Launching Q4 2026 · DIFC, Dubai

Capital That Releases Only on Verified Progress.

FounderGrade holds investment and grant capital in milestone-gated escrow and releases each tranche only after an independent expert verifies the evidence. The credibility score is how a company qualifies and how much protection the round warrants.

Request a Pilot Explore the Demo

Independent by design. No pay-for-placement, ever.

Expert assessment from $180 · 5-day SLA · 1% founder success fee

Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai

Milestone-gated escrow
Independent expert verification
2-of-3 multisig release

foundergrade.ai / score

782/ 1000

Team85

Market78

Product82

Milestone 2 of 4 released$12,500

Product preview with sample data

The problem

Money Moves Faster Than Anyone Can Check It

Capital is committed on decks and self-reported updates. The volume has outgrown the diligence capacity behind it. Every figure below is third-party published, not FounderGrade data.

$425B

US venture investment deployed in a year, almost all of it released on signature rather than on verified progress.

Source: Crunchbase, 2025

$3.8B

MENA startup funding, up 74% year on year, into markets where independent diligence capacity has not grown with it.

Source: MAGNiTT, 2025

197K+

DPIIT-registered startups in India, a volume no manual grant or diligence process can review company by company.

Source: DPIIT registry, 2025

The product

Enforcement First. The Score Decides Who Qualifies.

Three layers, in this order. The score is the qualifier, the verification is the check and the escrow is what actually holds the money still.

Layer One: Escrow

Investment or grant capital is funded once and held in audited smart-contract escrow. Nothing releases on signature alone.

Layer Two: Verification

An independent expert checks submitted evidence against the milestone definition that both sides agreed, and records written reasoning.

Layer Three: The Score

The credibility score is the qualifier. It decides who gets to raise this way and how much protection the round warrants, not whether the money moves.

Milestone Tranches

Capital releases only against verified progress, never as one lump sum on signature.

2-of-3 Multisig

Founder, funder and expert each hold a key. No single party can move funds.

Dispute Arbitration

Built-in resolution runs before any contested release, with a full evidence trail.

Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai

Read How Escrow Works

How it works

Five Steps from Term Sheet to Released Capital

The same lifecycle runs for an investor round, an accelerator tranche and a grant disbursement.

Show All

Define the Milestones

Founder and funder write every tranche, its evidence requirement and its deadline into the deal room before any capital moves.

Fund the Escrow

The funder funds once. Capital sits in audited smart-contract escrow and is visible from the moment it lands.

Submit the Evidence

The founder files the artefacts the milestone named. Nothing is accepted on a status update alone.

Verify Independently

An assigned expert marks the evidence corroborated, contradicted or unable to verify, with reasoning attached to their name.

Release the Tranche

Founder, funder and expert each hold a key. Two signatures release. No single party can move the money.

Score Integrity

You Cannot Shop for a Better Score

Every completed assessment is recorded permanently, whatever it says. Founders decide which scores to reveal. They never decide whether an assessment shows up.

The Conflict Everyone Ignores

Conventional ratings are paid for by the thing being rated. That is the issuer-pays model, and it is what produced ratings inflation at the credit rating agencies. If the subject can also bury a poor result, every published score is good by construction and tells you nothing.

What a Founder Controls

A founder chooses which assessment scores to reveal. That is the only lever. A founder can never delete an assessment record, and can never hide that an assessment happened. The count, the date and the rubric version are permanent and public.

Why That Ends Score Shopping

Ordering assessments until one comes back flattering does not work when the ledger shows three completed and one shared. Non-disclosure becomes its own signal, so nobody has to be forced to publish a bad number for the number to mean something.

What an Investor Sees

3 Assessments Completed, 1 Shared, Most Recent March 2026

The value of a sealed assessment is never revealed, only that it exists and when it happened. Illustrative example of the ledger format.

And the Strongest Assessments Are Not Bought by the Founder

A programme-commissioned assessment is paid for by the accelerator, fund or programme rather than the company being assessed. That inverts the conflict rather than merely disclosing it, and it is why those assessments carry more weight in the ledger.

See How Assessments Are Priced

Who it is for

Built for Everyone Who Touches the Money

One verification layer, five vantage points on the same evidence.

Programmes

Release grant capital only against independently verified milestones, with a reporting trail your board can audit.

Learn More

Accelerators

Select and report on cohorts using verified evidence instead of founder self-reporting.

Learn More

Investors

Screen on expert-verified signal and deploy through milestone-gated escrow.

Learn More

Founders

Prove you are fundable with an expert-verified score and raise on measured progress.

Learn More

Experts

Set your own rate for blind reviews and milestone verifications, and keep the full rate.

Learn More

Product preview

See the Platform

How a scored raise appears to a funder, and a way into every console without an account.

Launching Q4 2026

Marisol Freight

Cross-border freight settlement for GCC logistics operators.

Dubai, UAELogistics

Sample Data · Product Preview

Score

782

Raised

$250,000 of $500,000

3 Assessments Completed, 2 Shared, Most Recent June 2026

Investors 84Min $5,000

Priority Slots Open

Qalam Health

Arabic-first clinical documentation for private clinics.

Riyadh, KSAHealth

Sample Data · Product Preview

Score

741

Raised

$180,000 of $400,000

1 Assessment Completed, 1 Shared, Most Recent July 2026

Investors 61Min $5,000

Launching Q4 2026

Terrafold Agri

Soil analytics for smallholder farms across South Asia.

Bengaluru, IndiaAgriTech

Sample Data · Product Preview

Score

715

Raised

$320,000 of $600,000

1 Assessment Completed, 1 Shared, Most Recent January 2026

Investors 97Min $2,500

Illustrative sample companies. Product preview with fictional data.

Explore a Demo Dashboard

Sample data, no account needed.

Comparison

What Other Platforms Do Not Verify

FounderGrade is a verification and escrow layer. It sits alongside the platforms and grant systems you already use rather than replacing them.

Feature and fee comparison between FounderGrade and other investment platforms
Feature	Republic	Wefunder	AngelList	FounderGrade
Credibility scoring	No	No	No	Yes
Expert review	No	No	No	Yes
Smart-contract escrow	No	No	No	Yes
Milestone tracking	No	No	No	Yes
Investor fee	~6% + 2% of securities	~7.5%	SPV fees + carry	2.5%

Credibility scoring
Republic
No
Wefunder
No
AngelList
No
FounderGrade
Yes
Expert review
Republic
No
Wefunder
No
AngelList
No
FounderGrade
Yes
Smart-contract escrow
Republic
No
Wefunder
No
AngelList
No
FounderGrade
Yes
Milestone tracking
Republic
No
Wefunder
No
AngelList
No
FounderGrade
Yes
Investor fee
Republic
~6% + 2% of securities
Wefunder
~7.5%
AngelList
SPV fees + carry
FounderGrade
2.5%

Competitor fees as publicly listed, Q1 2026. Structures vary by product.

See How We Sit Alongside Your Stack

Posture

Built Right From Day One

Capital should follow evidence, and a platform that says so has to state its own position just as plainly. One launch jurisdiction, everything else sequenced behind it.

One Launch Jurisdiction: DIFC

We operate from DIFC in Dubai and are pursuing a DFSA Innovation Testing Licence there. We are not yet licensed or regulated by the DFSA.

Phase Two, Not Yet Started: India

A second jurisdiction opens only after DIFC is live, through locally licensed partners. No India offering exists today.

Phase Three, Not Yet Started: United States

A US route is sequenced after India and would run through locally licensed counterparties. No US offering exists today.

KYC and AML Programme

Identity verification and sanctions screening for every participant through vetted providers.

Blind Review Governance

Reviewers never see founder identity, and material disagreement triggers a third review.

On-Chain Escrow Transparency

Every deposit, release and refund is visible on an EVM-compatible network.

Trust and Security Read Why We Exist

Pricing