We wrote the book on scalability.
AKF Partners tells investors and technology leaders the truth about a platform — its architecture, its team, and its risk — and brings the operating experience to lead the fix. Founded by the former engineering leaders of eBay and PayPal.
Authors of The Art of Scalability and more
AI, judged the same way we judge scale — pragmatically. For investors and operators: Is it real? Does it scale? Is it making the team faster?
Investing in a technology company?
Whether you are evaluating a private equity investment, venture capital opportunity, or M&A transaction, get an independent read on architecture, scalability, security, team, and key-person risk—with a plain-language estimate of what each issue will cost to fix.
Request diligence →Running a technology company?
Scaling pains, tech debt, a stalled transformation, a leadership gap — or figuring out where AI actually fits. We diagnose the real root cause and stay through execution, leading the work as your interim CTO, CPTO, or COO.
Book a strategy call →Preparing your company for sale?
Understand how buyers or investors will assess your technology before diligence begins — ahead of a sale or a capital raise. We identify material risks, prioritize remediation, and help your team prepare evidence that supports the growth story.
Explore sell-side services →Technical Due Diligence
Trusted by leading private equity and venture capital firms, as well as strategic acquirers, across hundreds of M&A transactions. In a handful of focused sessions, we evaluate the factors that determine whether an investment can scale:
You get a SWOT report — and for every risk, our estimate of the cost and time to fix it. Delivered within a week of our final session, built to fit your deal clock. We can run diligence from our offices to keep it off the target's floor. Preparing for a buyer's diligence? We can run the same review on your own company first.
Report in 48 hours
- Based on the documents provided and direct analysis of the code
- Eight areas rated and scored on the AKF Scale Cube
- Built for screening and competitive processes
- Fee can be applied toward full diligence
Report in under two weeks
- Adds focused management sessions with AKF partners
- Claims validated with the target's team
- Estimated cost and time to fix every risk
Sell-Side Diligence & Exit Readiness
Understand how buyers or investors will assess your technology before diligence begins, whether you're selling or raising capital. We review the areas they will test against your growth plan:
You get a technology assessment, a prioritized remediation roadmap, and an evidence and preparation plan — plus, if your process calls for one, a technical assessment for prospective buyers to augment your CIM. Starting 12–18 months before a sale gives the team time to fix structural issues and show progress.
Interim Technology Leadership
A departed CTO, a stalled transformation, or a company that has outgrown ad hoc leadership — we step into the seat from day one. Our interim leaders have held these roles themselves:
Hiring the right person can take months — don't rush it just to fill the seat. We provide leadership immediately, give you time to recruit the right permanent hire, and stay through the transition.
Start Anywhere. Scale What Works.
From "should we buy it?" to "let's make it great." Most firms hand you a report and walk away. We can take you the whole way:
You only engage the rungs you need.
Core Challenges
We Solve.
Every one of these gets the same promise: we diagnose the real root cause, and we stay to lead the fix.
Technology Consulting
Faster, better, cheaper — with the numbers to prove it. We diagnose the true root cause across architecture, process, and organization, hand you a prioritized plan tied to business return, and stay to lead execution — including where and how AI fits your product and your delivery pipeline. Your engineers build; we make sure they're building the right thing, the right way.
Learn MoreInterim CTO, CPTO & COO
Leadership from people who've actually held the seat at companies like eBay, PayPal, large retailers, banks, and publishing companies — not career consultants. We step in to lead: set technical direction, run the organization, drive the roadmap, make the architecture calls, and recruit your permanent leader. We rotate senior hours so you get constant coverage and pay only for time used. We lead teams and delivery — we don't replace your engineers.
Learn MoreAI, Without the Hype
We help you put AI into your product without betting the platform on it, and raise your engineering org's velocity with agentic tooling — mapped to where you actually sit on the maturity curve, not where a vendor says you should be.
Learn MoreWhat Investors & Operators Say.
“AKF Partners is my go-to firm for helping our portfolio companies grow their platforms and technology.”
“Stripes has engaged AKF Partners across multiple transactions, and their technical due diligence work consistently sets the bar. Their team brings a rare blend of deep technical expertise and pragmatic business insight from their operating experience — helping us not only understand the scalability and resiliency of a target's architecture, but also assess leadership, security posture, and engineering process maturity. They've become a trusted partner in our investment process.”
“There is no other firm on the planet that knows more about building and running highly scalable and reliable SaaS platforms and services. AKF is my secret weapon.”
“The professionals at AKF combine business expertise and acumen with world class understanding of and experience in designing, implementing, scaling, and operating online services infrastructure and applications. The AKF team was instrumental in building the technology stack and surrounding operating practices of one of the largest, most successful Internet companies in the world, something very few other firms can claim.”
“We brought these guys in to validate our approach, but they ended up showing us how to think about scalability from a whole new dimension. When it comes to scalability, they wrote the book.”
“We leverage AKF to provide an outside executive level perspective for our SaaS initiatives. They provide a level of expertise and perspective that few have with ensuring SaaS products have high availability, scalability, and resiliency.”
“AKF Partners come in to provide a comprehensive assessment of architecture, process maturity, and organization structure, with useful frameworks to consider during our transformation.”
“They have the right expertise to take a high-growth SaaS company to the technological level necessary to operate as a global, redundant, high availability and scalable enterprise. They are a pleasure to work with, flexible and yield high ROI.”
We Wrote the Book on Scalability.
Our founders are published authors of industry-defining books on technology scalability and leadership — used by engineering organizations worldwide.
The Art of Scalability
The definitive guide to scaling technology architecture, used by engineering organizations worldwide as the industry standard reference for scale.
Learn MoreScalability Rules
50 principles for scaling web sites. Practical, actionable rules drawn from real-world experience at top technology companies around the globe.
Learn MoreThe Power of Customer Misbehavior
The newly discovered drivers of viral growth — product misuse, self-identity, and technological features — presented as simple, actionable principles.
Learn MoreDiscuss your technology priorities.
Evaluating an investment, preparing a company for sale, or improving technology execution? Tell us what you need to accomplish and when.