AI companies pay to license real records of how a business runs. micro1, Scale AI, Mercor and Handshake AI each publish programs for the email, Slack, CRM and support records of mid-size companies. Topology Partners introduces you to the ones that fit, on the same day, so you can compare any offers. You choose what to share and sign directly with the buyer you pick.
Free for your company. The buyer you sign with pays our referral fee, and you see every buyer's fee in writing before any introduction.
Two buyers publish their own estimators. Here is what each one says for a company your size.
Figures come from micro1's and Handshake AI's public estimators for a US-headquartered company, sampled Oct 15, 2026, with values between sampled points interpolated. Both buyers label them indicative estimates, and Handshake AI says its figure is not an offer. Scale AI publishes $10K–$1M+ “illustrative value per data partnership, scaling with cadence”; Mercor publishes no range. Topology Partners adds nothing to these numbers.
These are the buyers' own indicative figures, not offers, and not an estimate by Topology Partners. No offer or payment is guaranteed.
The valuable records show how your business takes in a request, reaches a decision and gets a result: the email thread, the sales history, the solved ticket. A contact list doesn't count.
Pick a category to see what one record looks like.
Threads where your team works through a question and lands on a decision.
Channel threads · Project discussions · DecisionsOne made-up record
The exchange behind a quote, an approval or a change to an order.
Email threads · Follow-ups · Sign-offsOne made-up record
How a deal closed: what the customer needed, how your team followed up and what made them buy.
Sales notes · Deal stages · Win / loss reasonsOne made-up record
A customer's issue, what your team tried and what finally fixed it.
Tickets · Replies · ResolutionsOne made-up record
The how-tos and reference docs your team relies on every day.
How-to guides · Checklists · Project handoffsOne made-up record
Transcripts of sales and support calls: what was asked, what was answered and what happens next.
Sales calls · Support calls · Agreed next stepsOne made-up record
After you sign, the buyer's team replaces or removes identifying details before any AI training. Names become labels, passwords and payment fields are left out, and the problem, the steps and the outcome stay connected. Each buyer runs its own process; we'll help you ask exactly what it is.
Jim Smith resolved a delivery issue for Northwind Inc. Send the revised plan to jim@example.com.
Jim Smith confirmed the customer accepted the new date.
Person 14 resolved a delivery issue for Company 08. Send the revised plan to Email 14.
Person 14 confirmed the customer accepted the new date.
Jim Smith is Person 14 everywhere in the dataset, and company names and email addresses get labels as well.
Passwords, payment details and other private fields are left out entirely.
The problem, the fix and the outcome stay linked; that's the part buyers pay for.
This example is made up. Swapping names is one step; other details can still point to a person, which is why the buyer's review should also check context and sensitive fields before training.
Buyers want the request, the response and the result, in order. Your contract lists which of these three uses you allow.
Teaching a model how real work gets done: how people work through problems, decide and finish tasks.
Making an existing model better at one specific job.
Generating new, made-up examples from the patterns in real work.
The contract sets when the buyer must delete the raw dataset and when future use must stop. A permission to train doesn't cover publishing the raw records or any resale of them unless the contract says so.
Models trained during the term stay trained; deleting the dataset doesn't undo training that's already done. Ask for a deletion certificate.
Nothing is uploaded to us. Start with a fit check, confirm your record counts with screenshots, approve the buyers, then compare any offers. Each buyer runs its own verification, de-identification and payment under your contract with it.
A 30-minute call and about 30 minutes of record-count screenshots from your admin dashboards. Then a call with each buyer that wants to proceed. After you sign, the buyer's engineers handle extraction and de-identification with your IT lead.
Tell us your size, years in business and the systems you use, online or on a 30-minute call. No upload.
Your team screenshots record counts from your admin dashboards. The records themselves stay in your systems.
We tell you in writing which buyers fit and what each one pays us. You approve the list, strike any buyer and name your exclusions.
We submit you through each approved buyer's referral program on the same day. Buyers move at different speeds, and not every buyer makes an offer; we follow up with each one.
Offers come to you directly, and we lay them side by side. You sign with the buyer you pick, or none. Its team extracts and de-identifies the agreed records and pays you on the schedule in your contract. Topology Partners never receives your data.
Each buyer will only ever show you its own number. We introduce you to the buyers that fit on the same day, so you can compare any offers on price, permitted uses, exclusivity and payment timing before you choose.
One 30-minute call and a few screenshots of record counts tell us which buyers you fit. We pass your exclusions to each buyer; they belong in your contract.
With your written OK, we submit you through each buyer's public referral program on the same day. Buyers move at different speeds, and not every buyer makes an offer; we follow up with each one.
Offers come to you directly. Share them with us and we'll lay them out side by side: price, permitted uses, exclusivity and payment timing. You sign directly with the buyer you pick, or decline them all.
| Buyer | What they buy | Who qualifies | Payout range they publish | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| micro1 | SOPs, knowledge bases, internal docs, CRM, project histories, QA processes | 30+ employees, US prioritized (UK/Canada considered), English | $100K–$2M+ for approved data packages | Referral program: yes |
| Scale AI | Data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks), Slack/Teams, email, Jira/Asana, Salesforce/HubSpot/Workday/ServiceNow | 40+ employees preferred, case by case | $10K–$1M+ “illustrative value per data partnership, scaling with cadence” | Can recur |
| Mercor | 100+ tools incl. Slack, Gmail, Confluence, Salesforce, GitHub, Drive, Notion | Industries it names: legal, healthcare, finance & insurance, professional services, manufacturing, retail & e-commerce, real estate, logistics & supply chain | Not published (“based on data volume, the tools you connect, and the depth of your data”) | Pays the company by wire, typically 2–4 weeks after signing |
| Handshake AI | Operational data from the tools you already use | 20+ full-time employees, 3+ years in operation | $100K–$4M+ “depending on the data shared” | Highest published top figure |
Other options. Turing licenses business data through Project Lazarus, from companies with a real operating history, including ones that have closed, and runs a referral program (its fee is below). Troveo is a marketplace with no referral program, so it pays us nothing. We don't introduce law firms, accounting firms, banks, defense contractors, schools, staffing firms or anyone holding patient health data.
Ranges are each buyer's own published figures for approved deals. They are not offers or estimates for your company. Topology Partners is an independent referral intermediary, not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for any buyer named on this site.
Topology Partners is paid by buyers, never by you. When you sign with a buyer that runs a referral program, that buyer pays us a referral fee. Here is what each buyer publishes, as we read it on October 24, 2026:
Some buyers pay us more than others. Here is what that means for you:
No buyer pays us to be listed or ranked on this site.
I'm Hoyt Gong. I started Topology Partners in Boston in October 2026, while finishing my MBA at Harvard Business School. AI data companies now pay mid-size businesses to license their internal records, but a company that talks to just one of them only ever sees that buyer's number. I introduce you to the buyers that fit on the same day so you can compare any offers. Each buyer I introduce you to through a referral program pays me if you sign with it. You never do.
What I will never do: ask you for money, passwords or raw records; sign anything on your behalf; or submit your company to any buyer without your written OK.
Hoyt Gong · Founder · hoytgong@gmail.com · LinkedIn
You begin with record counts and screenshots; nothing is uploaded. These answers cover what to check before you agree to anything. Anything else: hoytgong@gmail.com
Yes, potentially. Mercor names logistics as a target industry, and a delivery problem, your team's response and the outcome is the kind of record buyers describe wanting. What decides it is the records you have and whether your contracts let you license them, not your industry.
No. You decide which systems, folders, customers and workflows are in. The scope in your contract defines which records are licensed.
Passwords, API keys, payment details, health records, HR files and anything your customer contracts restrict. Don't send any of these to us, through this site or by email. Tell us which systems you use; we pass your exclusions to each buyer, and they belong in your contract.
A few facts about your company, the systems you use and screenshots of record counts from your admin dashboards. No raw records, no system access and no passwords. We sign a mutual NDA with you first if you want one.
Not on its own. A single message, or several details taken together, can still point to a person, so the buyer's review has to look past names and email addresses. Ask each buyer to describe its de-identification process in writing; we'll help you compare the answers.
Yes. Strike any buyer before we make introductions, and tell us about competitors, customers or uses you want excluded. Use limits and named-competitor exclusions belong in your contract with the buyer, so raise them before you sign, and have your counsel check how later approvals work.
Yes. It's a license, not a sale: the scope is defined, the term is fixed, and you keep ownership. You need the right to license the records, including any permission your customers or vendors require. Your contract should require deletion of the raw data at the end of the term, with a certificate. Models already trained during the term stay trained.
Never to us. Topology Partners sees only record counts and dashboard screenshots, and deletes the screenshots within 30 days of your introductions. Records go from you to the buyer you sign with, under your contract with it, and the buyer's own team extracts and de-identifies them. Your contract sets the method, such as an export or tool access you grant and can revoke; ask each buyer whether it needs a sample or system access before it makes an offer. We aren't a party to that contract.
About an hour with us: a 30-minute call and about 30 minutes of record-count screenshots from your admin dashboards. Then a call with each buyer that wants to proceed. After you sign, the buyer's engineers handle extraction and de-identification with your IT lead. Topology Partners never charges you anything.
It depends on how many years of useful history you have, the volume and quality of the records, your rights to license them and buyer demand; headcount alone can't set a price. The estimators above are the buyers' own indicative figures, not offers. Competing offers are the only real answer, which is why we introduce you to more than one buyer.
By buyers, never by you. If you sign with a buyer that runs a referral program, it pays us a referral fee. At micro1, $50,000 for deals up to $700,000, or 7.5% of deal value above that ($75,000 for a company that has shut down, on deals up to $1M). At Mercor, 5% of the signed deal, up to $100,000. At Scale AI, up to $50,000, only if Scale signs. At Handshake AI, $10,000 once your data transfer is accepted. At Turing, up to $10,000 if a referral becomes a deal. Troveo pays us nothing. Because the fees differ, we tell you in writing what each buyer pays us before any introduction. You pay nothing, nothing is deducted from your contract, offers come straight to you, and you can strike any buyer, including the ones that pay us most.
I'm Hoyt Gong, founder of Topology Partners, based in Boston. I started it in October 2026 to help mid-size US companies compare offers from the AI companies that license business data. I found your company in a commercial B2B contact database, filtered for US companies with 30 to 500 employees that use tools like Slack, HubSpot or Zendesk, and I wrote to you because you'd be the one to decide. Reply “stop” to any of my emails and I won't write again.
Your lawyer decides, and here is what they'll likely check: (1) customer and vendor contracts that limit how you use their information; (2) privacy law, for example California's CCPA if you have employees or customers there; (3) whether to tell employees before licensing internal communications. You can start with internal-only records, such as internal Slack, SOPs and project tools, which avoids most customer questions. We're not lawyers and this isn't legal advice. Our checklist for counsel: topologypartners.com/counsel.
Anything your customer or vendor contracts restrict stays out: you name it, we pass your exclusions to each buyer, and they belong in your contract. We sign a mutual NDA with you before you share even record counts. Ask each buyer for its own NDA before it scopes your data. Your license contract is with the buyer, not with us.
Ask every buyer, in writing. Some US data vendors have been reported to also supply training data to labs in China. If it matters to you, we ask every buyer in writing for the same protections (no transfer to China or other countries of concern, no resale, deletion at term end). Only the buyer can agree to them, so they go in your contract, and any buyer that refuses comes off your list. You can also exclude any buyer from the start.
The data is used to train AI models, so in a broad sense it makes AI better at work like yours; that's what buyers pay for. What you control: limit use to model training and evaluation, ban disclosure or resale of your records, and exclude named competitors as end customers. All three belong in your contract.
Tell us. We'll leave that buyer out and introduce you to the others. If you're already in talks with one buyer, a second offer, if one comes, is useful leverage.
It depends on the buyer, and each buyer's payment terms go into your contract. What the buyers publish: Mercor says it pays by wire on delivery of the anonymized dataset, typically 2–4 weeks after signing; micro1 and Scale AI don't publish their timing.
You can. Each buyer will only show you its own number. We introduce you to several on the same day and put any offers side by side. If it matters to you, we ask every buyer in writing for the same protections (no transfer to China or other countries of concern, no resale, deletion at term end). Only the buyer can agree to them, so they go in your contract, and any buyer that refuses comes off your list. If you've already applied to one, tell us and we'll introduce you to the others.
Thirty minutes on the tools you use, what you might license and which buyers fit. Or answer four questions and see your matches now. Nothing to upload, nothing to pay.
Got an email from Hoyt? Reply “details” and you'll get the one-page summary.
Forwarding this to your lawyer? Send them topologypartners.com/counsel.
Rather write first? hoytgong@gmail.com
