Find UK businesses whose owners are ready to sell — before they reach the market.
Every business heading for a sale leaves telltale signs — an ageing owner, a lone shareholder, a long-tenured board with no successor. Telltale scores every UK company on those signals from public filings, so you build a pipeline of off-market targets instead of waiting for teasers.
For UK search funds · independent sponsors · lower-mid PE & corporate development · boutique M&A advisers
The status quo
Sourcing off-market targets is still a manual grind
You already feel this. Finding owner-managed businesses heading for succession means stitching five tools together by hand — and re-doing it every time the thesis shifts.
How Telltale works
One score at the centre of the job
The register is free to anyone. The edge is the Succession Score — a ranked read on which owner-managed businesses are most likely heading for a sale. It reads the owner’s profile, changes in the people and ownership, and the exit cues sitting in the filings — to surface and prioritise the most likely sellers.
Succession Score
Halewood Precision Engineering
Why this score — three layers of signal, reasoning shown
Every score is traceable to the factors above — profile, behaviour and narrative — with a per-company confidence read, shown in plain terms so you can trust what you’re acting on.
Score the whole UK market against your thesis
Compose an acquisition thesis — in the filter panel or in plain English — and get an instant, ranked table of real UK targets, each carrying its Succession Score. The most likely sellers rise to the top.
- Sector, geography, turnover band, ownership and signal filters
- Every company scored and ranked, the moment you ask
- Sort by Succession Score and work straight down the list
Go from a scored target to the owner
A target is only useful if you can reach the person who owns it. Where the record allows, Telltale surfaces a verified email and phone for the decision-maker — so you turn a scored company into a conversation without leaving the tool.
- Verified email & phone for the owner / decision-maker
- Officer and ownership context on the same page
- The credit is refunded automatically if a contact bounces
Halewood Precision Engineering
04821567 · North West
Director & majority owner · appt. 2001 · b. 1962
Know the moment a watched owner moves
Watch a list of owners and we do the sitting for you — a new set of accounts, an officer change, a fresh charge or a strike-off all surface as alerts, so nothing moves without you knowing.
- Alerts per watchlist and per saved thesis
- New filings, officer, charge and status changes
- In-app or email, real-time or digest
Plus the workflow you’d expect — a shared pipeline board, CSV export, and one-click push to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. We just don’t make you leave the signal to get it.
Why you can trust it
Built on the public record, reasoned in the open
Reasoning you can see
Every Succession Score shows the factors that moved it and in which direction, plus a per-company confidence read. You always see why a score is what it is.
Grounded in the public record
Every company on the UK register, its filed financials, and insolvency and exit notices from the Gazette — all drawn straight from the official public record.
Always up to date
Company details stay current the moment anything changes; financials are only ever as recent as a company's own last filing — and we always tell you which is which, and flag any estimate as an estimate.
We're building this — and we say so plainly
The screenshots on this page are a preview of the real interface, not a live product to log into today. The score is grounded in public filings; we won't claim predictive proof until we've earned it — with you, against a real mandate. This community is small and we intend to keep its trust.
What you get as a design partner
Shape the tool you'll source your next deal with
Early access
Be among the first search funds and sponsors sourcing off-market targets with the Succession Score, ahead of general availability.
Direct influence
A short feedback loop straight to the people building it. The signals, filters and workflow are shaped by your live mandate.
Founding-partner terms
Preferential terms for partners who help us build, to be confirmed together. No card required to apply.
The obvious objections
Apply for access
Apply to be a founding design partner
We're taking on a small number of partners to build against real mandates. A few questions so we can see if it's a fit — this is deliberately not a one-click signup.
- A scored pipeline of off-market targets on day one
- A direct line to the team building the product
- Founding-partner terms, confirmed together
Not ready to apply? Keep me posted instead.