Phase one

The valuation, back in 48 hours

You answer a structured set of questions about what your systems hold. Nothing to upload and nothing to connect. A valuation specialist reviews every report before it goes out, and it comes back with an estimated value broken down by the type of buyer who would pay it.

Not every business has an asset worth taking to auction. That is a useful answer to have early.

See what a valuation covers →

Phase two

Preparation, one to three months

If the number stacks up, the dataset has to be made evaluable by somebody who has never seen your business. This is the part nobody enjoys and the part that decides whether an auction works.

A sample that represents the whole, not the cleanest part
A data dictionary, so fields mean the same thing to a stranger
Provenance, and your right to collect and to license
Personal data and consents handled properly
An exclusion list, agreed before anyone bids
A due diligence questionnaire buyers will interrogate

Billing runs monthly through this phase, and it stops the day the auction opens. The incentive is deliberately pointed at getting finished rather than at lingering.

Phase three

The auction, 120 days, unbilled

Buyers get trial data and four months to back-test it against outcomes they already know. That length is not slack, it is what makes a serious bid possible: a buyer who cannot test a signal will not pay for it.

Starting price

Set from the valuation and set conservatively. No bid below it is accepted.

Competing bidders

Like-for-like bidding on a subscription order form, several buyers, one deadline.

A price, not an ask

You never have to name a number. Discovering it is what the process is for.

What you are actually signing up for

Your name stays off it

Xferdata is the vendor of record. Buyers contract with us, not with you, and owners are not identified. That is normal in corporate licensing, and it is usually the thing that makes monetizing possible at all.

You appoint us as sole distribution partner for the dataset, and confirm it has not already been commercialized to the same buyer group. In return, nothing goes in front of a buyer until the pack is finished. Buyers never see a half-built auction, which is why they keep turning up for the next one.

You keep ownership throughout. Buyers license the data on agreed terms for an agreed period. Nothing is transferred outright unless you decide to sell it that way.

What happens, from first question to auction close