Most referral mistakes after a deal come from using the org chart of the week the deal was announced. The eight questions below replace it with dated facts.
Which acquisition are you looking at?
Portfolio teams meet acquisitions from three directions, and each puts a different person in front of the CEO.
| Direction | Typical example | Who owns the CEO relationship | What changes for the fund |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your portfolio company bought a business | A platform company closes an add-on | Whoever at the fund works with the platform CEO, who now decides for the add-on | The add-on joins the group, which counts as one referred company for the once-per-company floor and the Repeat Window |
| Your portfolio company was bought | A strategic buyer acquires a company you backed | The board member who negotiated the sale, until the buyer's people take over | The fund's rights end at closing, and from then on the buyer's CEO decides |
| A company in your wider network was bought | An LP's company sells to a competitor | Whoever knew the old CEO, and possibly nobody at the buyer | The buyer's CEO decides, so the old CEO is a sponsor at most, and that path may disappear when they leave |
If the fund has fully left, start with whether a former portfolio company can still be referred. This page covers the months around the deal itself.
The post-acquisition sponsor map
Four phases, each answered in the same five columns. The authorizer is always a CEO: the target's before closing, the buyer's from closing onward. Other executives, including the acquired company's own CEO once the deal closes, appear as sponsors who prepare the case, own records or carry the ask internally.
| Phase | Who authorizes | Who can sponsor internally | Where the records sit | What the referral should do now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Signed, not closed | The target's CEO, for the target | The target's CFO or COO, not the buyer's integration team | Unchanged, in the target's systems | Wait unless the target's CEO raises it; never route the ask through the buyer |
| 2. Closed, running standalone | The buyer's CEO, for the acquired company | The acquired company's CEO and leadership, with the group's corporate development team informed | The acquired company's own systems | Have the acquired company's CEO carry the ask to the buyer's CEO, through whoever owns that relationship |
| 3. Integration underway | The buyer's CEO, as in phase 2 | The acquired company's CEO while the role exists, the integration lead and the owner of each legacy system | Moving: legacy systems scheduled for archive or shutdown | Treat a dated retirement as real urgency and put the ask to the buyer's CEO before the systems go |
| 4. Fully merged | The buyer's CEO | The group CFO, COO or general counsel | Group systems, plus any retained archives | Approach the group through its CEO; the old brand is no longer a company |
Phase 1 is the one most often handled badly. Between signing and closing the target is still its own business. In their 2018 submission to the OECD, the U.S. antitrust agencies describe how parties can prematurely transfer beneficial ownership, which the premerger waiting period forbids, for example by letting a buyer run the target's operations; one sign they look at is who makes ordinary-course business decisions. A referral pitched to the buyer's deal team about the target's records invites exactly that conversation. If the target's CEO wants to explore licensing before closing, that is the target's decision, and its counsel reads the purchase agreement's interim rules.
Phases 2 and 3 are where most add-on introductions happen. The acquired company often keeps its CEO for a period, under an earn-out or transition agreement, and that CEO's support matters: they know the records and can carry the ask internally, but the buyer's CEO (for an add-on, the platform CEO) authorizes any discussion about them, and nothing is sent before that yes. Phase 4 ends the separate company: the buyer's CEO still decides, and anyone from the old company remains, at most, an internal sponsor.
Eight questions to ask after an acquisition
Ask them in order. Each answer should carry a date and a source, even if the source is "the CEO told me on the 14th".
- Has the deal closed, and on what date? Signing and closing put the business in different phases on the map, and the closing date is when the decision passes to the buyer's CEO. Announcements often describe a signing.
- Which entity holds each record set now? In a stock purchase or merger the records stay with the acquired company or the surviving entity; in an asset purchase they move only if listed. Copyright ownership can be transferred in whole or in part, so a deal can split one archive between two owners. Who owns company data after an acquisition sets out each structure.
- Does the acquired company still have its own CEO? If yes, that CEO is the natural sponsor, who can carry the ask internally and whose support matters, but the buyer's CEO authorizes for the company's records. If the role was folded into the group, a group executive sponsors instead, and the buyer's CEO still decides.
- Who owns the relationship with that CEO today? Name a person who agrees to ask, whether they reach the buyer's CEO directly or through the acquired company's CEO. The board member who sold the company may have lost that standing at closing.
- Does anyone in the group already have an application or relationship with SourceX? Duplicates are reviewed and not credited to a later partner, and attribution is decided from dated records. For the once-per-company USD 50,000 floor, a parent company and its subsidiaries count as one company.
- Which systems are scheduled for retirement, and when? A documented shutdown date for the acquired company's CRM, ticketing or file servers is the only urgency worth acting on. The system decommissioning guide covers what to export first.
- Did the deal move records across a border or into another language? 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.
- What did the purchase agreement and any transition services agreement say about records? You need only the company's answer, from its counsel, to one question: whose records are these?
Questions 2, 6 and 8 stay at metadata level: record type, rough count, span of years, system, administrator. Nobody asks for files, samples or logins.
Two cases on the map (Illustrative)
Illustrative. Generic companies, invented facts, no outcomes implied.
Case A, introduce: an add-on in phase 2. A 450-person field-services platform owned by a private equity fund buys a 95-person heating and cooling contractor in March. The contractor runs standalone under its founder, who stays on as CEO for 18 months. The operating partner owns the relationship with the platform CEO, who introduced him to the contractor's CEO at closing. The answers: closed in March (1); a stock purchase, so the records stayed with the contractor (2); its CEO is in place and will sponsor, while the platform CEO decides for the contractor (3); the operating partner will put it to the platform CEO, with the contractor's CEO backing the ask (4); nobody in the group has contacted SourceX (5); the contractor's dispatch system moves to the platform's next quarter (6); U.S. operations, English records (7); counsel confirms the contractor owns its service history (8). The contractor's CEO backs the conversation, the platform CEO says yes on the contractor's behalf, and the introduction goes in.
Because the group counts as one company, the contractor's license is the group's first qualifying transaction and a later license by the platform, first agreed within 12 months of that Closing, is a repeat:
| Licensing event (Illustrative) | Actual Supplier Payout | Reward on this transaction | Cumulative reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor, first license | $300,000 | $65,000 (USD 50,000 plus 5%) | $65,000 |
| Platform, later license | $200,000 | $30,000 (15%, a repeat) | $95,000 |
Counted as two companies, those payouts would have produced $65,000 and $60,000; as one group, the floor applies once and the platform's license pays 15%, so the total is $95,000. The subsidiary referral guide covers other group shapes.
Case B, rejected: the merged company's former COO. A company the fund backed was bought by a larger competitor 18 months ago and fully merged; its brand survives as a product line. Its former COO, now a director in the buyer's operations team, asks the fund's platform lead to submit "the old company" so he can sponsor it. The map puts it in phase 4: there is no separate company, the buyer's CEO decides and the former COO can only sponsor internally. He also mentions that the buyer's procurement team has already spoken with SourceX, so question 5 points to a likely duplicate. The row is rejected as submitted. If he wants to pursue it, he raises it with the buyer's CEO himself, and no introduction of a company that no longer exists goes anywhere.
Route uncertain cases without implying acceptance
A complete map tells you who can say yes, not what SourceX will say. SourceX checks relevance to its current data needs in review and applies the criteria of the specific program, and an introduction made without the decision maker's knowledge is usually not a fit.
| Map result | What you do | What you tell the sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| Phase known, CEO named, path agreed, no duplicate | The relationship owner asks; submit after the CEO says yes | "It meets the published screening facts. SourceX decides in review." |
| Phase 1, buyer's team interested | Do nothing through the buyer | "Until closing, this is the target's decision alone." |
| Sponsor unclear during integration | Park the row until the group names who runs the business day to day | "We'll wait until someone can take this to the buyer's CEO." |
| Group already in contact with SourceX | Stop | "A later introduction wouldn't be credited." |
| Records split by an asset deal | Map each record set to its owner before anyone asks | "Part of this belongs to someone else now." |
If an outside buyer has already approached the company about its records, see what to do after an acquisition announcement; a CFO's screening questions are in questions to ask before licensing company data.
Where the map can be wrong
- Antitrust and interim covenants. The phase 1 advice reflects U.S. premerger rules. Deals below the notification thresholds or outside the U.S. follow other rules, which is one more reason to leave phase 1 decisions to the target and its counsel.
- Rights split by structure. An asset deal can leave older archives with the seller entity, or with nobody, so "the buyer owns everything" is an assumption to test, not a default.
- Integration speed. Records can be migrated, summarized or deleted faster than any referral cycle. The map gives no protection against a shutdown that already happened.
- Duplicates inside groups. A buyer's earlier contact with SourceX can make an otherwise strong introduction uncreditable. Only asking reveals it.
- Demand. Programs differ in size, history, geography, language and data category, and missing one program's criteria does not rule a company out of the next. A complete map is not a forecast.
Method note. The sponsor map combines SourceX's published screening and attribution rules (program terms, Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04, and the who-qualifies page, checked 2026-10-26), the program's rule that the CEO authorizes a licensing discussion, U.S. antitrust guidance on pre-closing conduct and U.S. copyright law on divisible ownership. It does not measure acceptance, record value or payout, it has not been tested against completed acquisitions, and no such figures are published. Fund-wide use starts at the overview for private equity operating partners; cross-border buyers are covered in post-acquisition opportunities for M&A advisors.
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.
Once the map shows the phase, today's CEO, an agreed relationship owner and no earlier contact in the group, register for a partner link, compare the company as it stands after the deal with who qualifies and work through the program terms; whoever submits signs the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement first.
Referring a newly acquired company involves no view on SourceX as an investment, and anyone weighing that separate decision 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.