An investor was impressed by the pitch given by an adtech company in the VR space. The company claimed to have developed proprietary IP that could place digital adverts in the metaverse in a novel way. We were brought in early in the deal cycle to evaluate both claims. While the ad placement method was indeed novel, the technology turned out to be an adaptation of an open source library and the proprietary code from the company was much less than had been claimed. Because the investor did their diligence early in the process, they were able to negotiate down the valuation to properly account for the product maturity and the further development needed to prove out competitive advantage.
