A closing company was paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars", Forbes reported.

That is a press report, not a buyer page, so treat it as reported.

It doesn't tell you what your company would be paid, and nobody honest can promise you a number.

Is this for your company?

Tick the boxes that fit your company:

• 30 or more people at the company's peak (if you are winding down or closed, the quiz asks for your peak)
• 3 or more years in operation, and 3 or more years of records kept
• Your chat, email, files or tickets are still in systems like Slack, Teams, Gmail, Google Drive or Jira
• The company owns its records: they are your own operating records, not files you hold for clients
• The company is in the US (today's buyers take US companies first)
• Someone is still authorized to transfer the company's records

One buyer's published criteria for operating companies are, word for word, "20+ full time employees & 3+ years in operation". It doesn't say how it applies them to closed companies. For a company that is winding down or closed, this checklist uses 30 or more people at the company's peak instead, and the quiz asks for that number. Our quiz also looks for three or more years of records kept: it asks how far back your records go, not when the company started. The line about who is authorized to transfer the records is our own check. The other lines come from our own site terms and quiz.

What gets licensed: the systems you already ran

Forbes has reported on a shut-down company that was paid for its old records. On April 16, 2026 it reported that a winding-down transcription and captioning company sold its 13-year digital footprint as training data: "every Slack joke, every Jira ticket," its emails and its employees' Google Drives.

AI companies are training software to do multi-step work. A company that has closed still has its operating history, if it hasn't been deleted: years of chat threads, tickets, email and shared files showing how the work was actually done.

One partner program's page says firms of any status can qualify, whether operating, downsizing, winding down or closed, as long as the records exist.

Two buyers publish the systems they look at. We call them the second buyer, which lists Slack, Gmail, Outlook and Google Drive among the sources it buys, and the case-study buyer, the one that publishes its deals on a case-study page. The Forbes example names Slack, Jira, email and Google Drive; the case-study buyer's guide to the data sources it covers, with notes on where to find counts, covers the same kinds of systems by name: Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Chat for team chat; Gmail and Outlook; Google Drive, SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox and Box; Jira, Linear and Asana; and GitHub and GitLab.

A wind-down service that also handles the data, and is not a buyer, says it helps package a closing company's source code and workspace data for AI buyers. It says: "Every dataset is processed for PII before it is licensed to a buyer."

For a closing or closed company, that can mean:

• Slack or Teams history
• Email in Gmail or Outlook
• Shared drives
• Tickets and project history
• Code, if you built software

What never leaves your company

Your originals and your customers' identities. The buyer gets a copy of the records you agree to license, and de-identifies it. Your systems and your originals stay where they are. The second buyer says you decide exactly what is shared, and that all data is scoped, de-identified and kept confidential. The case-study buyer's home page says that, as a general term of its licenses, you keep the business and the underlying data, and that the license is defined and bounded. Its case-study page describes each license as anonymized before delivery, and it says a specialist privacy partner removes or replaces names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers and addresses before it or any buyer sees the record. Its FAQ says its license doesn't cover what you hold on behalf of your own clients.

Files you hold for clients. Our own site terms go further. Records your company holds for clients under contract, records covered by professional privilege, regulated data such as patient or financial-account information, and anything you are not entitled to license must not be offered to a buyer. If in doubt, leave it out and ask your lawyer.

Nothing goes to a buyer before you see the buyer's name. If you ask us for an introduction, the buyers' names are shown to you before you click, and nothing about your answers goes to a buyer until you do. Even then we send only your quiz answers and the contact details you entered: no files, no logins, and not the estimate.

How the money works

Here is how we are paid, in the words of our fee disclosure:

If a buyer we introduce you to signs a license with your company, that buyer pays us a referral fee: a fixed amount, a percentage of the license, or both, depending on the buyer. You pay nothing, now or later, unless you and we sign a separate written agreement that says so. We may share part of our fee with the partner who sent you to us; they see only your company's name and the stage of the process.

Your estimate is never shown to a buyer. It is for you, and it stays with you.

Both buyers also publish pay ranges: typical deals from $100,000 to $2 million and above, and payouts from $100,000 to $4 million and more. Neither range is specific to closing or closed companies, and neither is a promise of what you would be offered.

Is this legal?

One buyer's page on that question calls licensing a company's own operating record an ordinary commercial deal, decided by "ownership, what the company's customer contracts say, and whether personal information can be removed." Its example of what can't be licensed is material held for a client under an agreement giving the client ownership. The same page says state definitions vary and your own counsel should review any license before signing.

Sale or license. The wind-down service describes "sale or licensing opportunities."

What the quiz asks

The quiz asks what your company does, whether it is operating, winding down or closed, where the company and the team are, how many people work there, what year your records go back to, which tools your team uses, roughly how much of your records are in English, who owns them, two yes-or-no checks, and whether you run one company or more. Round numbers are fine for headcount, and you see your range before you give an email.

Who is behind this

Kedric Van de Carr is the founder of ValueMyData.ai and is based in Texas. He built it as an independent tool that estimates what a company's operational data is worth and introduces the owner to the buyer that fits. Kedric reads every question himself. There are no sales calls: the quiz shows your range on screen, and nothing goes to a buyer unless you ask for an introduction. Questions go to kedric@valuemydata.ai.

We are not lawyers, accountants, brokers of securities or financial advisers, and nothing on the site is legal, tax, investment or financial advice. Have your own adviser review any agreement before you sign it.

Boss Financial Education L.L.C., doing business as ValueMyData.ai · kedric@valuemydata.ai · Texas