Sell dead startup code without selling the company: license the codebase to AI labs, keep ownership and get paid each time it is licensed.
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Fintech startup, closed 2023
210,400 lines and four years of payments and ledger code from a fintech that closed in 2023. Tests throughout.
Yes, a shut-down startup's codebase can be licensed to AI labs, whether the product failed or never launched. You sell a license and keep the code, so the same repos can be paid for again, and a typical repo earns about $1,000 to $1,500 per license.
Yes. When a startup shuts down, the product stops but the code does not lose its value. Years of commits, tests, migrations and fixes sit in a private repo that nobody touches. To an AI lab, that history is useful training data. It shows how a real team built and changed real software under pressure, and that is the one thing labs cannot generate for themselves.
This page is for founders and former teams holding the code of a company that closed, paused or pivoted. It covers products that failed, products that never launched, and the parts of a pivot that were left behind. Whether the startup made money makes no difference to the value of its code.
What does matter is who holds the rights now. If the company still exists, even as a dormant shell, it usually owns the code and the company signs. If the company was dissolved, ownership may have passed to someone else, such as a founder, a holding company or an investor. Check before you submit anything. If the codebase was sold as part of a wind-down, it is no longer yours to license.
Keep it, and keep the history intact. Do not delete the organization or let the Git hosting plan lapse before you decide. Make a list of the repos and note who holds the rights to each. Then license what you can. It costs nothing to request access, and once the repos are connected you see a real per-repo estimate. If the founders want to restart one day, nothing stops them, because licensing leaves you with full ownership and use of the code.
If several founders or a board need to agree, get that agreement in writing first. It makes signing quick when the time comes.
Startup repos are often the most valuable code people hold, because a team wrote them fast, over years, with tests. Value per license is source tokens at $100 per million plus history tokens at $40 per million. A busy team leaves a long history, and history usually carries most of the value.
A typical repo earns about $1,000 to $1,500 per license, and a deep repo with years of history and tests about $2,500 to $4,000. A startup with a backend, a web app, a mobile app and a few services might hold eight to twelve repos. Licenses are non-exclusive, so each repo can be licensed more than once and you are paid every time. The specimen lot above, a closed fintech, shows the working for one deep repo.
Licensing the code does not mean selling the company. You keep ownership and full use of the code, so you can still restart, relaunch or reuse it later. For the full method, read how much is my code worth. For why labs pay for code like this, read sell code for AI training.
| Depth | Looks like | Per repo, per license | Log scale, $100 to $10k |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | Short history, small repo | $400 to $700 | |
| Typical | A real product, a few years of commits | $1,000 to $1,500 | |
| Deep | Long-lived, deep history, tests | $2,500 to $4,000 |
Illustrative, conservative · What you take home, per license · Verified 2026-10-10
$100/M
per million tokens
$40/M
per million tokens
Value per license = source tokens × $100/M + history tokens × $40/M
Rates can change on 30 days' notice, never retroactively · Paid within 15 days of the buyer paying
Illustrative, conservative · Last verified 2026-10-10
Free to join. No public listing. A real estimate in minutes once Git is connected.
And it is yours, which is exactly what makes it licensable. You decide what is shared: only the repos you choose, only code you hold the rights to. Secrets, customer data and third-party code stay out. Within the repos you submit, secrets and personal data are stripped from the review copy before anything reaches a buyer.
No clean-up needed. Submit the repos as they are. Secrets and personal data are stripped from the review copy for you.
Say who you are. You get set up and sent everything you need. Once you connect Git, you see a real per-repo estimate.
Read the agreement and sign once. Give read-only access to GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket and pick only the repos you want to license. Submit them as they are.
Your code is scrubbed and graded on the review copy, then taken to buyers in batches. Each time a license closes and the buyer pays, you are paid within 15 days.
Yes. Only submit code you hold the rights to. Client work usually belongs to the client unless your contract says otherwise.
Yes. There is no commitment. You can withdraw a codebase at any time.
No. Shelved, unfinished and abandoned code qualifies if it is real and yours.
Licensing income is usually taxable as business income. Ask an accountant in your jurisdiction.
Request access. Connect Git. See a real per-repo estimate in minutes, then decide.
Free to join. Nothing upfront. You can withdraw a codebase at any time.