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AI credit analysis

An AI credit analyst, built into every deal file

DebtLab drafts your screening memos and investment committee papers from the documents your team has already gathered, in the structure investment committees expect. Your analysts spend their time on judgement rather than first drafts, and every paper is grounded in the deal file, clear about what it doesn’t know and signed off by a person.

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How it works

From data room to committee paper

The deal file brings together everything your team learns about an opportunity. When you are ready for committee, DebtLab turns it into a structured paper in minutes rather than days.

  1. Step 1

    Build the deal file

    Upload the information memorandum, diligence reports, management presentations and term sheets as they arrive, and log your calls, meetings, site visits and your own view of the credit as notes alongside them.

  2. Step 2

    Confirm your model

    DebtLab never builds a model of its own. It reads the cases, returns and covenant headroom from your cash-flow model in Excel, your team checks and corrects the figures, and memos use them exactly as confirmed.

  3. Step 3

    Draft the memo

    Choose a screening memo, an initial IC memo or a final IC paper, and watch it being written section by section, from the business and the market through to the terms and the recommendation.

  4. Step 4

    Refine and decide

    Edit any section by hand, or ask for a redraft with a simple instruction such as “shorter” or “lead with customer concentration”. When the paper is ready, download it as Word or PDF and mark it final.

Writing the screening memo

Corvane Analytical Group

  • The opportunity
  • Business overview
  • Key merits
  • Key risksWriting…
  • Financial snapshot
  • Model outputs
  • Recommendation and next steps
Redraft “Key risks”: lead with interest cover and add the hedging condition
Each section is written in turn while you watch, and any one can be redrafted on its own. Illustrative.

Three papers, one deal file

The right paper for every stage of the process

Each memo builds on the one before it, so the story of the credit stays consistent from the first screening call to the final approval.

Screening memo

A crisp first view of the opportunity, setting out the business, the financing, the main merits and risks, and whether the deal deserves more of the team’s time.

Initial IC memo

The case for committing resources, covering the company, sponsor, market, historical financials, model outputs, proposed terms, ESG and the diligence still to do.

Final IC memo

The full credit paper for final approval, with the diligence findings, cases side by side, covenants, returns, recovery and a point-by-point answer to every question the committee raised.

Sample memos

See what lands on the committee’s desk

These mock-ups follow a fictional borrower, Corvane Analytical Group, through our demo fund’s credit process, from the first screening memo to the final IC paper.

Screening memo. A first view of the opportunity: the business, the financing, the main merits and risks, and whether it deserves the team’s time. Showing: the full memo.

ECP Fund II · Screening memoConfidential

Screening memo

Corvane Analytical Group

4 September 2026 · Version 1 · Draft

The opportunity

Ashby Ridge Partners has agreed to acquire Corvane Analytical Group, an independent environmental, food and water testing laboratory network in the UK and Ireland, from its founder and a minority investor at an enterprise value of £326m (12.0x FY25 EBITDA). We are invited to provide a £150m seven-year unitranche alongside one other lender, with a £35m committed acquisition and capex facility. Indicative pricing is SONIA + 5.75% with a 98.0 OID.

Business overview

Corvane runs 14 accredited laboratories testing water, soil, air and food samples for utilities, local authorities, contractors and food producers. FY25 revenue was £118.4m and EBITDA £27.2m, a 23.0% margin, having grown 13% a year since FY23, roughly two thirds organically and one third through five bolt-on acquisitions.

Key merits

  • Non-discretionary demand: testing is required by regulation and permit conditions, not by the economic cycle.
  • Recurring revenue: 68% of revenue is earned under multi-year framework contracts with utilities and public bodies.
  • Strong cash generation: capex of £6.1m in FY25 gives cash conversion of 78% of EBITDA.
  • Meaningful equity cushion: sponsor equity of £190m, 56% of total sources.

Key risks

  • Thin interest cover at entry: 1.9x, leaving limited room if base rates rise. Mitigant: hedging of at least two thirds of the unitranche to be required.
  • Customer concentration: the top ten customers are 31% of revenue and the largest water utility 7%.
  • Buy-and-build execution: further acquisitions funded by the CAF add integration risk. Mitigant: CAF draws subject to a leverage test.
  • Accreditation: losing UKAS accreditation at a large laboratory would stop testing there until restored.

Financial snapshot

£m, years to 31 MarchFY23FY24FY25
Revenue92.1104.6118.4
Growth–13.6%13.2%
EBITDA19.823.127.2
Margin21.5%22.1%23.0%
Net leverage at entry5.2x

Growth has been steady and margins have improved each year as newer laboratories have filled up.

Not covered by the documents. The information memorandum gives revenue for the top ten customers only; a full customer list has been requested.

Written by DebtLab from the deal file and reviewed by the deal teamIllustrative: fictional company
ECP Fund II · Screening memoConfidential

Model outputs

From the sponsor’s cash-flow model, as confirmed by the deal team on 3 September 2026: base-case net leverage falls from 5.2x at entry to 3.4x by FY28, interest cover rises from 1.9x to 2.6x, and the unitranche returns 11.2% gross IRR and 1.38x MOIC over an expected life of 3.5 years.

Recommendation and next steps

We recommend proceeding to an initial IC. Before then, the questions that matter most are:

  • The renewal history of the framework contracts and the terms of the largest three.
  • The full customer list and revenue by customer for FY23 to FY25.
  • The accreditation status and last inspection outcome at each laboratory.
  • The sponsor’s hedging intentions and the pipeline of bolt-on acquisitions for the CAF.
Written by DebtLab from the deal file and reviewed by the deal teamIllustrative: fictional company

Illustrative mock-ups. Corvane Analytical Group, Ashby Ridge Partners and all figures are fictional.

Built for credit committees

An analyst that shows its work

Investment committees rightly expect every statement in a paper to be backed by evidence. DebtLab is designed around that expectation.

  • Memos draw only on the documents and notes in the deal file, and anything marked “keep out of memos” stays out.
  • Where the documents are silent, the memo says so plainly rather than filling the gap with a guess.
  • Model figures come from your own confirmed model, never from the AI’s own arithmetic.
  • Each memo proposes credit, market and ESG scores, and your team decides whether to use them.
  • Questions from the initial committee are logged as feedback and answered one by one in the final paper.
  • Final memos are locked, and any change starts a new version, so the paper the committee approved is always the one on file.

Across the platform

The same intelligence, working on every document

Long after the deal has closed, DebtLab keeps reading the paperwork that private credit generates, and proposes the figures and terms it finds for your team to approve.

Credit agreements

Facility terms, pricing, fees and covenant levels are read straight from the agreement and proposed for the loan, for your team to check and approve.

Compliance certificates

Covenant tests are read from each certificate and set against the levels you agreed, so a breach or a near miss is caught the day the certificate arrives.

Agent notices

Rate fixings, interest and repayment notices from the agent are read and proposed for the loan ledger, for your team to check.

Management accounts

Monthly figures in whatever format the borrower sends them are read into monitoring, one month or a whole year at a time, ready for your team to review and lock.

How documents are handled

See how DebtLab would work for your fund

Book a live walkthrough of our demo fund, tailored to the way your team runs deals, operations and investor reporting today, and bring your toughest questions with you.

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