Should you back this brand? Tiller answers

Give Tiller a consumer target and your investment criteria. It runs the full commercial diligence scope, scores the deal against your thesis, stress-tests the case with a simulated investment committee, and returns the answer: invest, dig deeper, or walk.

What you get

An answer built in three layers

The customised read

The standard commercial diligence scope, cut to the deal: your market definition, your segments, your comparable set. Not a generic category report.

  • The full scope: market, competition, consumer demand, channel, growth, risks.
  • Cut to your deal, so the segmentation and comparable set are the ones that matter.
  • Every figure traces to a source you can open.
The scope · click a module to see its questions

How big, how fast, how resilient: market size and segmentation, penetration, historical growth and forecast, tailwinds, downturn resilience.

Scored against your thesis

Your investment criteria applied to the evidence, so the read answers your screen rather than describing a category.

  • Growth thresholds, margin structure, resilience, management signals, category rules: your criteria, applied.
  • Shows where the deal fits your screen.
  • And exactly where it misses, with the evidence behind each miss.
Illustrative · thesis screen
Category growth+9% vs +5% thresholdFIT
Downturn resiliencecategory held through '08 and '20FIT
Gross margin48% vs 55% floorMISS
Channel concentration61% one retailerFLAG
Management track recordfounder's second brand; prior exitFIT

The IC verdict

A simulated investment committee stress-tests the case before you ever see it. Then it's your turn.

  • The case stress-tested against the obvious objections before it reaches you.
  • Probe the read, ask your own questions, and the evidence answers.
  • Ends in a call: invest, dig deeper, or walk.
Illustrative · verdict

Dig deeper

The growth case clears the screen, but two assumptions would not survive IC: margin recovery relies on a price rise not yet taken, and the growth case assumes listings the brand has not yet won.

Everything is evidenced

Every figure in the read traces to a source you can open: retailer listings, shelf prices, market measurement, reviews, filings. Nothing is invented, and gaps are declared, not papered over.

How it works

From target to answer

Scope it

Name the target and your thesis. Tiller drafts the scope it will answer, standardised from how consumer deals are actually diligenced, and you add any question you want on top.

The engine reads

Retailer listings, pricing and promotions, market data, reviews, search and filings, gathered and cross-checked into one evidence base on the target and its competitive set.

Answer, then interrogate

The IC-tested view comes back: invest, dig deeper, or walk, with the reasoning and every figure sourced. Keep asking questions until you're satisfied.

Tiller is the answer you get before you commission the warranted diligence, not a replacement for it. It tells you which targets are worth that spend.

Who it's for

Deep consumer specialism, built in

Tiller does consumer and nothing else. How pet food, drinks and beauty each segment, what shelf and pricing data mean in each category, where the margin actually sits: the engine carries the knowledge a consumer specialist carries.

Screening a pipeline

Rank the targets before committing partner time. Run the same read across a longlist and see which deals deserve the meeting, on evidence rather than instinct.

Smaller deals and add-ons

Deals that can't carry a six-figure diligence usually get done on judgement alone. Tiller gives them a proportionate, evidenced answer.

Building conviction early

An outside-in answer on the market, the competitive set and the demand picture before you pay for the full workstream, so the big spend goes into confirming a case, not discovering one.

Why Tiller

Why funds use it

An answer, not a dashboard

Tiller ends with a recommendation you can act on, not sixty charts to interpret. The synthesis is the product.

Cut to your thesis

The read is framed against your own investment criteria: your comparable set, the sub-segments you back, the case you would have to underwrite.

Evidence you can open

Every number traces to a source. Nothing is invented, and missing data is flagged as missing.

Get started

Have a target in mind?

Bring the company you're actually weighing. Book a call and we'll screen it.

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