Upload a CIM. See what the company used to say.
Pastlight extracts externally verifiable claims from a Confidential Information Memorandum and compares them with the dated public record—producing evidence-backed findings and sharper management questions.
A seller’s narrative is the starting point, not the record.
A Confidential Information Memorandum, commonly shortened to CIM, is the sell-side document used to present a business to prospective buyers. It usually assembles the company’s history, operations, market, customer base, products, management, and growth case.
That makes the CIM an efficient map of claims worth testing. Pastlight focuses on statements that can plausibly leave a dated public trace, then gives the analyst a bounded evidence record. It does not replace financial diligence, commercial diligence, legal review, or direct management verification.
For a practical review sequence, read the field guide on how to analyze a CIM and the companion guide to CIM red flags.
Claims with a public trail, separated from claims requiring other diligence.
- 01Company history and longevity. Founding dates, launch timing, geographic expansion, and “since” claims.
- 02Product and market positioning. Who the product served, how it was described, and when new positioning appeared.
- 03Customers, partners, and certifications. Public references that appeared, changed, or were later removed.
- 04Locations and operating footprint. Publicly stated offices, markets, service areas, and scale indicators.
- 05Published pricing and performance language. Changes to packaging, guarantees, stated metrics, or sales motion where captures exist.
Internal forecasts, unannounced contracts, private customer cohorts, quality-of-earnings adjustments, and other non-public facts require primary records outside Pastlight’s historical-web scope.
Evidence first. Interpretation second. Analyst decision last.
Asteron Systems
“Enterprise infrastructure software since 2017.”
“Field operations software for regional maintenance teams.”
“The operating system for distributed infrastructure teams.”
“Built for enterprise infrastructure teams.”
The reviewed captures show a progression from regional field teams to enterprise infrastructure positioning. Enterprise language first appears in the 2023 capture reviewed.
How does management define an enterprise customer, and when did Asteron first serve one under that definition?
Asteron Systems and every organization named in this example are fictional. The dates and text come from Pastlight’s deterministic test fixture.
From page-level citation to a question for management.
- Extract. Pastlight identifies externally verifiable candidate claims and retains the exact CIM quotation and page locator when available.
- Scope. The analyst approves, edits, dismisses, or prioritizes each claim before historical research begins.
- Research. Approved claims are compared with bounded archived captures through the selected cutoff date.
- Form a finding. A finding separates the current claim, historical representation, capture dates, observed change, potential relevance, confidence, and evidence.
- Review and export. The analyst accepts or rejects the finding, adds notes, and chooses what enters the Pastlight Historical Review.
Every material finding includes a neutral management question. A change in language may reflect a legitimate strategic transition, a change in definitions, or incomplete archive coverage. The question invites clarification without assuming the reason.
Built for the management meeting and the investment memo.
| Review element | What the analyst receives |
|---|---|
| Accepted finding | The current representation, observed historical change, why it may matter, confidence, and review state. |
| Supporting citations | Dated captures, original archived URLs, exact quotations, and evidence locators. |
| Management question | A neutral request designed to clarify definitions, timing, scope, or the reason for a change. |
| Analyst notes | Private context and disposition retained alongside the accepted evidence. |
What Pastlight does not conclude
Pastlight does not label a company’s statement true, false, fraudulent, or deceptive. A missing capture is not proof of absence, and the capture timestamp is not necessarily the page’s original publication date. The analyst remains responsible for interpretation, corroboration, and the final investment conclusion.
Understand the data path before you upload.
Uploaded materials and generated artifacts are stored in a private bucket. Application access is scoped by organization membership, and authorized downloads verify the stored artifact before serving it. The private pilot sets a 30-day retention deadline, with deletion proceeding after active processing is safely reconciled; job and organization deletion controls are also available.
Material may be processed by service providers needed to operate the review, including the configured AI provider when model assistance is enabled. Operational logs are designed to retain content-free identifiers, counts, status classes, timing, and cost—not uploaded text, quotations, filenames, email addresses, or source URLs.
Read the complete security and data-handling summary, privacy notice, and methodology before using the pilot with deal material.
Turn the CIM into a sharper historical review.
Begin with the material you already have. An analyst controls which claims proceed and which findings appear in the final brief.