Real Archives. Real Deal Mechanics.
Not sure whether your organization's data qualifies? Choose a company below to see the sample they shared first, what the full dataset contained, why it was valuable, and how the deal was executed and paid.
Anonymized case studies. Company names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality. Each profile is a composite of several engagements and typical deals in that industry; payout figures are illustrative.
Case Studies
Choose a case study
Select a company to see its full case study.
- Read the Aster Cloud case study
- Read the Redwood Peak Partners case study
- Read the Hawthorne & Vale LLP case study
- Read the Crescent Health Partners case study
- Read the Helios Ridge Energy case study
Helios Ridge Energy · Energy & Industrial: Power generation and field operations company with 18 years of sensor telemetry linked to alarms, operator decisions, and maintenance outcomes.
Helios Ridge Energy
Power generation and field operations company with 18 years of sensor telemetry linked to alarms, operator decisions, and maintenance outcomes.
- Scale
- 860 employees · $620M annual revenue
- Archive span
- 18 years
- Seller payout
- ~$1.55M
- Time to payout
- 28 days
01 · Company Profile
1 — Company Profile
Overview
Helios Ridge Energy — Power generation and field operations company. Founded 2006. Helios had long-duration physical-world histories linking sensor telemetry to alarms, operator decisions, maintenance work, parts, downtime, and later equipment performance.
Scale
860 employees · $620M annual revenue. Archive: 18 years · 42.6 TB raw · 31B telemetry points.
02 · Data Profile
2 — Data Profile & Valuation Drivers
Initial Sample Data
One asset family over 90 days: historian points, alarms, shift logs, work orders, labor/materials, purchase orders, and post-maintenance performance. Approx. 18 GB sample.
Full Dataset Delivered
| Source | History | Scale | Format | Approx. size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historian | 18y | 31B points | CSV/Parquet | 28 TB |
| Alarms | 18y | 18M events | CSV | 96 GB |
| Operator logs | 17y | 740K entries | DB/PDF | 82 GB |
| CMMS | 18y | 1.4M WOs | DB/CSV | 310 GB |
| Maint. docs | 18y | 180K files | PDF/DOCX | 1.4 TB |
| Procurement | 16y | 2.1M lines | ERP | 140 GB |
| Engineering | 18y | 180K files | Mixed | 4.2 TB |
Scroll sideways to see all columns.
Also included: plant reports (4,200). Metadata profile: identity mapping high, revision history preserved, timestamps normalized, attachments linked, sensitive data filtered.
Valuation Rationale
Why this company was interesting
Asset IDs were consistent across historian, CMMS (maintenance management), and procurement systems, so cause-and-effect sequences were unusually easy to reconstruct.
What drove value
A long time horizon, dense sensor history, stable asset IDs, and a chain from anomaly to operator action to work order, repair, and later performance.
Data categories and why each was useful
- SCADA / historian · 31B pointsphysical state history
- Alarm journals · 18M eventsanomaly sequences
- Work orders · 1.4M WOsaction / repair
- Operator logs · 740K entrieshuman decisions
- Maintenance history · 18 yearsfailure / intervention
- Parts / procurement · 2.1M linesresource actions
- Plant reports · 4,200 reportsoperating context
- Engineering docs · 180K filestechnical knowledge
What would have made this archive weaker
Raw sensor dumps with no asset IDs, operator actions, or maintenance outcomes; engineering PDFs without asset linkage; or one-year histories with too few failure and intervention cycles.
03 · Deal Execution
3 — Execution, Deal Structure & Economics
Timeline
From sample submission to payout: 23 days
From first contact to payout: 28 days
Day 0
First contact
Day 2
System inventory
Day 5
Asset sample
Day 9
Rights review
Day 13
Buyer evaluation
Day 18
Commercial indication
Day 24
Historical export
Day 26
Acceptance
Day 28
Seller payout
Timelines may vary based on the data.
Ingestion & Extraction
Helios Ridge Energy delivered the export directly from its own systems. The deal included a preparation and diligence phase covering extraction, QA, and rights review. The full historical export (Day 24) preserved asset IDs and timestamps across historian, alarm, CMMS, and procurement systems. On receipt, Input Frontier handled filtering, normalization, and QA.
Transaction Type
Non-exclusive license of a defined data package. The seller kept its underlying business.
Seller Compensation
~$1.55M
Illustrative figure · client anonymized
The Process
How the Process Works
01
Introduction & Intake
Tell us about your organization: years in operation, rough headcount, major systems (Slack, Google Workspace, CRM, Jira, industry software), how long records are retained, and whether you control them. Exact storage numbers are not required up front.
02
Small Representative Sample
Share a small, representative slice so we can see the structure, metadata, and how your systems link together. In the case studies, samples ranged from about 3 GB to 18 GB and arrived 5–13 days after first contact.
03
Technical & Rights Review
We confirm you have authority to license the records, check how many years are continuous and whether records link across systems, and decide what must be excluded for privacy, privilege, confidentiality, or third-party rights. Regulated archives (legal, healthcare) add a formal privilege or privacy protocol at this stage.
04
Valuation & Commercial Terms
Value depends on historical depth, volume, expertise and rarity, reasoning density, workflow richness, cross-system linkability, revisions, outcomes, completeness, rights, extraction difficulty, and privacy constraints. It is not based on gigabytes alone. You then receive a commercial indication.
05
Full Export, Filtering & QA
Inventory → Extract (keeping metadata, timestamps, formulas, threads, and relationships) → Filter out restricted material → Normalize → QA for completeness, broken links, missing attachments, duplicates, and time coverage → Deliver.
06
Acceptance & Payout
Once the delivered dataset is accepted, payment follows. In every case study, payout arrived 1–2 days after acceptance. Total time from first contact to payout ran from 28 to 36 days across all five case studies.
What makes an archive stronger
- Roughly 5+ years of operating history
- Roughly 10+ employees
- Multiple systems that can be linked by timestamps or IDs
- Preserved revisions and outcomes
These are heuristics, not hard minimums. A smaller archive can still be valuable if it is unusually expert, rare, longitudinal, dense, or well-linked.
Does Your Organization Look Like One of These?
Tell us about your systems and history. We'll help with the audit, sample, valuation, and extraction plan.
Or email us directly at team@inputfrontier.com
Anonymized case studies. Company names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality. Each profile is a composite of several engagements and typical deals in that industry; payout figures are illustrative.