How we calculate

dotKot collects facts about companies, tracks how they change, and shows you the result. It does not tell you what to do with it. This page explains what you see on a company card and how it is produced.

Where the data comes from

• Public sources and licensed data providers: company websites, press, hiring pages, code repositories, company registers and similar.
• Every figure on a card shows its source and the date it was collected. If several sources were checked, the card names the one that actually returned the data.
• Information a founder adds about their own company is shown with its origin, like any other source.
• A company you add is visible only to you. Your notes, documents and criteria are private to your workspace and are never shown to other investors or to founders. dotKot does not show who has invested in which company.
• Some facts are extracted from public pages and documents with the help of AI models. Extraction can be wrong — open the source link to check.
• dotKot started collecting data on 6 August 2026. Earlier history may be missing.

Signals

A signal is one observable fact about a company — for example a change in headcount, a product release, a funding announcement or a departure of a senior person. Each signal shows:

• whether it was detected for this company;
• its source and how trusted that source is (Hi / Med / Lo);
• how fresh the reading is (today, 5d, 3w, 4mo).

A signal that was not detected means "we found nothing", not "nothing happened".

Composites

Signals are grouped into four composites: Momentum, Execution, Validation and Risk (for Risk, lower is better). A composite is a weighted summary of the signals assigned to it. The signals behind each composite are listed on the company card under "Composite breakdown".

Missing data never improves a composite. If we could not collect a signal, it can only lower the result or leave it unchanged.

State

The state badge — Growth, Changed, Stable, Risk, At Risk, No Data, Dead — summarises what recently happened in a company's data. The base rules are:

• Growth — Momentum is above its configured level and has increased over the last 30 days.
• Changed — a composite changed materially over the last 30 days, without meeting the Risk, At Risk or Growth rules.
• Stable — no material composite change over the last 30 days, with sufficient confidence in the collected data.
• Risk / At Risk — the Risk composite is elevated. At Risk means it is higher still, or is elevated together with low Execution.
• No Data — required scores, coverage or confidence are insufficient to assign another state.
• Dead — an administrator confirmed dissolution or domain checks confirmed that the company website is no longer operating.

Configured rules may assign a different state when their conditions match observed scores, coverage or signal activity. They cannot assign Dead or override a confirmed Dead state.

A state describes the past. It is not a forecast and not a rating of the company as an investment.

Match

Match shows how closely a company fits the search criteria you set. Your criteria decide how much weight each composite gets, and parameters such as stage, region or industry reduce the score when a company falls outside them. Open Match on a card to see each step.

The data, signals, composites and states are calculated the same way for every user. Only Match differs between users, because it reflects each user's own criteria. Match ranks information; it does not assess whether an investment is suitable for you.

Publicly traded companies

For companies whose shares are traded on a stock exchange, dotKot shows facts only — figures with source and date, and a history of events. States, Match, composites and flags are not shown for these companies.

What dotKot does not do

• It does not recommend buying, selling, holding, entering or exiting any investment.
• It does not take your financial situation, objectives or risk tolerance into account.
• It does not introduce investors to companies or founders.
• It does not arrange, negotiate or execute investments, and does not handle money or securities.
• It receives no fee that depends on any deal.
• Companies cannot pay to change how they are scored or displayed.

All investment decisions are yours. Do your own due diligence.

Limits of the data

Data can be incomplete, delayed or wrong. Private companies disclose little, and sources disagree. If you see an error, tell us through Support or at [email protected] — we will check the source and correct it.