Founder Signal scores private UK SMEs across multiple sectors on how ready they are to sell — and how good a target they are — so you reach owners before they ever call a broker.
By the time a business is listed with a broker, it's been picked over — and priced up. The businesses worth buying are owner-run, off-market, and only sell when the timing is right for the owner. The hard part was ever knowing which ones, and when.
The tool finds the owner who's quietly ready to sell — before anyone else is even looking.
Founder Signal joins the records that already exist, scores them on the signals that actually predict a sale, and hands you a ranked list of who to approach.
Companies House financials, ownership and filing history, cross-referenced with sector-specific operational datasets — capacity, headcount, assets, and regulatory changes. One complete picture per business.
Owner age, succession gaps, coming off finance, board changes, clean filing — the patterns that precede a sale — scored into a sellability and an attractiveness rating.
Filter to the targets that fit your thesis by sector, region, revenue, and core assets, see exactly why each one scored, export the list, and make the approach before the market does.
Nothing is a black box. Every score comes with the signals that drove it, so you can judge the target yourself.
How likely the owner is open to an exit in the next 1–3 years — read from public signals like owner age, succession gaps, and a balance sheet being quietly tidied up before a sale.
How good the business looks as an acquisition — size band, longevity, filing discipline, asset profiles, and ownership structure. The quality of the target, not just its availability.
Coming off invoice finance, sub-prime lending, board simplification, charges cleared — the quiet events that move a business from "someday" to "now."
Filed figures shown as filed; estimates shown as estimates. The scores are a prioritisation tool to find and rank targets — never a substitute for your own diligence.
Start free. Upgrade when it's paying for itself. Billed monthly, no tie-in.
A limited number of founding customers get Fund access at a reduced rate, fixed for life. Get in touch.
Accounts data lags reality by up to 21 months, and Companies House doesn't publish turnover for most small companies. So where a figure is filed, we show it as filed. Where it's estimated, we say so.
The scores are built to help you find and prioritise targets — to point you at the right conversations first. They are not advice, and they are not a substitute for diligence.
Start free, search all 50,000+ operators, and see the top targets in your region in the next two minutes.
