An investment firm's archive is a record of decisions made under uncertainty and then scored by the market. A private equity deal team writes a screening memo, a diligence plan, an investment committee memo and a 100-day plan, then reports on the company for years. A hedge fund analyst writes research notes, models and position reviews against a price that moves every day. Every one of those documents argues for a decision whose result is eventually known.
Buyers name exactly these records. Troveo's guide for funds lists financial models and valuations, investment memos and research notes, due diligence files, portfolio reviews and email tied to deals. Financial managers and financial and investment analysts are GDPval occupations, and micro1 names financial services.
Funds also hold some of the most restricted information in business: material non-public information, data rooms received under NDA, limited partners' details. Troveo's own exclusions list deal materials received under a confidentiality agreement, non-public information about public companies, and anything a regulator requires kept confidential. So the work least tied to any one company or investor comes first: screening frameworks, memo and model templates, the diligence checklist, the value-creation playbook. Raise every portfolio, target and LP record with the licensing company.
Worth
What a firm's data may be worth
Pre-set for a typical firm: 35 staff and 12 years of records. No buyer publishes pricing by industry, so industry does not move the band. Our estimate, not a buyer quote.
Buyers
Which buyers want this data
Each reason is the buyer's own published statement about the tools, data or industries it takes, matched to how private equity firms, hedge funds and portfolio managers work.
Featured partners
micro1
Names financial services and lists playbooks, templates and knowledge bases, which is where a firm's investment process and value-creation method sit.12,13
- $100K to $2M+, micro1 says9
Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.14
Everyone else we reviewed
By score, with full reviews. We have no referral agreement with these companies, so we do not link out to them.
Mercor
Names finance and insurance and connects to Outlook, Teams, Slack, Salesforce and Drive, where deal teams and investor relations work.15,16
Watch out for: It confirmed a cyberattack in 2026, and class actions followed.20,21
Troveo
Its financial guide is written for funds and lists memos, models, diligence files and portfolio reviews, and says typical full-company deals start at six figures.1,2,22
- Six figures and up for a whole company, Troveo says23
- A share of the revenue; the percentage is not published24
Watch out for: You are paid from a revenue share, so ask what percentage you keep.24
Buyer demand
How buyers' own tools rate private equity firms, hedge funds and portfolio managers
No buyer publishes a price list by industry. These are settings inside buyers' and brokers' own estimators and intake forms, read from their public pages on 2026-10-14. They show how each company sorts industries, not what any firm was paid. The category shown is the one a firm would most likely pick; that match is ours.
| Company | Its category | How it rates the industry |
|---|---|---|
| Troveo | Financial services, banking or fintech | Tier 1 of 4: "Buyers pay a premium for data from your industry." Price factor 1.3 in its estimator.25 |
| Polyshares | Investment management | Marked premium in its intake list26 |
| VMS | Finance | Higher weight in its estimator (factor 1.30)27 |
| Ventra | Legal, healthcare, financial services or accounting | Says it cannot take these industries right now28 |
Size rules buyers publish
Checked against 35 staff, the typical firm size this page's calculator is set to. Ask each buyer whether contractors and part-time staff count.
Polyshares
No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more29
Mercor
None stated30
Troveo
No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2031
Nyne
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years32
Handshake AI
20+ full-time employees and 3+ years33
micro1
Pewter
20+ staff and 3+ years35
Endless
Roughly 30+ employees36
Ventra
30+ US employees and 3+ years of records37
Supersoniq
50+ employees and 5+ years38
What buyers value
What in a firm's records buyers value
The column on the right is not legal advice: it lists what to raise with the buyer before anything is exported.
| Data | Where it lives | Why a buyer values it | Raise with the buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment committee memo templates and screening frameworks | Word, Notion, DealCloud | The firm's way of framing a thesis, risks and returns, applied to every deal it sees. | Completed memos about named targets and portfolio companies. |
| Diligence checklists and request lists | Shared drive, data-room tools | What the firm asks for and checks before it commits capital, refined deal after deal. | Anything received from a target under an NDA. |
| Model templates | Excel | LBO, returns and portfolio models with the firm's conventions and checks. | Copies populated with a company's actual figures. |
| Value-creation and 100-day playbooks | Docs, Notion, slide decks | How the firm works with management after closing: pricing, hiring, reporting, add-ons. | Nothing specific |
| Research notes and position reviews | Research management system, email | For hedge funds, the written case for and against each position, revisited as prices move. | Any note that may hold non-public information about a public company. |
| Deal pipeline history | DealCloud, Affinity or Salesforce | Thousands of opportunities logged and passed on, each with a reason. | Banker and target names on each record. |
A week of records
A week of data at a firm
- Monday: 30 teasers logged in the pipeline; 26 passed with a one-line reason.
- Tuesday: an associate builds a returns model for a carve-out from the firm's template.
- Wednesday: investment committee reviews a memo and sends the team back for customer calls.
- Thursday: the operating partner updates the pricing section of the value-creation playbook.
- Friday: quarterly portfolio reviews drafted in the standard format for the LP report.
Process
How it works with each buyer
In each buyer's own published words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so rather than guess.
micro1
- Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories13
- 30 to 200 employees34
- $100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data9
- PII removed "when relevant"14
- The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release39
- Not published
Mercor
Selling or closing
Selling or closing your firm? License its data first
Funds reach the end of their lives, management companies merge, and boutique managers wind down when a founder retires. The firm's investment method (frameworks, templates, playbooks) is usually written down well and is the part least tied to any one company or investor. If a wind-down, merger or succession is coming, ask each licensing company whether that method library can be licensed on its own, separately from portfolio, target and LP records. Pewter says it takes companies that are winding down or closed, as long as the records still exist.4
FAQ
Private equity, hedge funds and portfolio managers: questions, answered
Client identities, account details and personal financial information; market data licensed from a vendor; deal materials received under a confidentiality agreement; non-public information about public companies; anything a regulator requires kept confidential; and credentials. That list is a fair starting outline for any fund's own scoping.3
Templates, frameworks, checklists and playbooks the management company wrote for itself. micro1 lists templates, playbooks and knowledge bases among what it buys. Completed memos about real companies are the part to raise with the buyer.13
Troveo lists market data and research licensed from a vendor among its exclusions. Expect other buyers to ask the same question, and keep vendor material out of the first description of your package.3
Troveo says typical full-company licensing deals start at six figures. Other published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims: Cognor Labs states $200K-$2M on its partners page and Jottings $1M+ for rare data. A method library with years of memos and outcomes is the deep end of those ranges.22,43,44
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- How does your review screen for material non-public information?
- How are data-room materials and documents received under NDA identified and kept out?
- Do our LPA, side letters or Reg S-P obligations limit what can be exported?
- Do SEC books-and-records rules affect how archived email is copied?
- Who owns this data: the company, an estate, or someone else?
- Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
- Do professional rules apply (AICPA, IRC 7216, HIPAA, ABA Model Rule 1.17, insurance agency contracts, adviser rules, state boards)?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?