Does your company's data raise its sale price?

Compared side by side, a data license can be a sizable slice of an average small business sale. That alone argues for getting it priced on its own.

Valuers already put numbers on customer lists and income-producing databases in deals, and Hilco now advises on enterprise data and AI training material. Acquirers' lawyers, per Foley & Lardner, now review training-data rights as a separate item. All of that signals interest. None of it proves a higher sale price.

Get two numbers: a written data offer for the archive, and your broker's valuation of the business excluding it. Comparing them shows whether a buyer of the company is valuing the records at all. Data offers usually land within a few days to two weeks.

• 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?