Standards
Scope & Standards
Tehran Index is an independent research platform mapping Iran’s innovation economy, companies, sectors, founders, investors, and market signals, in English, built entirely on publicly available, source-linked information.
Core rule
If it cannot be traced to a public source, we do not publish it.
What we cover
The commercial innovation economy.
- Companies and startups
- Sectors and market structure
- Publicly reported funding and venture activity
- Product, hiring, and market developments
- Business regulation and policy, where it directly changes how covered companies operate or earn
- Macroeconomic context (exchange rates, inflation), used only to convert and interpret company figures
- Founders and investors who are public figures in business and technology
Relevance test
A government or regulatory development runs only if it materially changes how a covered company or sector does business. Otherwise it doesn’t run.
How we source
Everything we publish is drawn from publicly accessible sources, and is either source-linked or explicitly marked unverified.
- Company channels and registered public records
- Reputable media and regulatory disclosures
- We do not use, seek, or accept non-public, confidential, insider, or privately obtained information
How a company gets on the record
We do not list companies on request, and there is no fee for being covered. Records are built by our research desk from public sources, in the order our coverage priorities set.
- Every fact carries its evidence state: read from an official record, stated by the company, reported by a third party, or not disclosed. Verification tiers are earned by evidence, never by payment or by asking.
- Any company may attest facts on its own record directly to the desk, at no cost. What a company tells us is published under its own name and labelled as the company’s statement; it becomes a verified fact only when a public document supports it.
- Corrections are free, welcome and published. If something on your record is wrong, write to the desk with a source and we will check it against the original evidence and reply.
- Paid work, when we do it, is a document the client owns. It never buys coverage, a tier, or a place in the database, and it never changes what a record says.
To tell us about a company, email desk@tehranindex.com with its registered legal name and, where you have it, its registration details, founding, ownership and any dated figures you are willing to have published under your name. Send nothing confidential.
What we do not publish
Fixed boundaries, applied to every record.
- Political analysis, commentary, or advocacy
- Coverage of security, the military, or intelligence services
- Sanctions analysis or sanctions-compliance guidance. Where a company publicly reports a constraint on its business, we report the disclosure and stop there
- Profiles of individuals in governmental, security, or other sensitive roles
- Non-public personal information. No surveillance, no covert collection
- Investment, legal, or compliance advice. We publish research that others use to make their own decisions
The editorial gate
Tehran Index is an edited publication, not an aggregator. Nothing on this platform publishes automatically.
- Every profile, signal, and figure is researched, verified, and edited by the desk before it appears, and the desk, under a named founder, is accountable for it
- Verification states are assigned by editorial judgment against the evidence, never by volume or popularity
- A significant share of candidate material fails verification and is never published. Coverage we cannot stand behind does not run
- When we get something wrong, the correction is published and dated, see Corrections. We also test ourselves in the open: see the Benchmark
Independence and transparency
Tehran Index is independent and privately operated. It operates openly, under a named founder, with a published methodology and a public point of contact.
Not affiliated with, funded by, or acting on behalf of any government, political organization, or state institution, and not affiliated with the Tehran Stock Exchange. Our standards are our credibility, and our boundaries.
