Fund in Tranches, Not on Trust.
Your capital sits in milestone-gated escrow and releases only when an independent expert verifies the evidence. The credibility score is how you screen in, and how you set the terms once you are in.
2.5% on funded deals · No carry · No listing fees
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai
Diligence
How Screening Works
A typical manual due-diligence cycle runs three to six months. The score is designed to compress the first pass without hiding how it was produced.
The assessment ledger
Every completed assessment is recorded permanently, whether or not the founder reveals the number. You see how many exist, how many are shared and when the most recent one finished, so a company cannot quietly shop for a flattering result.
Programme-commissioned assessments
The strongest assessments are the ones a programme or fund commissioned, because the company being assessed did not pay for its own grade. These are labelled as such.
The score report
Eight dimensions, each with a numeric score, written expert commentary and the evidence cited. You read the reasoning, not just the number.
Blind review integrity
Two experts score independently without seeing founder identity. Material disagreement triggers a third review before publication.
Verified milestones
Scores update as milestones are verified, so what you see reflects delivery, not the day the deck was written.
Filtered deal flow
Filter by sector, stage, geography and check size. Ranking is never sold, and placement cannot be bought.
A Network Built on Verified Signal
The FounderGrade investor network is a group of accredited and professional investors, screened before onboarding, who deploy capital against founders that have already been through independent expert review. There is no public listing of firms, cheque sizes or deal activity. Access opens only after verification.
Illustrative photo. Not an actual FounderGrade meeting.
Verification
What Investors Go Through Before Access
Accreditation Check
You confirm accredited or professional investor status as defined in your jurisdiction before you can view a single score.
KYC Verification
Identity documents are verified through our KYC provider, the same standard applied to every founder and expert on the platform.
Sanctions Screening
Every applicant is screened against global sanctions and watch lists before an account is activated.
Once verified
What You Get Access To
Expert-verified scores
Full dimension-by-dimension reports with cited evidence, not a pitch deck summary.
Matched deal flow
Founders matched to your sector, stage and jurisdiction, not a paid placement queue.
Deal room access
SAFE and note templates, milestone builders and document requests in one place.
Direct founder contact
Once both sides opt in, you can message and move to terms without a middleman.
Capital protection
Your Money Moves on Evidence
Capital sits in audited smart contracts on an EVM-compatible network and releases only against verified milestone delivery, never as a lump sum at signing.
FounderGrade Escrow Protection
Milestone tranches
Capital releases only against verified progress, never in one lump at signing.
2-of-3 multisig
Founder, investor and expert hold keys, so no single party can move funds.
Dispute arbitration
Contested milestones route to built-in resolution before any release executes.
Capital never moves without verified progress.
Read how escrow works →The Core Product
The Milestone Lifecycle, End to End
Define, fund, evidence, verify, release. Capital moves against verified progress or it does not move at all.
- 01
Define
Founder and investor
Both sides agree the tranches inside the deal room before any money moves: what each milestone is, what evidence will prove it, the deadline, and the amount that releases when it is proven.
- 02
Fund
Investor
The investor funds the full commitment once. Capital is held in an audited smart-contract escrow on an EVM-compatible network and is visible from the moment it lands. FounderGrade takes no spread and no interest on held capital.
- 03
Evidence
Founder
The founder submits the evidence agreed at definition: revenue exports, signed contracts, shipped releases, hiring records. Everything is timestamped and attached to the tranche.
- 04
Verify
Assigned expert
An independent expert checks the evidence against the definition and records a verification with written reasoning. This is the step that makes the release enforceable rather than discretionary.
- 05
Release
2-of-3 multisig
Founder, investor and expert each hold a key. Two signatures release the tranche. No single party can move funds, and unreleased capital stays in escrow.
When a Milestone Is Contested
Either side can dispute a verification. The tranche freezes, the evidence trail and the expert's written reasoning go to an independent reviewer who was not involved in the original verification, and nothing releases until the dispute resolves. If it resolves against the release, the unreleased tranche returns to the investor and we charge no fee on the refund.
Read the Escrow Integrity RulesWhere the Long-Term Advantage Comes From
Because verification sits at the exact point where an assessment meets an enforced capital release, the platform will accumulate a record of which assessments predicted which outcomes: which milestones were met, which were missed, and how that tracked the score that preceded them. Over time that is a dataset nobody scoring startups from the outside can reconstruct.
Roadmap, not a current capability. This dataset does not exist yet. We will publish the methodology before we publish any result from it.
Plain money
2.5% on Funded Deals
No carry, no listing fees, no spread taken on escrowed capital. If a deal does not fund, you pay nothing.
Investor Pricing
- Browsing and screening
- Free
- Fee on funded deals
- 2.5%
- Carried interest
- None
- Listing or placement fees
- None
Accreditation
Investor access is restricted to accredited or professional investors as defined in their own jurisdiction. We verify status during onboarding and re-check it periodically. Nothing on this site is an offer of securities or investment advice.
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 PricedHonest expectations
We launch Q4 2026 from DIFC, Dubai. FounderGrade has not yet onboarded investors or founders. Early applicants get priority review as the first cohort opens.
Built Right for Investors
- Accreditation, KYC and sanctions screening before any access
- Published 8-dimension rubric behind every score
- Blind double-expert review with third-review arbitration
- Scores updated by verified milestone delivery
- 2-of-3 multisig milestone escrow on an audited contract
- Dispute arbitration before any contested release
- Matched deal flow, never a paid placement queue
- 2.5% on funded deals, no carry, no listing fees
For investors
See the Evidence Before You Wire.
Request access and we will onboard you as the first cohort of deals is scored.
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai