For a VC portfolio operations lead this conversation usually follows an exit. The fund knew the acquired company well, the integration management office now runs its systems, and someone on the fund side wonders whether the old support or operations history could still be licensed. The integration team is the best source of facts about that history. It is not the place to get a decision, and it is never the place to get the records. The venture platform teams page covers the wider portfolio side of the program.
Who sits on an integration team, and what each of them can see
Integration teams are built from the acquirer's staff, the acquired company's remaining leaders and, often, outside advisers.
| Role | What they usually know | What they can usually say to an outsider |
|---|---|---|
| Integration lead or IMO head | The plan, the timeline, which systems survive | Whether a system exists, who owns it, whether a date has been set |
| IT integration lead | Cutover dates, migrations, archive design | Systems, years of history, administrators, in ranges |
| Functional workstream leads | Support, finance, HR or operations processes | How a function's history is kept, not what is in it |
| Clean team, before closing | Competitively sensitive data released for planning | Nothing about what they saw |
| Outside integration advisers | Whatever their engagement gives them | Only what their client allows |
The M&A integration records page describes the records an integration program itself creates; this page is about what the team can say about the acquired company's older history. The integration consultant page covers the same moment from an adviser's chair.
Which entity holds the records now, and whose CEO decides
Two facts come first, and the integration team can confirm both at summary level.
Which entity holds the records now. After an acquisition the records may sit inside the buyer's group, in the acquired company's original systems, in a migrated platform or in an archive. A stock purchase and an asset purchase can leave them in different places, which asset and stock sales compares. Ask whether the acquired business is still its own legal entity and which systems still carry pre-deal history.
Who decides. SourceX's screening guidance states it plainly: once a company is acquired, the acquirer's CEO decides for it, not the former board. The integration lead, however senior, prepares facts and can carry a note. The former CEO of the acquired company, now perhaps a division head, can sponsor the idea internally. The acquirer's CEO authorizes a licensing discussion. The exit-stage authority map lays out how that shift happens across the deal.
Custody, control and what can be said, phase by phase
| Phase | Where the records sit | Who decides | What an integration lead can usually say to you | Introduction decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before signing | The target's systems; a data room | The target's CEO | Nothing about the target | None through the buyer's team |
| Signed, not closed | The target's systems; a clean team sees limited data | The target's CEO | The process only | No; wait for closing |
| Closing | The target's systems, now inside the acquirer's group | The acquirer's CEO | Who the decider is and who runs integration | Plan the note |
| Integration | Old systems running alongside new ones; migrations; transition services | The acquirer's CEO | Existence and shape; dates if already cleared | Introduce if the CEO wants it |
| Steady state | The acquirer's platforms and archives | The acquirer's CEO | Existence and shape | An ordinary referral |
The signed-but-not-closed row matters most. The FTC's Bureau of Competition has written that merging parties often need detailed access to each other's business, that current and future pricing, strategic plans and costs are the kind of information that can be competitively sensitive, especially between competitors, and that the concern lasts until the deal closes. An integration planner in that window is managing exactly those limits. A referral partner asking about the target's records adds a request the planner should refuse, so do not make it.
The permissible summary interview guide
Every question an integration team can fairly answer sits at one of four detail levels. The guide gives each question its level, so you know before asking what a complete answer looks like.
| Level | What it covers | What an integration team can usually give | Example answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Existence | Whether a record set exists and where it sits | Yes | "The acquired help desk is still running." |
| 2. Shape | Years covered, rough volume, systems, who administers them | Yes, in ranges | "About eight years across two systems, one administrator." |
| 3. Plans | Migration, retirement or transition-services dates | Only what the acquirer has cleared; otherwise "ask the CEO" | "Cutover is planned for next summer." |
| 4. Content | Records, customers, samples, deal terms, synergy figures | Never | None |
Ten questions, each tagged with its level:
| # | Question | Level | A complete answer | If they decline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is the acquired business still its own legal entity? | 1 | "Yes, a subsidiary" or "merged in March" | Leave it; the CEO's office knows |
| 2 | Who is the CEO for that business now? | 1 | A name | Use public sources |
| 3 | Which systems still hold pre-deal history? | 1 | "The help desk and the old ERP" | Leave it |
| 4 | Roughly how many years does each cover? | 2 | "Since about 2015" | Leave it |
| 5 | Who administers each system today? | 2 | A role, not a login | Leave it |
| 6 | Who owns retention decisions for the acquired records? | 2 | A role | Leave it |
| 7 | Is any of it scheduled to migrate or retire? | 3 | "Mid-2027" or "can't say yet" | Ask the CEO |
| 8 | When does any transition services arrangement end? | 3 | A month, or "can't say" | Ask the CEO |
| 9 | Did customer contracts transfer with the business? | 3 | Yes, no or unknown | SourceX's rights review settles it later |
| 10 | Would the CEO welcome a short note about licensing the company's own records? | 1 | "Send it to me and I'll pass it on" | Stop |
Four requests stay off the list entirely: exports or samples, customer names or lists, the deal's price and terms, and anything a clean team saw. "I can't say" is a full answer at every level; it tells you to route the question to the CEO.
Method note. The guide applies SourceX's screening guidance on who decides after an acquisition, the program terms (version 2026-11-04, checked 2026-11-05), the FTC Bureau of Competition's 2018 note on pre-merger information exchange and the SEC's explanation of Regulation FD, both checked 2026-10-27. The four levels and ten questions are ours. The guide does not establish what any particular employer permits its staff to say; each acquirer's own confidentiality and disclosure rules govern. It does not assess whether any records are wanted; SourceX does that in review.
When the acquirer is listed
If the acquirer's shares trade publicly, its staff usually work under a disclosure policy, and for good reason. Regulation FD, as the SEC's explainer puts it, requires an issuer that discloses material nonpublic information to securities market professionals, or to holders of its securities who may well trade on it, to make the information public. A fund that took the acquirer's shares as exit consideration is now a holder of its securities, the second audience the rule names. Integration dates for a large platform could be material to such a company. Expect level 3 answers to stop at what has already been announced, and do not press.
Migrations, retirements and the duties that travel with them
Integration moves records on purpose: migrations, archive designs, retirements at the end of transition services. Each step can carry duties the integration team does not decide alone, such as a hold because a dispute is in view, a retention minimum or a contract that requires client data to be returned or deleted. Ask only whether a retention owner exists (question 6). Whether any duty covers a record family is for the acquirer's counsel; the acquisition integration checklist covers the company's own side of that handoff.
Send the note through the CEO, or stand down
- Introduce after closing, when the acquirer's CEO is reachable through a live relationship, the integration facts are clear at levels 1 and 2, and the CEO wants the conversation. The note can carry those summary facts and nothing else.
- Wait before closing, during a cutover week, or while the integration lead says dates are not yet cleared.
- Stop if the CEO declines, or if anyone suggests the fund collect records, logins or lists to "help SourceX look".
Credit and the once-per-company floor follow the group. A parent company and its subsidiaries count as one company under the terms, so the acquired business and its new owner share one first qualifying transaction: the USD 50,000 floor applies to it once, and any further qualifying transaction with either entity first agreed within 12 months of that first Closing pays 15% with no floor and no cap. If the acquired company itself already had any relationship with SourceX, section 3 of the terms makes it a duplicate. Whether earlier dealings between the acquirer and SourceX change anything for the business it bought is not addressed in the terms; SourceX settles it when it reviews duplicates. For what the old and new owners should each keep, see the referral handoff between old and new owners.
Two conversations with an integration lead (Illustrative)
Illustrative. Generic companies, invented facts, no outcome implied.
A conversation that stays at summary level. Six weeks after a 900-person logistics platform closes on a 180-person freight broker, the fund's former board member calls the integration lead. She confirms the broker is still a subsidiary, that its transport management history since 2014 sits in the broker's original system, that two people administer it and that a cutover is planned but not yet dated. She declines to estimate shipment volumes and says the acquirer's CEO decides anything about licensing. The board member sends the CEO a four-line note through the broker's former CEO, who now runs the division. Whether the CEO wants a conversation is the CEO's call.
A conversation that crosses the line. A different partner asks an integration lead for the acquired company's customer list and "a quick export so SourceX can see the data". The lead refuses, correctly, and reports the request to the acquirer's general counsel. Nothing is introduced, and the acquirer now associates the program with a request it should never have received. The fix was available from the start: ask question 10, and stop at the answer.
Where the interview guide breaks down
- Oversharing. An eager integration lead may volunteer level 4 detail. Stop them and do not record it; information you should not have received does not belong in a note.
- Employer rules vary. An acquirer may bar its staff from discussing integration with outsiders at all, and then every question routes to the CEO's office.
- The team's picture is partial. Integration staff know the systems they are migrating, not every archive the acquired company kept.
- Clean-team limits differ by deal. What was restricted before closing is set by that deal's own protocol and counsel.
- Rights and demand stay open. Whether contracts allow licensing and whether the records match a current program are decided in SourceX's review.
- Relationship cost. A former investor calling an acquirer's staff can look like lobbying. No data on how integration teams react has been published; record each call and its outcome.
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 the integration facts are clear at summary level and the acquirer's CEO wants to talk, register as a partner, confirm the acquired company against who qualifies and read the program terms before the note leaves your outbox.
Talking to an acquirer's integration team is referral work; sizing up SourceX as a possible holding for the fund is not, and that review starts with the materials offered on 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.