Private equity technology work in 2026 is no longer adjacent to the deal. It is the deal. Sponsors increasingly underwrite to AI-driven value-creation theses that depend on technology execution the operating team has never run before, in regulatory regimes that have moved meaningfully in the last twelve months, against integration timelines that compress on each successive platform. Diligence that produces a binder and ends at close was a viable model in 2018. It is not a viable model now.
Sultan Meghji leads Virtova’s PE practice personally. The work is informed by direct deal-side and operating experience across multi-billion-dollar funds and their portfolio companies in financial services, healthcare and life sciences, and industrial technology, including the $900M Ipower/Endurance acquisition by Accel/KKR that ultimately became a $3.5B public company.
What this engagement looks like
The Virtova private-equity practice runs six named offers across four deal stages. This page covers the sponsor-side technology work that brackets the deal: the thematic read before a target is in view, and the integration and portfolio work after close. Deal-stage diligence is detailed on M&A technical diligence (the AI Thesis Check and Technology & AI Diligence offers); the AI thread of the value-creation plan and exit readiness are detailed on AI value creation for private equity.
Sourcing-stage thematic work (four to eight weeks). Sub-sector reads on technology, AI, and regulatory dynamics that inform the sponsor’s pipeline construction. Typical output is a written thematic read on the technology and AI dynamics inside a target sub-sector, plus a list of risks the sponsor should pre-bake into screening criteria.
100-Day Technology & AI Plan. The first ninety days post-close determine whether the diligence findings translate into actual change. The engagement produces a sequenced 90/180/365-day plan built from the diligence findings, a named owner for each integration thread, and senior oversight at one to two days a week for the first six months. Where the portco needs continuous executive coverage, it runs as a fractional CIO/CTO arrangement instead. The integration thesis from diligence is the starting point; sponsors that succeed at integration are usually the ones whose diligence produced an honest one.
Portfolio AI Scan. For sponsors running multiple platforms, a common read across the portfolio on technical risk, AI maturity, regulatory exposure, and integration progress. Described below.
Where the value-creation thesis depends on commercial themes rather than technology, AI, or regulatory positioning, Virtova works alongside the sponsor’s operating partners and commercial advisors rather than substituting for them.
Who this is for
The practice is built for middle-market and upper-middle-market private-equity sponsors and their operating partners, plus the portfolio companies themselves. Sectors of consistent strength: U.S. financial services, healthcare and life sciences, federal contractors and adjacent industrial technology, AI-native companies, and platforms with material regulatory exposure where the technology and compliance threads run together.
Portfolio AI Scan: portfolio-level reporting and coordination
Sponsors who run multiple platforms tend to prefer engagements that produce consistent reporting across the portfolio rather than bespoke deliverables on each platform. Virtova engagements under a portfolio-level retainer use a common framework for technical risk, AI maturity, regulatory exposure, and integration progress, so the deal team and operating partners get a comparable read across platforms.
The framework is not a scoring rubric pulled from a consulting playbook; it is calibrated to the sponsor’s actual investment thesis and operating cadence and refined across engagements. Sponsors typically use it for quarterly portfolio reviews, exit-readiness sequencing, and the conversation at the IC table about which platforms are tracking and which are not.
When the engagement is the wrong answer
Sponsor-level engagement is the wrong shape when the sponsor needs hands-on portfolio-company execution rather than senior-led oversight; in those cases, named operating partners or specialist consulting firms fit better, and Virtova will say so on the discovery call. It is also not the right shape for distressed or turnaround situations where the engagement requires interim leadership at scale. Virtova engagements are senior-led and small by design.
A note on AI in the PE thesis
The most consistent signal across deals Virtova has worked since mid-2025 is that AI-driven value-creation theses are landing more often in the IC memo than they are landing in the post-close execution. Diligence frameworks that treat AI as a separate diligence stream (or worse, as a marketing claim) produce theses sponsors cannot underwrite to. Frameworks that integrate AI into the architecture, data, and engineering-organization assessments produce theses with sharper teeth and post-close plans that hold up. The Virtova engagement is calibrated to the latter.
Next step
Most engagements start with a 30-minute discovery call. Bring a current deal, a portfolio-company question, or a sub-sector thesis the fund is working on, and we will tell you what scope fits.