A rapid assessment over two to four weeks. Identifies material technology, AI, and cybersecurity risks to inform the go/no-go decision and scope of Phase 2.

Comprehensive assessment over three to six weeks, covering all technology and cybersecurity matters with potential impact on the transaction. Final report covers material risks, remediation costs, and their effect on valuation and deal structure.

Advisory support through the negotiation and finalisation of transaction documentation, including Q&A from lenders and co-investors. The same practitioner throughout.

What engaging Cyber Partners looks like.

Contact Cyber Partners to discuss the technology dimensions of your next deal. Initial conversations are confidential and without obligation.

Translating the recommendations in the due diligence report into a sequenced, costed remediation plan: what to address before Day One, what to address in the first 100 days, and what forms part of the broader transformation programme.

Where cybersecurity gaps were identified during diligence, advisory support covers governance, policy, architecture, and control framework development, as well as vendor selection where external implementation resources are required.

Advisory on technology strategy decisions arising during the hold period, including platform modernisation, cloud migration, system replacement, and the technology changes needed to support scaling.

Where diligence identified technology leadership risk, Cyber Partners can provide interim advisory support and assistance with leadership assessment and recruitment brief development.

On your terms.

Transformation advisory engagements are structured to the needs of the portfolio company and the timeline of the investment thesis. They can be scoped as a discrete advisory programme with defined deliverables, or as an ongoing retainer providing senior technology advice throughout the hold period.

The client for this service is the acquired business. Instruction typically comes from the incoming management team, the portfolio company board, or the PE firm’s operating partner, acting on the recommendations in the due diligence report.

The practitioner who found the issues is best placed to advise on how to fix them.

Technology strategy

Independent advisory on technology direction, architecture decisions, vendor strategy, and build-versus-buy choices for boards and leadership teams requiring an external perspective.

AI strategy

Independent assessment of how artificial intelligence can be applied effectively within a business, what genuine AI capability looks like versus marketing characterisation, and how to evaluate AI investment proposals critically.

Cyber strategy

Board-level advisory on cybersecurity strategy, governance, and investment decisions for boards and executive teams assessing their obligations, risk posture, and governance frameworks.

Boards, executives, and investors.

Technology and AI strategy advisory is most relevant to boards with limited technology representation; to investors assessing technology-intensive companies where a second opinion on the strategy is needed; and to executive teams at a point of significant technology investment requiring independent advisory support.

Engagements are structured to the specific requirement, from a single advisory session to an ongoing board-level advisory relationship.

Tony Barnes

Tony Barnes is the founder and lead practitioner of Cyber Partners, and the person who leads every technology and cyber due diligence engagement the firm undertakes. He brings to each mandate a combination of technical depth, commercial judgement, and direct experience on both sides of the investment committee table.

Tony’s career spans more than three decades of senior executive and non-executive roles across technology, critical infrastructure, telecommunications, software, and cybersecurity sectors in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. He has founded, scaled, acquired, and exited technology businesses, including serving as chief executive of a public technology company ranked sixth in the Deloitte UK Fast50 and 17th in the EMEA Fast500.

In parallel with his executive career, Tony has served as a non-executive director of national critical infrastructure companies, including a major electricity distribution network and a fibreoptic telecommunications network, and currently serves as a non-executive director of RSPCA Queensland and RSPCA Australia.

Tony is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia. He has led technology and cyber due diligence on transactions from A$30M to US$3.5B across multiple sectors and geographies. Every Cyber Partners engagement is led by Tony personally — there is no delegation to junior practitioners and no handoff between diligence and reporting.

Cyber Partners