Commercial Due Diligence
Validate the commercial reality behind the investment thesis.
Commercial due diligence evaluates the market, customer, and competitive dynamics that underpin an investment opportunity. It helps investors and corporate acquirers assess demand, growth potential, competitive risk, and sustainability — separating attractive narratives from durable commercial fundamentals.
When to conduct
Commercial Due Diligence
Conduct commercial due diligence when evaluating an acquisition, investment, or strategic transaction and you need an independent, evidence-based view of market opportunity, competitive position, and growth risk before capital is committed.
What is
Commercial Due Diligence
Commercial due diligence combines market sizing, customer research, and competitive analysis to evaluate whether a business’s growth assumptions are realistic and defensible. It examines not only the size of the opportunity, but the quality of demand, competitive intensity, and durability of revenue.
55%
of deal underperformance is attributed to commercial factors that were underestimated or missed during diligence. Commercial due diligence reduces this risk by rigorously testing assumptions around demand, differentiation, and competitive dynamics before closing.
Sample Research
Questions We Answer
Question 1:
Is market demand real, durable, and scalable?
CDD assesses whether customer demand supports the growth story — evaluating need, willingness to pay, and adoption drivers across segments.
49%
of customers cite unmet needs or dissatisfaction with current solutions — signaling real opportunity for growth.
27%
of projected growth is tied to assumptions that require significant behavior change or market education.
Question 2:
How defensible is the competitive position?
Commercial due diligence evaluates competitive intensity, switching behavior, and differentiation to determine how sustainable current performance is under competitive pressure.
43%
of buyers say alternative providers could meet their needs with minimal switching friction.
31%
associate the target company’s advantage primarily with execution rather than structural differentiation — highlighting potential risk.
Why trust Emporia with your
Commercial Due Diligence
Bring independent, market-backed evidence to critical deal decisions.
Commercial due diligence demands speed, rigor, and objectivity. Emporia’s approach combines verified B2B buyer input with deep expertise in market and competitive analysis to provide an unbiased view of commercial risk and opportunity. By grounding diligence in real customer and market data, we help investors and acquirers pressure-test assumptions, validate growth drivers, and move forward with confidence — or walk away with clarity.
Speed / Agility
Move from question to insight without sacrificing rigor. Emporia’s streamlined workflows and responsive research support allow teams to launch, field, and analyze studies quickly — so insights arrive while decisions are still being made, not after the moment has passed.
Verified B2B Respondents
Reach the right decision-makers with confidence. Every respondent is verified using professional attributes, ensuring your insights reflect real buyers, real roles, and real purchasing influence — not guesswork or self-reported profiles.
Expert Methodology
Get more than data — get direction. Our team partners closely on study design, framing, and interpretation, helping translate research outputs into clear strategic implications across pricing, positioning, and go-to-market execution.
Emporia provides valuable access to niche, high-level respondents that are otherwise difficult to reach. They enable us to move beyond traditional targeting, connecting us with professionals with specialized knowledge and qualifications. We have confidence their experts are credible and aligned with our research needs.
Emporia gives us another perspective. Our product team does a really great job working with our existing customers: understanding and solving for their needs. Emporia allows me to find new audiences and conduct that initial research that helps set the stage for potential new customers, products and markets.
We were thrilled with Emporia’s excellent data quality, professionalism, responsiveness, and speed in delivering a very high-end, niche audience of investment fund managers and venture capital professionals.
We are often trying to recruit hard to reach audiences and so it's imperative for us to have high quality data and verified respondents. Emporia go above and beyond to help us and our agency partners not only reach the right audiences but enhance our customer understanding which is a great experience.
