Short answer: For a winding-down company, Turing's Project Lazarus names operating and winding-down companies and pays up to $1M once. For startups shutting down, SimpleClosure's AssetHub sells source code and workspace data. Mode and micro1 don't publish a track for closed companies on the pages we read, so we don't route closed companies to them. If you were acquired, the acquirer may qualify on its own, and ownership of the records comes first.
Does your company fit? Check in about a minute.
To see which of these buyers fit a specific company, DataWorth AI's free quiz (about a minute, no email needed) matches it against each program's published rules: https://dataworthai.com/quiz/. It shows reasons, not promises; each program decides on its own review.
On this page
Side by side
| As published | Turing (Project Lazarus) No relationship | SimpleClosure AssetHub No relationship | Mode (BizBuyData) We may be paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headcount rule | Not published | Not published | 10+ employees for legal; 15+ for accounting, medical and finance; 50+ for all others |
| Countries | Not published on the page we could read | Not published | United States, Canada, United Kingdom or Australia only |
| Years, systems, records | The operating record: communications, code and tickets, wikis and runbooks | SourceCode and WorkspaceData (Slack, Drive, email, Notion, Figma and more) | 3+ years of records still in their systems; 5+ systems (email, internal chat, file storage, a CRM, plus one more) |
| Published payout or price | A single payout of up to $1M | Not published on its page | $100K to $5M program-wide. US indicative bands: $200K-$500K (20-49 staff), $400K-$900K (50-149), $800K+ (150+); under 20 quoted individually |
| Exclusivity | Not published | Not published | Exclusive. The company agrees not to license the same data for external AI training for 24 months (affiliate FAQ); the company page says the agreement defines scope and any exclusivity |
| Data excluded | Not published; says personal data and secrets are removed before anything reaches a model | Not published; says every dataset is processed for PII | Health records, payment card data and children's data are excluded. Not a fit: staffing, insurance, title and escrow |
Sources, read October 21, 2026: Turing Lazarus, SimpleClosure, Business Wire: SimpleClosure Launches Asset Hub (Apr 16, 2026), Mode, Mode affiliate FAQ (PDF, dated Oct 14, 2026), Mode company data partnerships page (FAQ). "Not published" means we could not find it on the program's public pages, not that no rule exists.
Who should pick which
Winding down, records still intact
Turing's Project Lazarus names winding-down companies; sampling usually takes about a week.
Startup shutting down with SimpleClosure
SimpleClosure's AssetHub, which handles PII scrubbing and buyer matching.
Acquired company
The acquirer may meet Mode or micro1 rules itself. Confirm who owns the archive first: who owns it.
Why ownership and deletion dates matter
Records belong to whoever owns the company's assets after closing or sale, and cloud accounts can lose data once they're closed. MIT Technology Review reported labs buying data from dead startups (MIT Technology Review). Read closed startups and bankruptcy.
How we rank and what we're paid
How we rank. We order programs first by whether a company like yours meets each program's published rules, then by how much each program publishes (headcount, countries, records, price, exclusivity, exclusions, timeline). Referral fees play no part. Of the programs compared here, we have referral relationships with Mode and micro1 (marked We may be paid); we have none with the other programs listed.
Sponsored placements: there are none on this page. If we ever accept one, it will be labeled Sponsored where it appears.
What could your company's records be worth?
Answer 6 questions. See the published range for a company like yours and which program fits. Takes about a minute.
Frequently asked questions
Can a closed company sell its Slack and email to AI?
Possibly, if someone with authority over the assets can sign and the records still exist. Turing and SimpleClosure publish paths for winding-down and shutting-down companies.
Why doesn't DataWorth AI introduce closed companies?
The programs we work with don't publish a track for closed companies on the pages we read. We keep you on an update list instead.
Does Turing publish a size rule?
Not on the page we could read. It says the payout scales with how complete, rare and well-preserved the record is.
Sources
- Turing, Project Lazarus pagelazarus.turing.com
- SimpleClosure AssetHub pagesimpleclosure.com
- Business Wire: SimpleClosure Launches Asset Hub (Apr 16, 2026)businesswire.com
- Mode affiliate FAQ (PDF, dated Oct 14, 2026)bizbuydata.com
- MIT Technology Review: AI labs are buying data from dead startups (Oct 13, 2026)technologyreview.com
Referral-fee disclosure: DataWorth AI may be paid a referral fee by Mode or micro1 if a company we introduce, or that signs up through our link, signs a deal. Mode says its fee is paid on top of the company's offer, not out of it. We are not an agent of any program. General information only, not legal advice. Disclosure