Technology practice of Pharos Advisory
VERAX

The truth about your technology,before you invest in it

Independent technical audits and practical AI automation, delivered by senior engineers who hold no stake in the code they review.

15+ yrs
Senior engineering experience
$100M+
Revenue built by our team
6
Technology domains assessed
100%
Senior-only on every review
Section 02The blind spot

Capital rides on technology the people funding it cannot judge

The blind spot

Founders trust their teams. Investors trust the pitch. A working demo and a convincing deck answer none of the questions that decide the outcome: whether the system survives growth, whether the data is protected, how reliably the team ships, and what hidden cost lands after the deal closes.

Verax removes that uncertainty. We read the technology independently and turn technical observation into a picture of risk the business can act on — not the longest possible list of faults, and not a generic checklist score.

FIG. 01
69%
IT projects overrun
Late, over budget, with reduced scope — or failed outright · Standish Group, CHAOS Report 2020
FIG. 02
$1.5T+
Accumulated technical debt
In the US alone, before any interest · CISQ, The Cost of Poor Software Quality in the US, 2022
FIG. 03
42%
Of a developer's work week
Spent on maintenance — bad code, debugging and technical debt · Stripe, The Developer Coefficient, 2018
Section 03How we work

Four commitments that make a verdict worth having

The same standards govern both service lines. An audit that cannot be trusted is worse than no audit, and automation whose effect cannot be measured is worse than none.

  1. § 01

    Independent

    We work for the person funding the decision, never for the team being reviewed. We hold no stake in the code we look at, and no platform of our own to sell into it.

  2. § 02

    Evidence-based

    Every finding is backed by code, configuration or data. We keep confirmed fact separate from assumption, and we say plainly where the granted access did not let us verify a claim.

  3. § 03

    Actionable

    You get a sequence you can act on — findings ranked by business impact, with effort estimates — not a catalogue of complaints sorted by technical severity.

  4. § 04

    Senior-only

    The people who scope the work are the people who do it. Principal architects end to end, no juniors staffed onto your review.

Section 04Service 01

Technical audit

Investor-grade technical due diligence: one independent read on whether the technology can carry the business. Scope adapts to the product and to the decision you need to support.

What we assess

SEC / 01

Architecture & feasibility

How the system is built, whether the key technical decisions match current and future business needs, and where the bottlenecks and critical dependencies sit

SEC / 02

Security & data handling

Access control, storage and transfer of data, configuration, and the main zones of exposure. Readiness for relevant compliance practice where the agreed scope calls for it

SEC / 03

Code quality & delivery

Structure and maintainability, test automation, the release process, CI/CD, and the sources of technical debt — how expensive and how slow this product will be to develop next year

SEC / 04

Team capability

Distribution of responsibility, coverage of key competencies, knowledge transfer, and dependence on individuals. Not a personal appraisal — the team's ability to sustain and grow the product

SEC / 05

Scalability & reliability

How the system behaves as load grows, which components become failure points, and how manageable the cloud infrastructure, monitoring, redundancy and recovery are

How the audit runs

  1. WS / 01

    Scope & access

    We agree which decision the audit supports and which risks concern you most, then set the boundaries and the access. Read access is normally enough

  2. WS / 02

    Assess

    We review architecture, security, code, pipelines and practices, and interview the people responsible for them

  3. WS / 03

    Test & verify

    We validate claims against code, configuration and data — never against slides. Confirmed facts stay separate from assumptions

  4. WS / 04

    Score & rank

    Findings are ranked by business impact, not only technical severity: what can halt the product, expose data, inflate cost, or complicate integration after a deal

  5. WS / 05

    Report & advise

    You receive the findings, the risk matrix and a sequenced remediation roadmap — and we walk you through them

What you receive

  1. § 01

    Executive summary

    A plain-language verdict a non-technical stakeholder can act on: overall condition, key constraints, strengths, and the risks that need attention

  2. § 02

    Risk matrix

    Every material finding, ranked by severity and business impact

  3. § 03

    Technical report

    Architecture, security, code, process and infrastructure in full detail, with the evidence behind each conclusion

  4. § 04

    Remediation roadmap

    A recommended sequence, with priorities and effort estimates

One document. Every technical risk, ranked
Section 05Service 02

AI automation

We automate the busywork that is worth automating and leave the rest alone. Every workflow carries a baseline and a before-and-after number; if it does not pay for itself, it does not ship.

FIG. 01
60–70%
Of employees' time
Goes to activities current AI could technically automate · McKinsey, The economic potential of generative AI, 2023
FIG. 02
95%
Of organizations
Report zero measurable P&L return from their GenAI initiatives · MIT NANDA, The GenAI Divide, 2025
FIG. 03
$12.9M
Average yearly cost
Of poor data quality, per organization · Gartner, How to Improve Your Data Quality, 2021

Where automation pays off

SEC / 01

Operations

Data entry, system sync, reconciliation, approvals

SEC / 02

Documents

Extraction, classification, validation, structuring

SEC / 03

Support

Triage, routing, draft replies, escalation

SEC / 04

Engineering

Review aid, test scaffolds, migrations, documentation

SEC / 05

Analytics

Data preparation, summaries, scheduled reports, alerts

SEC / 06

Finance & admin

Invoice capture, reconciliation, onboarding, compliance logs

How the work runs

  1. WS / 01

    Map

    We sit with the work and measure it: time, volume, and what the errors cost

  2. WS / 02

    Qualify

    We keep only the tasks where AI behaves the same way every time and the payoff is real. We will tell you where it does not belong

  3. WS / 03

    Build

    Senior engineers build it into your real systems, with review points wherever judgment is involved

  4. WS / 04

    Measure

    We report the hours and the money returned, against the baseline you started from

  5. WS / 05

    Hand over

    We document it, train your team, and step away. You own it

What we leave behind

  1. § 01

    Working automation

    Running inside your systems — not a demo, not a prototype

  2. § 02

    Measurement dashboard

    Accuracy, time saved and cost, all against your baseline

  3. § 03

    Documentation

    How it works, where the review gates are, and how to change it

  4. § 04

    Handover & training

    Your team runs it without us

Payback in weeks, not years
Section 06Coverage

What we assess, technically

SEC / 01

Infrastructure

AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform

SEC / 02

Backend

Python, Go, Node.js, Java, PHP

SEC / 03

Frontend

React, Angular, Vue, TypeScript

SEC / 04

Mobile

Swift, Kotlin, React Native, Flutter

SEC / 05

Databases

PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Elasticsearch

SEC / 06

Messaging

Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS, Pub/Sub

Stacks outside this list are assessed on request — the method does not depend on the language
Section 07Questions

What people ask before commissioning

  • A description of the product and its stage, the main stack, the decision you are about to make, and your timing. From that we propose a relevant scope, the format of the engagement, a schedule and a price.

  • Weeks, not months. The exact span depends on the agreed scope and on how quickly access is granted. We fix the schedule before work begins and do not extend it unilaterally.

  • Normally no. Read access to code, architecture materials, configuration and documentation is usually enough. The exact access is agreed before the start, and we work strictly within it.

  • An NDA is signed before any access is granted. Findings belong to whoever commissioned the audit. We do not reuse client material, and we do not disclose that an engagement took place without permission.

  • The audit identifies, verifies and ranks problems. If you then want help implementing the recommendations, we can bring in senior architects and engineers — but that is agreed as a separate engagement, precisely so the independence of the audit stays visible and the report never becomes a quote for work you do not need.

  • A pentest attacks a running system to find exploitable weaknesses. An audit reads the whole picture — architecture, code, delivery process, team and infrastructure — and answers whether the technology can carry the business. Security is one of five areas we assess, not the whole exercise.

Section 08Contact

Start with a short call

Tell us about the product and the decision you are about to make

Describe the product, its stage, the main stack, the decision you need to support and your timing. We come back with a relevant scope, a format, a schedule and a price. A senior engineer replies within one business day.

Or write to us directly · [email protected]