For acquirers and sponsors

Carve-outs leave archives behind. Some of them can be licensed

After a carve-out, someone ends up holding the old email tenant, the ticketing system and the code repositories that used to serve the business unit. Usually they sit untouched until a transition period ends and the subscriptions are cancelled.

Data buyers will license estates like these, as long as you ask before the systems go dark.

AI Data Offers research deskChecked against our methodology Updated October 28, 2026 3 min read 10 sources

In this guide

Who works with carve-out estates

Hilco now advises on enterprise data, source code and AI training material in carve-outs, restructurings and M&A. License My Data will license or buy outright the legacy systems a company is left with after a transaction. Direct buyers, Ventra and Mercor among them, want the same material.

What a legacy environment usually contains

Across the startup estates SimpleClosure reviewed, Slack turned up 95% of the time, Drive 87% and GitHub 82%. A divested unit usually has a similar stack, plus whatever the parent company ran for it.

Buyers value connections: a ticket, the commit that resolved it, and the conversation behind both. Sheer size counts for less than owners assume. In SimpleClosure's experience, roughly 37% of raw code vanished after stripping out duplicates, generated files and third-party libraries. Archives padded with vendored code or duplicated mailboxes should expect a comparable haircut.

Transition periods end, and so does the option

Legacy systems are often switched off the day a transition services agreement ends, to stop paying for seats. That is also the day the archive stops being licensable. Buyers can assess an estate quickly, often starting with a short form about your systems, so ask a few weeks before the cut-off.

Questions to put to any data buyer

Is this a license of a copy, or a sale of the records outright?
Is it exclusive, and for how long? Can I license the same data elsewhere later?
Which systems and date ranges are in scope, and can I leave folders or whole tools out?
Who removes names and personal details, how, and do I approve a sample before anything leaves?
When does payment arrive, and does the clock start at signing or at your acceptance of the delivery?
Do I pay anything, and does anyone in the chain take a cut?
How long do you keep the copy, and what happens to it if you are acquired?

FAQ

Questions, answered

Do data buyers take records from carved-out businesses?

Yes. Advisers such as Hilco and buyers such as License My Data name carve-outs and legacy estates directly.

Which systems are most common?

Slack, Google Drive and GitHub, found in 95%, 87% and 82% of the workspaces SimpleClosure evaluated.

Will all of our code count?

Unlikely. SimpleClosure saw roughly 37% of raw code fall away once copied, machine-generated and outside libraries were excluded.

License or buyout?

Both exist. Under a license your company keeps ownership, which matters if the estate might be needed again for disputes or audits.

Does the separation agreement let us license the carved-out unit's records?

Only your deal documents can answer that. Ask counsel to check the separation and transition services agreements before you engage a buyer.

Find the buyers that fit your company

Answer a few questions about your size, tools and history. We show which buyers want a company like yours. Free, no files.

Match my company What is my data worth?

Keep reading

Sources

Every number on this page links back to one of these.

Spot something wrong? See our corrections policy. Some buyers pay us a referral fee. How we make money.