Selling company data when you shut down a startup.

When a startup winds down, its Slack history, inboxes, Jira tickets and repositories are often the last assets anyone will pay for. MIT Technology Review reported in October 2026 that 47% of deals at SimpleClosure, a firm that handles startup shutdowns, now include code or data sales.¹

The amounts for small teams are modest. One founder closing a crypto startup netted roughly $25,000 for his code base, with about $15,000 more expected for workspace data from Google, Notion, Figma and Slack.¹

Forbes reported in April 2026 that SimpleClosure had processed nearly 100 of these deals in the prior year, with payouts of $10,000 to $100,000 per company. The Forbes page blocks automated readers, so the figures here are taken from Gizmodo’s summary of it.²

Larger archives fetch more. In Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy this August, Google outbid the AI data company Mercor for the carrier’s records, including 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages. The price was $10 million.¹

Buyers range from the AI labs themselves to vendors that build practice workspaces for AI agents. Who buys AI training data covers each type and what it looks for.

Depth matters more than the company’s fate. Sunset, a rival wind-down firm, told MIT Technology Review it values a closing client’s assets by head count, years in operation, data volume and how the team used its tools.¹

The same report found a weakness in wind-down marketplaces: founders have little to no visibility into who is buying the data or what they plan to do with it.¹

Licenses typically run $100K–⁠$2M, and Allied's written offer names the lab. The usual fit is 30 or more office employees with years of history in the systems. A smaller team is often better served by a wind-down firm’s marketplace. What sets the price.

Timing decides who can sign. While the company operates, the board approves a license like any other contract. Once the wind-down starts, control of the records moves toward creditors, an assignee or a trustee.

In Delaware, dissolution needs a resolution adopted by a majority of the whole board and a vote of a majority of the outstanding stock. If the archive is most of what is left, ask counsel whether the license is a sale of substantially all assets, which also needs a stockholder majority.³

A dissolved Delaware corporation continues for 3 years to wind up, including the power “to dispose of and convey their property,” but not to carry on its business. Claims are then paid by priority, and only what remains goes to stockholders.³

So a license can still be signed after the certificate is filed. The risk is practical. Once accounts are closed and assets distributed, there is no archive to deliver and nobody left with authority to sign. Put the license in the wind-down plan the board approves, before filing.

The proceeds follow the same order as every other asset. MIT Technology Review notes they typically flow to senior creditors and investors, not employees.¹

Many startups close through an assignment for the benefit of creditors instead. In an ABC, the company transfers all of its right, title, interest in, and custody and control of its property to an assignee, who sells it and pays the creditors. From then on, the founders cannot license the archive.⁴

California’s statute defines a general assignment as one covering all of the debtor’s transferable assets, for the benefit of all its creditors. The Slack workspace and the code go with it.⁵

In a bankruptcy, the trustee sells. If your privacy policy promised not to transfer personal information to unaffiliated companies, the trustee may not sell it unless the sale is consistent with that policy or a court approves it after a consumer privacy ombudsman is appointed.⁶

Leave time for the deal itself. Through Allied, a written offer follows the discovery call in one to two weeks, and the lab pays by wire 30 to 60 days after it accepts delivery. Keep the bank account open and an officer able to sign until the wire lands.

Start with what you promised. The privacy policy and terms in force when the records were collected set the limits, not a version posted on the way out. The FTC has warned that adopting more permissive data practices through a surreptitious, retroactive amendment to terms of service or a privacy policy may be unfair or deceptive.⁷

Those promises travel with the data. In 23andMe’s 2025 bankruptcy, the FTC Chairman wrote that any purchaser should expressly agree to be bound by the company’s privacy policies, citing Section 363(b)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code.⁸

Then read customer contracts. Data processing agreements often require return or deletion of customer data when the service ends, and a shutdown ends it. Records under those terms, and anything a customer shared under an NDA, stay out of the license and are deleted as promised.

Exclude anything sent to or from your lawyers. A sale may waive privilege over legal communications, and HR files, payroll and union-related messages are safer left out than scrubbed.⁹

Read the loan documents too. A lender with a security interest in all assets may need to consent before any of them is licensed. Employee policies and the privacy law by state are covered on is it legal to sell company data.

Allied reads these documents on the discovery call, before any offer. HR, legal and board material is excluded by default, and you choose the scope by system, channel and date range.

Most shutdown checklists say to cancel software early to stop the bills. For the systems a lab wants, that order destroys the asset. Keep them running, with one admin account, until the lab accepts delivery.

The company licenses an anonymized copy of its records to an AI lab, Allied arranges the license, and the company keeps its originals until it deletes them on its own schedule. See the systems labs license or how Allied works.