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Inex One estimates 36,000 commercial due diligences run globally each year

The expert-network marketplace attributes roughly 14,500 CDDs to the leading consulting firms, with Bain alone accounting for about 2,300 a year.

INFLXD Research·August 7, 2026·3 min read

Inex One estimates 36,000 commercial due diligences run globally each year

Inex One estimates that around 36,000 commercial due diligences (CDDs) are run globally each year, with about 14,500 attributable to the leading CDD-focused consulting firms. The methodology, published on 7 August 2026 by CEO Max Friberg, pieces together disclosed figures, Wayback Machine archives, revenue scaling, and LinkedIn bio scraping.

Bain anchors the analysis. Its website carries an all-time cumulative CDD count (22,000+ as of FY2025), and archived snapshots via Wayback Machine let Inex One reconstruct the year-over-year delta. Averaging 2024 and 2025 additions produces the 2,312/year figure.

BCG's number comes from a September 2021 PE leadership report citing 800+ CDDs annually. Inex One scaled that forward using BCG's disclosed revenue growth, from USD 11B in 2021 to USD 14.4B currently, to reach 1,050. McKinsey publishes nothing on its CDD volume; the 870/year estimate came from what Friberg describes as "asking around."

A single, oversized commercial due-diligence report binder splitting apart at the spine into thousands of thinner identical binders cascading outward like a fanned deck of cards, a small handful at th

Oliver Wyman, L.E.K. Consulting, and CIL disclose their CDD numbers directly (CIL scaled for time). Roland Berger and OC&C publish completed transactions rather than CDD counts. Inex One applies a 4x multiplier on the assumption that roughly three in four engagements don't end in a closed deal. For firms that disclose nothing, Inex One benchmarks the number of consultants whose LinkedIn bios include the phrase "commercial due diligence" against firms where the CDD count is known, then extrapolates.

Why it matters

The interesting number here isn't 36,000. It's the gap between the ~14,500 CDDs Inex One can attribute to named consulting firms and the ~21,500 it can't. That residual is the long tail: boutique strategy shops, in-house PE diligence teams, regional players, and the accounting-firm strategy arms that don't market CDD as a distinct practice. For expert networks, that tail is where volume growth lives, both because MBB penetration is already high and because boutique firms are more price-sensitive on expert-call spend.

The Bain figure is the load-bearing data point in the analysis and the most defensible, because it's derived from the firm's own cumulative disclosure. The McKinsey estimate, built on informal channels, carries wider error bars and is worth treating as directional. The LinkedIn-bio benchmark is a reasonable proxy but assumes CDD consultants across firms are equally likely to self-describe that way, an assumption that varies by firm culture (Bain and BCG consultants are famously more public about their practice areas than McKinsey's).

The 4x transaction-to-CDD multiplier for Roland Berger and OC&C is the piece we'd most want to stress-test. PE deal close rates vary meaningfully by fund strategy, sector, and vintage; a fixed multiplier applied across firms assumes their client mix is stable and comparable.

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Inex One operates a marketplace aggregating more than 40 expert networks and counts more than 700 client firms across private equity, strategy consulting, and corporate strategy. The CDD market sizing is one of a running series on the firm's blog examining the mechanics of the commercial due diligence workflow and its dependence on expert-call spend.

Watch for two follow-ups: whether Bain updates its cumulative counter through 2026 (which would let Inex One tighten the run-rate estimate), and whether any of the boutique firms in the unattributed ~21,500 respond to the methodology with disclosures of their own.

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