Acqui-hired? What happens to the old company's records

Records the acquirer didn’t take still belong to the old company, and it can license them if someone with authority signs. The deal papers say what was taken and who can sign now.

The acquirer hired the people and left the company standing

In a share purchase, the acquirer owns the company and everything in it. In an acqui-hire, it usually signs employment contracts with the people and a technology license or asset purchase with the company. The company stays with its shareholders, and its board, or whoever the shareholders appointed to wind it down, controls the records.

The founder who joined the acquirer often knows what the records contain but can no longer sign for them. The people who can sign may not know what is there, so write it down before the team leaves.

Three deal documents decide what can still be sold

1. The asset purchase or license agreement. It lists what the acquirer bought or licensed. If the IP transferred outright, the code belongs to the acquirer. If the company granted a license, check whether it is exclusive: a non-exclusive license generally leaves the company free to license the same code to others, and an exclusive one generally doesn’t.
2. The employment agreements. They may bind the founders personally, for example with non-compete terms. They rarely bind the company’s assets, but check.
3. The shareholder or board resolutions. They say who can act for the company now. A data license is a company contract and needs a company signatory.

Records left out of the acquirer’s deal, often the Slack history, support tickets, wiki and internal email, stay with the company. Have the lawyer who handled the deal confirm what the documents allow.

The code may already be licensed, and that can be fine

Pangea licenses private source code and git history to AI labs under non-exclusive terms. If the acquirer took a non-exclusive license and the company kept ownership, the repository may go to Pangea as well. An exclusive license or an IP assignment to the acquirer is a conflicting third-party right, which Pangea excludes.

A product the acquirer didn’t want carries no conflicting license. It still needs its full git history and clear ownership. Our guide to selling source code to AI companies covers the rest.

Four buyers license the chat, email and tickets

micro1, Scale, Mode and Maryah license company records such as chat, email, documents, tickets and CRM data. micro1 asks for 30+ employees and Scale prefers 40+. Maryah publishes no size limit. Each buyer page lists the full criteria.

The workspace dies when the last admin leaves

Slack’s help page says deleting a workspace is permanent, and messages and files can’t be retrieved afterward. A Google Workspace whose billing lapses or a Jira site nobody pays for is at the same risk.

In an acqui-hire the admins are usually the people who left. Before they drop their old accounts, transfer workspace ownership to someone staying with the company, keep the paid plans running, and take full exports. Scale and Mode work inside live systems, so a running workspace keeps more buyers open than an export does.

Someone who can still bind the company signs

The company signs through whoever holds authority after the deal: a remaining director, an officer appointed by the board, or the shareholders’ representative. A founder who has joined the acquirer and resigned from the board can’t sign for it.

Keep the deal papers, the exports and the repositories the acquirer left

• The acquisition, license and employment agreements, with the exclusivity clause marked.
• Board or shareholder resolutions naming who can sign for the company now.
• Workspace ownership transferred to someone still at the company, with paid plans kept on.
• Full exports of Slack, email, tickets, wiki and databases.
• The repositories the acquirer didn’t take, with their git history intact.
• A record of which repositories were ever public.