Funding status never establishes eligibility. An early-stage fund is built to hold young companies, which is exactly why the mature ones in its orbit are found through its people, not its cap table.
Why maturity sits beside an early-stage portfolio
Most employment sits in mature companies. The Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics show that after falling in the 1980s, the share of employment at firms with positive employment for more than five years rose steadily, to approximately 90% of all employees by 2019. An early-stage portfolio sits, by design, in the small remainder. For a platform lead the practical point is narrow: the companies most likely to pass the size and history tests are the ones your LPs, co-investors and founders know, which the five-ring map lays out ring by ring.
Map the company, then the person who can ask its CEO
Each row needs two names before any outreach: the CEO, who decides whether the company discusses licensing and signs for it, and the relationship owner, who can ask that CEO and be heard. In an owner-run company the owner is usually the CEO.
Where the names come from in an early-stage fund: LP principals who own or chair operating companies; co-investors' later-stage holdings; portfolio companies' biggest customers and suppliers, with the founder's consent; the employers on your founders' CVs, which the alumni operating-history questionnaire collects; and acquirers of companies you exited.
The age-and-ownership screening worksheet
One row per company. Columns 1 to 3 establish age, 4 and 5 establish who controls the company, and 6 to 8 decide whether anyone should ask.
| # | Field | How to fill it | What you can check | What it cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Entity formed | Registry lookup | Delaware's free entity search shows the incorporation or formation date; Companies House shows a UK company's incorporation date | When the business itself began |
| 2 | Operating since | Ask the relationship owner for the first year of continuous operations under any entity | Consistency with column 1, or a stated reason for the gap | Whether records from that year survive |
| 3 | Records span | Years of day-to-day records in current systems, described at metadata level | The system's name and its administrator | Record quality or demand |
| 4 | Control type | Founder-owner, family with several shareholders, PE-backed, subsidiary of a parent, or other | UK: the people with significant control register; U.S.: rarely anything public | Whether the CEO can act alone in a deadlock |
| 5 | CEO | Name and how long in the role | Delaware: officers appear on the corporation's annual report | Willingness to talk |
| 6 | Peak full-time employees | Highest full-time count in any year, contractors excluded; for a staffing firm, its own staff only | The relationship owner's estimate | Anything about the records |
| 7 | Relationship owner | Who can ask the CEO | That person's agreement to ask | The CEO's answer |
| 8 | Result | Ask, find a path, park or drop | Written next action and date | Review outcome |
Why ownership is the hard column. Delaware's Division of Corporations says shareholder information is not on file with it, and FinCEN's 2026 final rule permanently ended beneficial ownership reporting for U.S. companies and U.S. persons, following the March 2025 interim rule. For a U.S. private company there is usually no public record of who owns it; the relationship owner's knowledge is the evidence. UK companies are the exception, since Companies House publishes people with significant control alongside the incorporation date.
Method note. The worksheet records dates, control and headcount from public registries and from the relationship owner's statements, on the date the row is filled. It does not measure demand for a company's records, record quality or payout, which only SourceX's review assesses, and it never needs a record to be opened.
Three age traps the worksheet is built to catch
- Young entity, old business. A founder who creates a holding company, redomiciles or recapitalizes gets a new formation date for a business that may be decades old. Column 2 overrides column 1.
- Old business, new owner by asset sale. A brand operating since 1988 and bought in an asset sale in 2021 keeps its history in the market, but whether its historical records moved with it depends on the deal; asset sale versus stock sale explains why, and SourceX's rights review decides.
- Old entity, young business. A company formed decades ago that pivoted recently carries an impressive registry date and only a few years of relevant records. Column 3 catches it.
Three companies through the worksheet (Illustrative)
Illustrative. Generic companies, invented facts, no outcomes implied.
A. An owner-led company. A 180-person commercial printing and mailing company. The registry shows an entity formed in 2016, when the founder moved the business under a new holding company; the founder, still CEO, has run it since 1989, and twelve years of job tickets sit in one production system. The relationship owner is a fund LP who has known the founder for two decades. Control: founder-owner, so the CEO is also the owner. Result: ask.
B. A network intermediary. A 420-person facilities-services group, PE-backed and assembled through acquisitions since 2014; its oldest acquired business has operated since 1997. Nobody at the fund knows the CEO, but a co-investing partner sits on the board and is the obvious person to raise it, though nobody has asked him yet. Control: PE-backed, the CEO authorizes. The group and its subsidiaries count as one company for the reward cap, and records from acquired businesses may sit in several older systems, which the relationship owner notes at metadata level only. Result: find path, starting with the board member.
C. A no-fit counterexample. An entity formed in 2001 that pivoted to a software product in 2023. The old business's records were not kept, full-time headcount never passed 41, and the registry date says 25 years while the relevant records span three. Result: drop, with "revisit at 50 full-time employees and several years of product records" written on the row.
Separate reachable contacts from mandate-fit companies
Reaching a company is not the same as fitting. A row is ready only when two gates pass.
The fit facts. A peak of 50 or more full-time employees, not counting contractors; operating history that is documented; rights to license the records; and a location the program covers. 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 90% of the data is in English. SourceX's guidance treats personal consumer data and material that belongs to a company's clients as usually not a fit.
The authorized path. A relationship owner who will ask the CEO first, and a CEO who wants the conversation. Where two owners hold equal stakes, the CEO alone may not be enough. Partners never ask for files, samples or logins, and whoever submits signs the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement first.
Score age, control and path before choosing whom to call
SourceX has not published conversion rates or typical payouts. Score each row that passes the fit facts on three columns, 0 to 2 each, and sort by the total.
| Score | Age confidence | Control clarity | Path |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Operating-since stated and consistent with the registry, or the gap explained | The CEO is the owner, or clearly holds authority | Relationship owner agreed to ask |
| 1 | Operating-since stated, unexplained gap | A sponsor, parent or several shareholders involved | Relationship owner identified, not yet asked |
| 0 | Unknown | Unknown, or equal owners in deadlock | No relationship owner |
| Company (Illustrative) | Age | Control | Path | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case A, printing and mailing | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Case B, facilities-services group | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Case C, pivoted software company | Fails size | Not scored | Not scored | Dropped |
Where this worksheet can mislead
- Registries differ. Delaware's free search returns active and inactive entities and does not show current status; other states and countries publish different fields.
- Employment is not records. The Census figures describe where U.S. jobs are, not where licensable records are or whether any company in your network holds them.
- Second-hand ownership. With no public owner record for most U.S. private companies, an LP's or founder's account of control can be out of date.
- Rights and demand. SourceX's rights review decides what a company may license, and its criteria differ by program; a portfolio company outside one program's criteria may fit a different program later. Wider shifts, such as synthetic data covering more training needs, could narrow demand for real records whatever the worksheet shows.
- Growth-stage funds. If the portfolio already holds large, older companies, start there instead.
For more screening columns, the company fit screening worksheet and the screening worksheet for consulting businesses add industry-specific checks; recognizing a business with several years of operating history covers what long operation tends to leave behind. The overview for venture platform teams and the guides hub cover the rest.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When a row scores 5 or 6 and passes every fit fact, take out a partner link, hold the company up against who qualifies once more and go through the program terms before the relationship owner asks the CEO.
A reader evaluating SourceX as an investment is making a different decision from this screen, and can request investor materials through the SourceX investor overview.
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.