Competitive data sales for startups
Your data is
worth more than
the first offer.
Sell your data to the right AI buyer, at a competitive price. We run the process. You pay only when it closes.
The market
AI companies are buying company data.
Operational data
micro1 has announced plans to spend $1B over 12 months licensing company data: SOPs, knowledge bases, CRM, project histories, decision records.1
Workflow and expert data
Mercor runs a program for “workflow data your business already generates,” and has approached startups about code and task records.2,3
Real codebases
Buyers in our network, such as Patronus, want proprietary repos of around 100k lines, human-written, with git history and tests. Shelved products count.
1. The Next Web, Oct 2026; micro1.ai/data-partnerships 2. mercor.com 3. AI Weekly citing The Information Demand trends: Epoch AI; AITraining.jobs, “What AI Labs Are Buying” (Oct 2026)
The problem
Sell alone and you get one number.
Selling solo
- One buyer, first number
- Data described vaguely
- Rights questions stall diligence
- Nothing to compare against
With us
- Four to six buyers, one deadline
- A precise, buyer-ready manifest
- Rights and privacy sorted first
- Offers compared, then negotiated
One founder in our network
Competition changed the number.
One anonymized example. Not typical and not guaranteed. Outcomes depend on your data, its rights status and the market.
What we do
One dataset, several buyers, one decision.
Tom is CC'd on every buyer thread, first intro to signed deal. You make every decision and sign your own agreement.
The manifest
What buyers read first.
A precise, honest description of your data. It answers diligence questions before they're asked, which is where price gets protected.
- Volume, format and time span, from real counts
- Ownership and the terms it was collected under
- Personal data and third-party code resolved
- Volume
- 4 repositories, about 110k lines each
- History
- 2017 to 2023, 9,400 commits
- Format
- Git with full history and tests
- Ownership
- Created in-house Confirmed
- Personal data
- None found in review Checked
- Third-party code
- Permissive licenses only Inventoried
- Secrets
- Scrubbed from history Done
- Attestation
- Officer signature Pending
How it works
A few hours of your team's time.
Kickoff
30-minute call and discovery session.
Manifest
Guided portal. We draft, you confirm.
Shop
Parallel intros to four to six buyers.
Offers
Diligence, samples under NDA, offers compared.
Close
Negotiate, sign, get paid.
Your part. Two to four hours: answer guided questions, pull counts, confirm rights, approve the manifest, choose an offer.
Our part. Everything else. Timelines are typical targets, not commitments. Your data never passes through us.
What's sellable
You likely have more than you think.
Value rises with clear rights, uniqueness, scale, outcome labels, and records linked across systems. Unconsented personal data, privileged and HR records stay out.
Rights first
Clean rights are the biggest lever on price.
Before any introduction
- Ownership and permitted use confirmed
- Personal data consented or de-identified
- Third-party and open-source inventoried
- Officer signs a rights attestation
Red flags we catch early
- Privacy policy silent on AI use
- Customer NDAs inside email and chat
- Vendor terms restricting training
- Secrets in history, copyleft code
The FTC has warned that quietly changing a privacy policy to allow AI training can be unfair or deceptive (FTC Technology Blog, Feb 2024). We're not lawyers; we recommend your counsel review rights and privacy.
How we're paid
You only pay when you get paid.
Success fee
Of proceeds from buyers we introduce, paid by you only when a deal closes. No deal, no fee.
Upfront
No retainer, no manifest fee, nothing for intro calls.
Buyer referral fee
Buyers may also pay us a referral fee, usually a small fraction of the deal. In writing, and we tell you who pays us before you choose.
We earn the most by packaging your data so it sells for more. We tell every buyer in writing that you pay us, and we recommend the offer that's best for you. Final terms are in your client agreement.
Kickoff is next week