A venture platform team's address book is full of senior people: operating advisors, former portfolio executives, members of customer and talent programs. Each of them sits inside a business that may or may not fit, owned by someone who may or may not be reachable. The verification table below turns names into companies, and companies into ranked conversations.
Rules, conditions and the bet behind this table
| Status | Claim | Grounds |
|---|---|---|
| Rule | The company you introduce must have had 50 or more full-time employees at peak and must have operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact | The published terms and fit criteria, read 2026-10-26 |
| Rule | Related entities count as one company: the USD 50,000 floor on a first qualifying transaction applies once to a parent and its subsidiaries together | SourceX's program decision on related entities |
| Open until review | Acceptance, what a license would cover and any reward | SourceX's review, a signed agreement and the payment conditions in the terms |
| Bet | The executives around a fund more often work at established companies that fit than the fund's own early-stage companies do | Not yet measured; filling the table for your own network is the test |
| Label | Meaning in the table |
|---|---|
| Pointer | The executive as recorded in your CRM: a name, a title and an employer that may be out of date |
| Controlling owner | Whoever controls the company: a founder or family, a fund, a public parent |
| Authorizer | The CEO, who decides whether licensing gets discussed at all and signs on the company's behalf |
| Relationship owner | The person in your network whose ask that CEO will hear |
| Verification grade | How the employer and owner were confirmed: by the executive this month, by a dated public record, or by the CRM only |
Why the executive is not the company
Venture networks recruit functional leaders on purpose. a16z's speedrun program, for example, describes an invite-only group of operators and executives with early access to its startups and recruits director-and-above operators across disciplines who want to try and buy early-stage technology. Those are heads of operations, finance, engineering and sales. They can describe their employer's systems and records in general terms. They cannot authorize a licensing discussion, which belongs to the CEO, and they owe their employer confidentiality about anything beyond what is theirs to share.
So the unit of a referral map is the business, not the person. The executive's role is to say whether the conversation is welcome and, if they choose, to carry it to the CEO.
Map the actual company and its owner
Ownership decides who the relationship owner is, so establish it before anything else.
| Ownership type | Who authorizes | Who is often the relationship owner | Public evidence you can check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founder or family owned | The CEO, usually the owner | The executive, if close to the owner, or an advisor the owner trusts | Rarely any; ask the executive |
| Fund owned | The company's CEO | The fund's operating partner or deal partner | The fund's own portfolio listing, if published |
| Subsidiary of a public company | The CEO of the entity that holds the records, within the group's own approval rules | An executive at the subsidiary | Exhibit 21 of the parent's annual report |
| UK company | The CEO | Depends on the controlling owner | The Companies House register of people with significant control |
Two public records help, and both have limits. A U.S. public company files a list of subsidiaries as Exhibit 21 to its annual report, with each subsidiary's jurisdiction, but the rules let it omit subsidiaries that together would not count as significant, so a small operating business can be missing. In the UK, Companies House keeps a free, searchable register of people with significant control: anyone who holds more than 25 per cent of the shares or voting rights, or can appoint or remove a majority of the board. It names controllers, not the CEO, and filings can trail a change of control. For a private U.S. company, ask the executive; this method does not rely on any public ownership register there.
A company that recently changed hands needs extra care, covered in assessing a company that recently changed ownership. Subsidiaries that run their own processes are covered in referring a subsidiary. A parent and its subsidiaries count as one company for the reward: the USD 50,000 floor applies once, to the group's first qualifying transaction, however many entities license, and further qualifying transactions by any entity in the group pay 15% within the Repeat Window.
The executive-to-current-owner verification table
Fill one row per executive. A row moves forward only when its verification grade is "confirmed by the executive" or "dated public record". A CRM-only row never triggers an ask.
| Executive (pointer) | Verified current employer | Controlling owner | CEO (authorizer) | Relationship owner | Grade | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. COO you met in a talent program | 210-person freight audit firm, 16 years old | Founder | The founder | The COO, by her choice | Confirmed by the executive | Ask now |
| B. Former portfolio VP of finance | 480-person facilities services group | A buyout fund | Group CEO appointed by the fund | The fund's operating partner | Dated public record plus the executive | Ask the operating partner |
| C. Advisor listed as "VP Operations" at a logistics company | Left; now head of operations at a 35-person software startup | Venture-backed founders | Startup founder | The advisor | Confirmed by the executive | Revisit later |
Row A (Illustrative), owner-led. The COO confirms she still works at the firm, that its founder is the CEO and that she would raise licensing with him herself. She describes records at metadata level: audit exceptions and carrier disputes in one system, about sixteen years deep. All fit facts are known, the path is hers to walk, and the row ranks first.
Row B (Illustrative), a network intermediary. The former VP now works at a fund-owned group. The fund's portfolio page and the executive agree on the ownership. The platform lead does not ask the VP to go to the CEO; the fund's operating partner owns that relationship and decides whether to raise it. The page for private equity operating partners explains the program from that side, and going through a sponsor versus going straight to the CEO sets out the trade-off.
Row C (Illustrative), the pointer that moved. Your CRM still lists the advisor at a large logistics company. A two-line message to him reveals he left a year ago and now runs operations at a 35-person startup. The startup is under the headcount floor, and the logistics company is now somewhere you have no contact at all. Two notes go in the table: the startup comes back only if its full-time team reaches 50, and the logistics company needs a new relationship owner before anyone thinks about it again.
Two tests that must both pass: a path to the CEO, and a company that fits
The table answers two questions in different columns. Can a named person in your network ask this CEO and be heard? And does the business itself pass the published tests? Location is one of those tests. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English.
Questions to the executive describe the business from the outside: what kinds of records it keeps, roughly how many, over how many years, in which systems. No exports, screenshots or logins change hands, and anything the executive knows only because of their job stays theirs to keep. Three things stay open until SourceX's own review: whether the records suit a current program, whether customer contracts restrict their reuse, and what a license would include.
Which verified row to call first
There are no published conversion rates or typical payouts to rank by, and a ranking built on guessed proceeds would only sort the guesses. Order the rows on evidence instead:
- Verification grade. Confirmed by the executive before a dated record; a CRM-only row is not ranked.
- Relationship owner agreed. The person whose ask the CEO will hear has said yes.
- Fit facts known. All before some.
- A dated trigger. A change of ownership, a system replacement or an archive deletion that the company has scheduled.
Attribution follows the program terms: the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited once the company submits a verified application, one partner per company. When an operating partner or an executive owns the relationship, agree in writing beforehand who registers and submits. Before submitting, that person signs the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement; an agreement signed back when the document was named the Channel Partner Non-Circumvention and Non-Disclosure Agreement stays effective in the form it was signed. Executives thinking of introducing companies themselves after leaving a role should read referral income for former executives first.
What would make the table mislead you
- Stale records in both directions. Public filings lag, and a UK register entry can trail a sale. Exhibit 21 may omit small subsidiaries. A confirmation from the executive, dated, outranks both.
- The executive's duties. Executives owe confidentiality to their employer. If a conversation would require them to describe more than general facts, it is the wrong conversation; stop at metadata.
- Demand. SourceX judges in review whether a company's records suit a current program. A row verified end to end can still be turned down, and a company that misses one program may match a later one.
- Rights. Some of the most visible records may belong to the company's clients, which SourceX's screening guidance treats as usually not a fit.
- The thesis. For a growth-stage fund, portfolio companies may already pass the size and history tests, and the wider network adds little.
Methods note. The table was designed on 2026-10-26 from the program's published fit criteria and attribution rule, two public ownership records (U.S. Exhibit 21 and the UK register of people with significant control) and one venture program's description of its executive network. It records employer, owner, CEO, relationship owner and verification grade, and leaves the value and quality of any company's records, and any payout, to SourceX's review. First experiment: take the 25 most senior executives in your CRM and fill the table. Count rows whose employer changed, rows that reach "confirmed by the executive", and rows with an agreed relationship owner. If more than a few pointers had moved, refresh the whole network map before ranking anything. Executive-led acquisitions are a common reason an executive now runs a different company, explained in what an executive-led buyout is; the executive in residence guide covers another common route. Customer-program contacts need their own permission check, set out in when customer introductions become data licensing introductions.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When a row reaches "confirmed by the executive" with an agreed relationship owner, register for a partner link, check the company against who qualifies, read the program terms, and introduce the CEO only when the company wants the conversation.
If your interest is in SourceX as a company rather than in referring one, that is a separate decision, and the SourceX investor overview is the place to request investor materials.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.