Verify One Cohort. The First One Is Free.
A scoped pilot on a single cohort, with an exact scope agreed in writing before anything starts. This page states precisely what it involves, because ambiguity here is what kills these conversations.
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Scope
The Pilot at a Glance
Duration
Four to six weeks from scope agreement to report
Cohort Size
One cohort, typically 8 to 25 funded teams
Milestones
Up to 10 milestones, chosen with you at scoping
Cost
The first cohort is free. There is no platform fee and no per-verification charge during a pilot.
After a pilot, standard programme pricing applies: verification from $275 per milestone, commissioned assessments from $165 per company, and an annual platform fee from $6,000/year. Every figure is derived from expert rates and published on the pricing page. There is no obligation to continue.
Sequence
From Request to Report
Six stages. You can stop at any one of them, and there is no notice period at the end.
Request
You send the form: programme type, cohort size, tranche structure, milestone types and current tooling. Ten minutes.
Qualification
We reply within 3 business days saying whether a cohort pilot will produce a useful signal at your volume, and say no when it will not.
Scoping Call
Sixty minutes. We map your existing milestone definitions onto the verification standard and agree which milestones are in scope.
Scope Agreed
A one-page written scope: the milestones, the verifier tiers, the dates, and what a finding will look like. Nothing starts before you sign it.
Verification
Verifiers are assigned, conflict declarations are signed and shared, evidence is requested from grantees directly, findings are issued as they complete.
Closing Report
What was found, where your evidence definitions were weak, how long each verification took, and the costed picture at full volume.
Division of Work
What Each Side Provides
FounderGrade Provides
- A scoping session that maps your existing tranche schedule and milestone definitions onto the verification standard
- Independent verifiers matched by sector and milestone type, with signed conflict declarations you can read
- A written finding on every milestone in scope: Corroborated, Contradicted or Unable To Verify, with reasons
- A programme console with the verification queue, the findings and an exportable audit trail
- A closing report covering what was found, where evidence definitions were weak, and what it would cost at full cohort volume
The Programme Provides
- One cohort and the milestone definitions you already use, however rough they are
- An introduction to the grantees in scope, so evidence requests do not arrive cold
- A named programme contact for the scoping session and the closing review
- Permission for grantees to share the evidence needed for the milestones in scope
Why Free
The First Cohort Is Free Because We Need It More Than You Do.
A verification standard is only worth anything once it has been applied to real milestone definitions written by people who were not thinking about verification when they wrote them. That is what a pilot gives us. Charging for it would be charging you to improve our product.
What Both Sides Get at the End
- You get findings you can act on immediately, and a costed picture of verification at your real volume
- Grantees get an independent record of delivery they can carry to other funders
- We get a standard tested against real milestone definitions, which is why the first cohort is free
- Either side can stop at the end of the pilot with no obligation and no notice period
What a Pilot Is Not
- We do not select grantees and take no part in your allocation decisions
- We do not hold or release your capital during a pilot
- We do not audit financial statements
- We do not migrate your existing tooling, and we do not ask you to replace it
The platform is pre-launch and no pilot has yet completed a full production cohort. Anything on this page that describes a pilot describes the scope we commit to, not a track record we claim.
For Programmes
Start with One Cohort.
Ten minutes on the form, a reply within three business days, and a written scope before anything begins.
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai