really is the buyer promising staged payments? See also the solvency check
• Fundraising: do the announced funds exist, and where do they come from?
• Key executive: past offices, management bans, managerial reputation, completed by CV verification
• Foreign partner: actual structure, apparent beneficial owners, local standing through our WAD network

What exactly do we verify about a person?

Identity and career (degrees, positions, dates), the complete entrepreneurial history, including the structures absent from the pitch, visible proceedings and litigation, management bans, capital links and conflicts of interest, sector reputation and the consistency of the lifestyle.

For legal entities, this human module pairs with an economic reading: actual activity observed, visible headcount, effective premises, the same methods as our solvency check.

How does the assignment unfold, and how long does it take?

Confidential scoping with you or your counsel, a documentary phase (registers, publications, press, open sources), source-level verification (institutions, former partners), fieldwork if needed, then a sourced report. Allow one to three weeks depending on scope, often less than the data room.

1. Scoping. Whom to verify, for which decision, with what deadline: the scope is aligned with your signing calendar.

2. Documentary work. Trade registers, legal publications, specialist and local press, published decisions: the official trajectory is rebuilt.

3. Live sources. Degrees verified with the institutions, former partners and employers approached with tact, never revealing your project.

4. Report. A decision summary, one sheet per verified point, cited sources, uncertainty zones flagged honestly.

Discretion is absolute: the target never learns it was vetted, and your project is never mentioned.

Within which legal framework do these checks operate?

CNAPS licence, an evident legitimate interest (an investment or partnership decision), proportionate collection and lawful sources: public registers, open sources, fair interviews, observation in public space. The GDPR is respected at every step, and the report remains strictly confidential.

The line with what we do not do is sharp: no access to reserved files (banking, tax, criminal records), no unfair pretext, no intrusion. Those limits do not reduce effectiveness, most decisive signals are public or observable, provided you know where to look and how to cross-check. That is the craft.

Funds, SMEs, start-ups: do the uses differ?

The investment fund verifies serially and looks for consistency across management teams; the family SME verifies once, at the most binding moment of its history; the start-up verifies its investors as much as the reverse. Three tempos, one method.

For funds, we plug into the investment process: systematic vetting of founders and key executives before the term sheet, a consistent report format, lead times compatible with deal flow. Recurrence earns a degressive rate card.

For the SME and its owner, the stake is often unique and existential, selling a life’s work, bringing in a partner. We take the time of context: the sector, the region, the customs. It is frequently a first experience with a detective; the free first consultation also serves to demystify.

For the start-up, the balance of power flips: it is the pressing investor who needs vetting, the reality of the funds, precedents with other portfolio companies, one-sided clauses already practised. Half a day of verification has saved more than one cap table.

Two typical files, anonymised

A charismatic buyer whose three previous liquidations appeared under none of the variants of his usage name; a “foreign family office” hurrying to invest, whose prestigious address housed a mere domiciliation service and none of the claimed holdings.

The serial liquidator. A charismatic executive offers to take over a family SME with deferred payment. His usage name, slightly different from his civil status, masked three liquidations in ten years, two of them leaving unpaid suppliers in the same sector. The sale is restructured: majority cash payment, personal guarantees. The seller signed, but with his eyes open.

The phantom family office. A foreign investor pushes a start-up to close a round “before the end of the month”. Local checks by our WAD correspondent reveal a pure domiciliation address, claimed holdings that cannot be found, and a litigious precedent in a neighbouring country. The round is abandoned, and the start-up still alive, its founders now vetting every incoming term sheet as a matter of routine. The cost of that verification was less than the lawyers’ fees for a single negotiation meeting; the alternative did not bear calculating.

How much does it cost?

Human due diligence is priced by scope: vetting one person in France falls under administrative enquiries (from €350 excl. VAT); a complete multi-target or international file gets a written flat fee. Field verification is invoiced at €85/hour (excl. VAT), degressive with volume.

Set that cost against the stakes: a few hundred or thousand euros of verification versus years of partnership or a sale price. It is, by far, the cheapest line item of your closing.

See the full price list.

Frequently asked questions