Building Technical Conviction Before Commitment
How ICOS Capital builds technical conviction on every deal — from initial scan through full due diligence
“We want to back founders building real technology, not just a good story around it. X-Ray and Due Diligence give us the technical confidence we need before we commit.”
About ICOS Capital
ICOS Capital is a Dutch venture capital firm focused on technology-driven companies. The firm invests in founders building scalable software and tech-enabled businesses, with a particular focus on companies where technology is a core differentiator rather than a feature. ICOS brings operational and strategic support alongside capital, with a network designed to help portfolio companies accelerate their go-to-market and build out their teams.
Why technical conviction matters in the ICOS thesis
ICOS Capital's investment thesis is built around backing companies where technology creates genuine competitive defensibility. That makes the quality of the underlying technology — not just the product experience or commercial traction — a central factor in every investment decision. The team wants to understand whether the technology beneath the pitch is architected to win, or whether it's a prototype dressed up as a platform.
Building that conviction consistently across a pipeline of deals required a process that could move at deal speed while still delivering the depth of analysis needed for high-confidence decisions. ICOS needed both a fast first-look tool and a more thorough due diligence capability for the deals that warranted deeper investigation.
A two-stage technical process
ICOS now uses X-Ray as the first technical touchpoint on any deal that reaches serious consideration. The scan gives the deal team a structured view across architecture, code quality, security, infrastructure, and team within 24 hours — enough to either validate or challenge the technical narrative before the first term sheet discussion. For deals where the X-Ray raises questions or where the size of the investment warrants it, the Scaleflow Due Diligence product provides a full IC-ready technical assessment.
The two-stage model means ICOS can calibrate the depth of technical assessment to the stage of the deal and the level of technical risk involved — running light scans efficiently on early-stage deals while deploying full due diligence capability when the stakes are highest.
Results
- ✓Consistent technical assessment on every deal from first serious consideration onwards
- ✓Two-stage model (X-Ray then Due Diligence) calibrated to deal stage and investment size
- ✓X-Ray findings used as the basis for targeted follow-up questions with founding teams
- ✓Full due diligence reports used directly in IC presentations, reducing preparation time
- ✓Technical conviction built systematically rather than case-by-case
Services