Born from a real search. Strengthened by specialists.
Provenance began with a real situation: someone close to the founder was looking for a small business in Portugal, and he was helping them. Together they found that everyone around the deal had an interest in closing it — and nobody had the job of saying why it might not be worth the money.
The checks the founder started for that search have grown into a capability that draws on several specialities. Provenance today works with financial analysts, specialists in law and licensing, market researchers and data engineers. They test the seller's words, find what is missing, and separate what is verified from what still has to be checked.
Provenance does not sell businesses and takes no commission from brokers. We do not take part in deals, and we have no reason to push one that should not happen.
We also work with business brokers, lawyers and accountants: they order checks for their clients, and page one of every report they order says who ordered it and for which side. We pay no commissions either. Partner programme →
Who does the work
Provenance grew out of helping a real buyer. The people who work on it come from practice, not theory: audit and transactions, law and licensing, business journalism and corporate investigation, hotels and restaurants, data engineering, and cross-border advice to international entrepreneurs and private buyers.
That practice taught us where the surprises in a small business usually sit: in the figures, in the papers, in the people behind it and in the street it is on. For each of them there is a specialist who knows that ground and asks the question a listing tends to leave out.
Grig Kochedykov
Founder and Managing Director
More than 25 years in management. He started in the chemicals industry. He then led companies in construction, the Internet of Things and virtual reality. Today he is co-founder and chief operating officer of a company whose platform runs contact centres for banks and insurers. At Provenance he built the screen itself: a repeatable check of company registries, insolvency registers, court records and municipal licence records that flags what sinks buyers — licences that do not transfer, tax debt that follows the business, lease traps, revenue nobody can verify.
Head of Financial Analysis
From audit and transaction services
Works on quality of earnings, cash flow and what a business really leaves in its owner's pocket. The aim is to show you the real company behind the figures, not the one the seller presents.
Law and licensing
From commercial and administrative law
Long practice with licences and company papers. Looks for the regulatory details that seem minor before a purchase and turn out very expensive after it.
Senior Investigative Analyst
From business journalism and corporate intelligence
Works with open sources, background checks and the digital footprint of a business and the people behind it. The rule is simple: if a claim affects the deal, take nobody's word for it without evidence.
Market and commercial assessment
From running hotels and restaurants, market research and valuation
Looks at the competition nearby and the economics of the location. The aim is that you pay for a profitable trade, not merely for a good address, a lucky season or a nice story.
Operations and hospitality
From hotel management, staff and daily operations
Asks what happens the morning after completion: will the business run without its previous owner?
Data and research systems
From data engineering
Builds the research tools, the analysis of past listings and our internal systems. Past checks become the firm's memory, so the next time a pattern appears, it is recognised sooner.
Client work and case management
From cross-border advice and relocation
Has worked with international entrepreneurs and private buyers. Looks after your case from our side, and protects you at the point where excitement about the deal starts to outweigh sober judgement.
What joins these disciplines is one habit: a claim stays a claim until a record, a document or the street confirms it.
In plain words. We name the jobs, not the people. The person who answers for the work is named, and you can check him below in about three minutes.
How the screen is run
Every screen runs the same way: the full checklist, every time, in plain sight. Here is what we look at.
- What the public records say about who owns it — and whether it can change hands cleanly.
- Whether the licences survive the sale, on the record rather than in conversation.
- Whether there are public signs of debts that could follow the business to you: tax, social security, creditors.
- Whether anyone is insolvent — the company, or the person behind it.
- Whether the claimed revenue survives the street it is on: the competition, the foot traffic, the reviews.
- Where the seller's story and the public record do not line up.
Three working rules. Every fact taken from the records is tied to a named source and a date, and what we could not verify is marked rather than guessed. What cannot be seen from a desk is listed by name and never buried. The work is done by our team.
What the screen has already caught
We do not show invented testimonials. Client cases will appear here only with written consent, critical ones included. What we can show now are full dress rehearsals of the screen, run on real live listings, with real findings. They are labelled as practice, because that is what they were.
| The finding | What it was |
|---|---|
| 9 comparable competitors | behind one listing priced as a local monopoly |
| 4 reviews | the entire rating history behind a “5.0★ turnkey café”. The rival next door held 54 |
| 3 deal-defining findings | on one Madrid bar, from public records alone, before any lawyer was paid |
In plain words. The rehearsals are real listings, anonymised. We engaged with none of the parties. The findings reflect the public record on the retrieval dates.
The uncomfortable questions
“Did the founder buy a business himself?” No. The search was not his: he was helping someone close to him. He is co-founder and chief operating officer of an operating company and runs its work every day. So he does not only read businesses from a desk — he runs a company from the inside.
“Has the method actually put anyone into a business?” Yes, before it had a price. The first screens were favours for friends and acquaintances buying with their own savings; what they bought, they still run today. We do not dress those up as case studies: a favour is not an order, and you cannot check it, so we do not ask you to weigh it.
“Why should I trust a service with no paying clients?” Do not trust it — check it. Every claim on this site opens: the practice screens with their findings intact, the registries we cite, the founder's tax registration, more than twenty-five years of named roles. Payment runs through Stripe under written terms, and nothing is charged until we have confirmed we are taking the case.
“If this works, why €550 and not €5,000?” Because it is a screen, not a full due diligence: fixed scope, public records plus the papers you obtain, and no office to feed. The price is deliberately set as the step before the €5,000 decisions. The heavy lifting still belongs to your lawyer and accountant — the report hands them a marked-up map instead of a blank page.
Verify the founder
You are hiring us to check people. Start with the person who answers for it. Everything below is the same kind of public record we use on your deal. It takes about three minutes.
- The founder's LinkedIn
- More than twenty-five years of named companies and roles — under his real name, with a photo and a network.
- Tax registration
- He operates as a registered sole trader in Portugal, NIF 313485402. Check it yourself on the European Commission's VIES validator, country PT.
- This domain
- Look up who registered provenancediligence.com and when. It is the same check we run on sellers' websites.
- Our sources
- The registries we cite are official and open: court records, insolvency, company registries. Every report links its evidence so you can re-run it.
If anything here does not check out, do not hire us. That is the same standard we will apply to your seller.
Who does what
| Who | What they do |
|---|---|
| Us | Find the commercial red flags visible in public records — and name, out loud, what is not visible from a desk. |
| Your lawyer and accountant | The transfer itself, enforceability, the full tax picture, completion. Our report tells you exactly what to put on their desk. |
| Only the seller's papers | Can prove the earnings and the contracts. We tell you which documents to demand — before any deposit. |
In plain words. Judge the work, not the reviews. Every claim on this site opens: a sample report, a public registry, a named source.