Homebase

Target Profile

• Company: Homebase (two distinct entities audited — see Corporate Overview)
• Jurisdiction: United States (Homebase, Inc.) / United Kingdom (Homebase UK)
• Headquarters: San Francisco, CA (Homebase, Inc.); UK (Homebase UK DIY retail)
• Sector: Workforce Management SaaS / SMB Software (Homebase, Inc.); DIY and Home Improvement Retail (Homebase UK)
• Relevant operating footprint: US-domiciled SaaS platform serving hourly-workforce SMBs in food service, retail, and hospitality (Homebase, Inc.); UK domestic retail estate with garden centre operations (Homebase UK)
• Key executives or governance actors: No executive names confirmed in audit materials
• BDS-1000 score: 0
• Tier: E (0–199)

Executive Summary

Across all four BDS-1000 domains — military (V-MIL), digital (V-DIG), economic (V-ECON), and political (V-POL) — no public evidence of complicity-relevant activity was identified for either Homebase entity. The composite BDS-1000 score is 0, placing the target in Tier E.

The V-MIL finding is structurally grounded: Homebase, Inc. is a software-only company with no hardware, logistics, munitions, or construction dimension, removing every predicate category required for military-domain scoring. The V-DIG finding rests on confirmed absence of Israeli-origin vendor relationships, Israeli R&D presence, and Israeli state/military technology contracts, qualified by the standard opacity of a private company’s internal infrastructure stack. The V-ECON finding is the most robustly evidenced: the full ownership chain of Homebase UK is documented through public filings at each transfer point, and no Israeli capital, supply chain, or market activity appears at any layer. The V-POL finding carries the lowest confidence: the audit session experienced a complete live-search retrieval failure, and all seven V-POL domain sections return “no public evidence identified” as a function of tool failure, not confirmed clearance. This domain requires re-audit before its zero score can be treated as definitive.

The dual-entity character of this dossier — a US SaaS company and a UK DIY retailer sharing the name “Homebase” — is an important framing caveat. The V-MIL and V-DIG audits address Homebase, Inc. (San Francisco); the V-ECON audit addresses Homebase UK. The V-POL audit nominates San Francisco as headquarters, consistent with the US SaaS entity. No audit surfaced evidence that the two entities are related by ownership, investment, or contractual relationship.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

This dossier covers two legally and operationally distinct entities that share the “Homebase” name and were audited across the four BDS-1000 domains.

Homebase, Inc. is a privately held US SaaS company founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. Its product portfolio consists entirely of civilian software applications: employee scheduling, shift management, time-clock and attendance tracking, payroll processing, HR compliance tooling, and in-app team messaging, all targeted at hourly-workforce employers in the small and medium business sector.⁹ The company raised a $71 million Series C round in April 2021, with documented investors including L Catterton, Khosla Ventures, and Google Ventures.⁷ As a privately held company, Homebase, Inc. has no SEC filing obligation, and its internal vendor contracts, cloud infrastructure arrangements, and cybersecurity stack are not publicly disclosed.⁸ The V-MIL and V-DIG audits address this entity.

Homebase UK is a British-founded DIY and home improvement retail chain operating garden centres and a domestic UK store estate. It was incorporated into the Sainsbury’s group in 1979, subsequently passed through the Home Retail Group, was acquired by Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers in 2016 for approximately £340 million, and was sold to UK restructuring specialist Hilco Capital for £1 in 2018 following catastrophic losses under the Bunnings brand format.³⁴ After entering administration in August 2018, the chain continued to trade under a significantly reduced store portfolio managed by Hilco.⁵ The V-ECON audit addresses this entity. No audit surfaced any ownership, investment, or contractual relationship between Homebase, Inc. and Homebase UK.

The V-POL audit nominates San Francisco as headquarters, consistent with Homebase, Inc., but the retrieval failure that affected all seven V-POL domain sections means no entity-specific V-POL findings can be reported with confidence for either entity.

Domain Summaries

V-MIL: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

The V-MIL audit examined eight defence-relevant domains for Homebase, Inc.: direct defence contracting and procurement; dual-use products and tactical variants; heavy machinery, construction, and infrastructure; supply chain integration with defence primes; logistical sustainment and base services; munitions, weapons systems and strategic platforms; export licensing, regulatory and legal history; and civil society scrutiny and documented investigations. Across all eight, no public evidence of any connection to Israeli military or security end-users was identified.

The fundamental structural reason for these nil findings is the nature of Homebase, Inc.’s business. The company’s entire disclosed product portfolio consists of civilian SaaS applications — employee scheduling, shift management, time-clock and attendance tracking, payroll processing, HR compliance, and in-app messaging — with no hardware, manufacturing, logistics, or weapons-integration dimension.⁹ The BDS-1000 military domain rubric generates scores through documented connections to physical products, arms, construction machinery, logistics chains, or defence procurement registries. A software-only company whose products are commercially available workforce management tools lacks the predicate product categories that create documentary trails in those registries.

On the procurement criterion (I-MIL), no verified contracts, tender awards, framework agreements, or memoranda of understanding between Homebase, Inc. and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, the IDF, the Israel Prison Service, or the Israel Border Police appear in any publicly available procurement database, corporate disclosure, or press record.⁹ Homebase does not appear in SIBAT listings, international defence exhibition catalogues, or Israeli defence procurement registries. No company press release or government procurement notice references a defence or security contract.

On dual-use and tactical variants, Homebase, Inc.’s product portfolio is entirely civilian. No ruggedised, mil-spec, tactical, TEMPEST-rated, or defence-grade product variant is documented. The scheduling and workforce management software the company produces is generic, commercially available, and architecturally indistinct from hundreds of comparable SaaS products. No evidence of any military or security agency adopting Homebase’s platform under a customised or restricted-access arrangement has been identified, and no end-user certificates, export licence applications, or dual-use commodity classifications have appeared in any jurisdiction’s public records.

On heavy machinery and construction, the domain is entirely inapplicable: Homebase, Inc. does not manufacture, sell, lease, finance, or service physical infrastructure products of any kind.⁹ The evidentiary basis for concern in this domain — documented equipment presence in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem — requires a physical product line that this company does not possess.

On supply chain integration with defence primes, no verified supply relationship with Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, IMI Systems, Soltam Systems, or any other Israeli defence prime has been identified. No joint research, co-development, technology transfer, or licensed production arrangement is documented. No investor with a primary defence-prime identity has been publicly linked to the company’s cap table.¹⁰¹¹

On export licensing, no government decision in any jurisdiction — including US BIS/EAR, ITAR, UK ECJU/SPIRE, EU Regulation 428/2009, or Israel’s SIBAT/DECA — to grant, deny, suspend, or revoke an export licence for Homebase products to military, security, or dual-use end-users has been identified. Homebase does not appear on any OFAC Specially Designated Nationals list, BIS Entity List, or equivalent restrictive designation.

On civil society scrutiny, Homebase does not appear in published investigations by Who Profits,¹¹ Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the American Friends Service Committee,¹² Corporate Occupation, or equivalent bodies in the context of military, security, or dual-use supply chains connected to the Israeli state or the occupation of Palestinian territory. No organised boycott, institutional divestment resolution, or BDS-affiliated targeting of Homebase on grounds of defence or security sector activity related to Israel has been identified. No investigative journalism by major outlets — Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, Haaretz, +972 Magazine, or The Intercept — has surfaced naming Homebase in connection with Israeli military or security procurement.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The primary evidence limit in this domain is the standard opacity of a privately held SaaS company. Internal vendor contracts, cloud provider agreements, and security tool licensing are not publicly disclosed. It is conceivable that Homebase, Inc. uses a cloud infrastructure provider or cybersecurity vendor with some Israeli-origin technology in its stack; however, this would not by itself constitute a V-MIL finding under the rubric, which requires a connection to military or security end-users, not merely to Israeli-origin commercial technology. No positive evidence of any such military-facing technology relationship exists.

A second theoretical challenge concerns the potential civilian-to-military conversion of workforce scheduling software. It is structurally possible that any scheduling or workforce management tool could be used by a military or security employer. However, no evidence exists that Homebase, Inc. has marketed to, contracted with, or adapted its product for military, security, or paramilitary customers in Israel or any other jurisdiction. Generic commercial availability does not constitute a V-MIL finding under the rubric’s definitions.

The investor profile deserves brief mention: Homebase, Inc. is venture-backed by L Catterton, Khosla Ventures, and Google Ventures.⁷ None of these investors has been identified in the audit as having a primary defence-prime identity or disclosed strategic stake in an Israeli weapons manufacturer. However, the audit notes that investor downstream relationships were not cross-referenced against Israeli defence technology fund co-investments due to live-search limitations. This gap is assessed as low-probability given the nature of those investors, but it remains formally unresolved.

For the V-MIL score to change materially from zero, evidence would need to emerge of a direct contract or technology provision to an Israeli military or security end-user, or of a supply relationship with a named Israeli defence prime, neither of which is supported by any available source.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-DIG: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

The V-DIG audit examined five digital-domain categories for Homebase, Inc.: enterprise technology stack and vendor relationships; surveillance, biometrics, and retail technology; cloud infrastructure, data residency, and sovereign cloud participation; defence, intelligence, and security sector technology relationships; and AI, algorithmic, and autonomous systems. It also examined R&D footprint, civil society scrutiny, and regulatory history. No public evidence of any Israeli-origin, Israeli-state-linked, or occupation-related digital technology relationship was identified.

On the technology stack and vendor relationships criterion, Homebase, Inc.’s publicly documented integration ecosystem connects to point-of-sale systems (Square, Clover, Toast, Lightspeed), payroll providers (Gusto, ADP, QuickBooks), and communication platforms (Slack).¹³ None of these documented integration partners carries verified Israeli-origin attribution. No public evidence identifies any licensing, subscription, or verified integration relationship with Israeli-origin vendors including Check Point, Wiz, SentinelOne, CyberArk, NICE Systems, Verint, or Claroty.¹³¹⁴ The company website, G2 and Capterra third-party reviews, TechCrunch and HR Dive trade press, and Crunchbase and PitchBook corporate intelligence records were all examined without surfacing any Israeli-origin vendor relationship.¹⁵¹⁶

On surveillance, biometrics, and retail technology, Homebase, Inc.’s stated product function is employee scheduling, time-tracking, and team communication for SMBs — not retail surveillance, loss prevention, or biometric identification.⁹ No public evidence identifies use of facial recognition, biometric identification, behavioural analytics, or gait analysis technologies of Israeli origin, including Trigo, BriefCam, AnyVision/Oosto, or Trax. No Israeli-origin predictive policing, sentiment analysis, social media monitoring, or workforce surveillance tools are documented as deployed by Homebase. The company’s AI and ML use, as publicly described, is limited to scheduling optimisation and labour forecasting for SMB clients.¹⁷¹⁸

On cloud infrastructure and data residency, no Israeli data centre operations, co-location arrangements, or regional hub designations have been publicly disclosed.⁹ No public evidence exists of Homebase participating in Project Nimbus or any comparable Israeli state-backed digital infrastructure programme — and the company is not a hyperscale cloud infrastructure provider capable of participating in such a programme in any case.¹⁶

On defence, intelligence, and security sector technology relationships, no contracts, partnerships, or service agreements between Homebase and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israeli intelligence agencies, or other Israeli state security bodies have been identified.⁹ The company’s product portfolio — hourly worker scheduling, time-clocks, payroll, and messaging — has no documented overlap with dual-use military or surveillance applications. No role in offensive cyber capabilities, zero-day exploit tools, or digital weapons systems has been identified.

On AI and autonomous systems, Homebase’s publicly described AI and ML deployment is limited to scheduling optimisation and labour demand forecasting for SMB clients.¹⁷¹⁸ No provision of AI, machine learning, computer vision, or autonomous decision-support systems to Israeli state, military, or security bodies is documented. No training data provenance issues involving civilian population data, intercepted communications, or surveillance-derived datasets originating from Israel or occupied territories have been identified.

On R&D footprint, no Israeli research and development facilities, engineering offices, innovation labs, or accelerator programmes have been identified. Publicly documented company engineering operations are US-based, headquartered in San Francisco.¹⁶¹⁹ No acquisitions of Israeli-origin technology companies or strategic investments in Israeli technology startups are recorded in Crunchbase or PitchBook. No significant patent portfolios, licensing agreements, or co-development arrangements with Israeli-domiciled entities or research institutions such as the Technion, Hebrew University, or Weizmann Institute have been identified.

On civil society scrutiny, Homebase, Inc. does not appear in published investigations by Who Profits, Amnesty International Tech, Human Rights Watch technology reports, or the AFSC “Investigate” database in the context of digital technology provision to the Israeli state.⁹ No organised boycott or sanctions campaign targeting Homebase on digital-domain grounds has been identified in BDS Movement campaign lists, SJP network statements, or USCPR published targets.⁹

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The most significant evidence limitation in the V-DIG domain is the undisclosed nature of Homebase, Inc.’s internal infrastructure stack. As a private company with no SEC filing obligation, its cybersecurity vendor identity — endpoint security, SIEM, network monitoring — is not publicly established.¹⁵ The absence of evidence of Israeli-origin vendor use therefore reflects the opacity standard to private SMB SaaS companies rather than a confirmed negative. If an Israeli-origin cybersecurity tool were found in the internal stack, it would at most trigger Band 3.1–3.9 (Soft Dual-Use Procurement) under the rubric — a modest score — and would not constitute evidence of provision to Israeli state or military end-users.

A second gap concerns investor downstream relationships. The audit notes that Homebase’s Series C investors — L Catterton, Khosla Ventures, and Google Ventures — were not cross-referenced against Israeli defence technology fund co-investments due to live-search limitations.⁷ This is assessed as low-probability given the consumer and general technology focus of those investors, but remains formally unresolved. Investor co-investment overlap would not by itself constitute a V-DIG finding absent a demonstrated technology provision pathway.

The data residency sub-processor gap is a third limitation: Homebase’s privacy policy references sub-processors but the full current list with vendor origins was not available at sufficient granularity in training data.²⁰ Israeli-domiciled data sub-processors, if any exist, would represent a compliance and data localisation question but would not by themselves constitute evidence of military or security sector provision.

For the V-DIG score to change materially from zero, evidence would need to emerge of: a direct technology supply or service agreement with an Israeli state, military, or intelligence body; confirmed deployment of Israeli-origin surveillance or biometric technology; or Israeli R&D presence — none of which is supported by any available source.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-ECON: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The V-ECON audit addressed Homebase UK across six economic domains: supply chain and sourcing relationships; product origin, labeling, and regulatory compliance; investment, capital, and financial exposure; operational presence and market activity; corporate structure and foundational ties; and profit repatriation and economic contribution. Across all six, no public evidence of any Israeli-origin, Israeli-state-linked, or occupation-related economic relationship was identified.

On supply chain and sourcing, the audit makes an important structural observation: Homebase UK is a DIY, home improvement, and garden retail chain.¹ The V-ECON agricultural supply chain categories most commonly associated with BDS scrutiny — fresh produce exporters such as Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, or Agrexco; citrus, dates, and avocado supply chains — are structurally inapplicable to a DIY retailer that does not sell food produce. This is not a gap in the audit but a confirmed absence of predicate conditions. Homebase UK operates garden centres stocking plants, compost, tools, outdoor furniture, and seasonal horticultural products.²¹ No specific records of Israeli supplier relationships for horticultural inputs, plants, substrates, or garden chemicals appear in the audit, and no Israeli-origin products in the DIY, paint, adhesive, or power tool categories have been identified.

On product origin, labeling, and regulatory compliance, UK country-of-origin labeling obligations under food law are inapplicable for the same reason. Non-food product safety obligations — CE/UKCA marking, Trading Standards oversight — are applicable to Homebase’s product assortment, but the audit surfaces no regulatory actions, labeling disputes, import violations, or compliance incidents involving Israeli-origin products. No UK OFSI controls, import licensing requirements linked to Israeli-origin goods, or customs enforcement actions relevant to Israeli trade flows have been identified.

On investment, capital, and financial exposure, the ownership chain of Homebase UK is fully documented with public sources at each transfer point. The company was incorporated into the Sainsbury’s group from 1979; passed through the Home Retail Group, a London Stock Exchange-listed entity;² was acquired by Wesfarmers (ASX-listed Australian conglomerate) for approximately £340 million in 2016;³ and was sold to Hilco Capital for £1 in 2018 following approximately AU$1.7 billion in write-downs.⁴ After entering administration in August 2018, Homebase UK continued trading under Hilco’s management.⁵ No Israeli entities, Israeli-affiliated holding companies, or Israeli beneficial owners appear at any layer of this ownership chain. No debt instruments, bond issuances, or revolving credit facilities arranged by Israeli financial institutions or investment vehicles with material Israeli beneficial ownership have been identified. No Israeli foreign direct investment into Homebase has been documented.

On operational presence and market activity, Homebase UK’s footprint is confined to the United Kingdom.¹ No evidence of Israeli market entry, franchise agreements, licensing arrangements, or joint ventures operating in Israel or Israeli-controlled territories has been identified. No Israeli-domiciled components in Homebase’s digital infrastructure, e-commerce platforms, fulfilment operations, or technology vendors have been identified.

On corporate structure and foundational ties, Homebase UK is a British-founded, UK-domiciled retail business. Its founding was as a UK joint venture; no identified founding ties to Israeli capital, personnel, or incorporation jurisdictions exist. No directors, officers, or senior executives with declared Israeli citizenship, Israeli board seats, or material personal financial ties to Israeli corporate or governmental entities have been identified. No Homebase subsidiaries, dormant entities, or affiliated trading companies incorporated in Israel or in jurisdictions commonly used to channel Israeli capital have been identified.

On profit repatriation, the Wesfarmers ownership period (2016–2018) was deeply loss-making — no profits ran to Australia, let alone to any Israeli entity, during this period.²²²³ The Hilco Capital period similarly shows no evidence of profit repatriation to Israeli entities; Hilco is a UK and US-headquartered restructuring business with no identified Israeli beneficial ownership.²⁴ No profit-shifting arrangements, transfer pricing structures, or tax minimisation schemes routing economic value to Israeli jurisdictions have been identified.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The most significant challenge to the V-ECON zero score is the absence of granular supply chain disclosure. Homebase UK does not publish a public supplier list or country-of-origin breakdown for its garden centre or DIY product ranges. It is structurally possible that some horticultural inputs, chemicals, or hard goods in the product range have Israeli-origin components that are not publicly traceable. The audit acknowledges this but concludes that no specific records of Israeli supplier relationships exist in any available source. UK garden retail supply chains typically draw on Dutch flower auction networks, domestic growers, and Far Eastern manufacturers for hard goods; no documented Israeli channel has been identified for any product category.

A second limitation concerns the post-Hilco ownership structure. The audit confirms Hilco managed the restructuring and that Homebase UK continued to trade, but does not identify with specificity any subsequent ownership transitions beyond the Hilco restructuring phase. If Homebase UK was subsequently acquired by a new ownership vehicle not covered in the audit, Israeli capital participation in that vehicle cannot be confirmed or excluded. This is an open question rather than a confirmed negative.

The technology and R&D dimension for Homebase UK is explicitly assessed in the audit as showing no Israeli investment or R&D relationships, but internal digital vendor identities for the e-commerce platform and fulfilment systems are not granularly disclosed. This gap is the same standard private-company opacity noted in V-DIG and is assessed as low-probability for an Israeli nexus given the company’s UK retail character and financial history.

For the V-ECON score to change materially from zero, evidence would need to emerge of: a documented Israeli supplier in any product category; Israeli capital participation in the post-Hilco ownership structure; or Israeli FDI at any level of the corporate chain — none of which is supported by any available source.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-POL: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

The V-POL audit examined seven political-domain categories for Homebase, Inc.: corporate communications and public stance; operations in occupied or contested territories; internal governance, content, and retail policies; brand heritage and state partnerships; lobbying, advocacy, financing, and logistics; corporate structure and primary mission; and executive and leadership footprint. All seven sections return “no public evidence identified.” The critical caveat, stated explicitly by the auditor, is that this reflects a complete live-search retrieval failure during the audit session, not confirmed clearance.²⁵

On corporate communications and public stance, no statements — affirmative, neutral, or avoidant — regarding geopolitical conflicts, human rights frameworks, or contested-territory operations could be located or verified. No corporate blog posts, shareholder letters, or media interviews touching on V-POL-relevant subject matter were retrievable. The auditor explicitly identifies the Homebase official newsroom and press archive as requiring manual follow-up review.

On operations in occupied or contested territories, queries targeting the OHCHR database of businesses operating in Israeli settlements returned null results.²⁶ No evidence was retrieved indicating that Homebase, Inc. maintains offices, data centres, sales operations, contractual relationships, or partnerships in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Golan Heights, or any other contested territory. However, the OHCHR settlement business database requires direct manual consultation to confirm whether Homebase appears in any listed category — this was not possible during the audit session.

On internal governance, no evidence was retrieved of HR controversies relevant to V-POL criteria, including employee activism, internal petition activity, walkouts, or platform policy decisions touching on geopolitical content. The auditor identifies NLRB case search, California Labor Commissioner filings, and employee review platforms (Glassdoor, Blind) as requiring manual follow-up.

On brand heritage and state partnerships, no evidence was retrieved linking Homebase to any state-sponsored branding initiative, government tourism partnership, or national identity campaign. The auditor notes that Brand Israel participant registries and related government campaign archives require direct manual review, and that Homebase’s B2B software character makes state-level consumer branding partnerships less probable a priori — though this inference cannot substitute for confirmed evidence.

On lobbying, advocacy, financing, and logistics, no evidence was retrieved of Homebase, its executives, or affiliated entities making political contributions, funding advocacy organisations, retaining registered lobbyists, or participating in financing arrangements with V-POL-relevant counterparties.²⁵ The OpenSecrets organisational summary page, FEC bulk data portal, and IRS Form 990 filings for any affiliated foundation or nonprofit are identified as requiring direct manual queries. Because Homebase, Inc. is privately held, campaign finance exposure, if any, would surface primarily through individual executive FEC filings rather than corporate disclosures.

On executive and leadership footprint, no evidence was retrieved regarding the political affiliations, philanthropic giving patterns, board memberships, or public advocacy positions of Homebase, Inc.’s executive leadership team or board directors. IRS Form 990 filings for any associated foundations and BDS movement targeted-campaign databases are identified as requiring manual review.²⁷

The V-POL scoring of 0.00 across all criteria reflects the available evidence, but carries the lowest confidence of any domain in this assessment. The auditor’s note is unambiguous: “This audit must be re-executed in a functional live-search environment before any V-POL determination can be made.”

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The entire V-POL domain represents an unresolved evidence gap rather than a confirmed zero. The distinction between “no evidence found” and “confirmed absence” is material here: the audit’s null results are a product of retrieval infrastructure failure, not of searches that returned and reviewed substantive negative results. This is the strongest challenge to treating the V-POL zero as definitive.

Even accepting the retrieval failure, the auditor’s structural observation about Homebase, Inc.’s business character is relevant. The company is a B2B software vendor serving hourly-workforce SMBs in food service, retail, and hospitality. This profile makes certain V-POL risk vectors — state-level consumer branding partnerships, settlement retail operations, agricultural commodity sourcing — structurally improbable, though not impossible.

The executive footprint gap is the highest-risk unresolved question within V-POL. Venture-backed technology companies frequently have executive and board members with personal political giving records, foundation affiliations, and advocacy positions that are individually disclosed in FEC filings and IRS Form 990s even when the company itself makes no corporate political disclosures. No such individual-level review was possible during the audit session.

For the V-POL score to change materially from zero, manual review of the OpenSecrets organisational summary, FEC individual contribution records for named executives, OHCHR settlement business database, and NLRB case dockets would need to surface a positive finding. The probability of this cannot be assessed from current evidence.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Cross-Domain Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Several limitations apply across all four domains and warrant consolidated treatment.

Private company opacity is the systemic constraint throughout this assessment. Homebase, Inc. has no SEC filing obligation; Homebase UK, in its post-Hilco form, similarly has limited public disclosure requirements.¹⁵²⁵ Internal vendor contracts, capital structure details, and technology stack identities are not publicly accessible. The absence of evidence in these audit records reflects this structural opacity as much as a confirmed absence of relevant activity.

Dual-entity ambiguity is a distinct structural issue. The BDS-1000 audit covers two entities — Homebase, Inc. (US SaaS) and Homebase UK (DIY retail) — under a single dossier because they share a name. No evidence of any relationship between the two entities was identified. This means the dossier’s four domain findings apply to different legal persons, and the composite score aggregates findings that are not causally related to one another. Readers should treat domain findings as entity-specific.

V-POL retrieval failure is the most consequential unresolved issue. The complete failure of live-search infrastructure during the V-POL audit session means that seven domain sections are reported as null for procedural rather than evidentiary reasons. This dossier’s lowest-confidence finding is the V-POL zero, and re-audit is explicitly recommended before that score is treated as definitive.

Investor downstream cross-reference remains unresolved for both Homebase, Inc. entities. Khosla Ventures, L Catterton, and Google Ventures were not cross-referenced against Israeli defence technology fund co-investments.⁷ This gap is assessed as low-probability given the consumer and general technology focus of those investors, but the formal resolution requires a dedicated fund portfolio review that was not performed.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS-1000 Score

V-MIL receives Band 0.0 across all criteria: Homebase, Inc.’s software-only product portfolio removes every predicate category the rubric requires for military scoring — no physical products, no arms, no logistics chain, no export licences, no defence contracts, no NGO documentation exist. V-DIG also scores Band 0.0, grounded in the confirmed absence of Israeli-origin vendor integrations, Israeli R&D or data centre presence, and any technology provision to Israeli state or military bodies, with moderate-high rather than high confidence due to undisclosed internal infrastructure. V-ECON scores Band 0.0 with high confidence: the full Homebase UK ownership chain is publicly documented at each transfer point with no Israeli capital at any layer. V-POL scores Band 0.0 on available evidence only, with low-moderate confidence, as the audit session experienced complete retrieval failure; this score carries an explicit re-audit caveat.

Confidence, Limits, and Open Questions

V-MIL — High confidence. The structural absence of any physical product line is not a search gap; it is a confirmed characteristic of the business. No predicate category for V-MIL scoring exists.

V-DIG — Moderate-high confidence. The undisclosed internal cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure stack is a genuine gap. Even if an Israeli-origin vendor were later identified in the internal stack, the likely rubric impact would be Band 3.1–3.9 (Soft Dual-Use Procurement) — a modest but non-zero score. The investor downstream cross-reference (L Catterton, Khosla, GV) remains formally unresolved.

V-ECON — High confidence. The full ownership chain is documented with named public sources at each transfer. This is the most robustly evidenced domain finding. The post-Hilco ownership structure is the one formal open question; no successor ownership vehicle is identified in the audit.

V-POL — Low-moderate confidence. All seven domain sections are null due to retrieval infrastructure failure, not confirmed clearance. This is the primary caveat for the composite BRS score. Re-audit is required.

Open questions:

• Who are the current owners of Homebase UK post-Hilco restructuring, and does any Israeli capital participate in that vehicle?
• What is the identity of Homebase, Inc.’s internal cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure vendor stack?
• Do any Homebase, Inc. executives or board directors have individual FEC contribution records, foundation affiliations, or advocacy positions material to V-POL scoring?
• Does Homebase, Inc. or any affiliated entity appear in the OHCHR settlement business database under any listing category?
• Have L Catterton, Khosla Ventures, or Google Ventures made co-investments in Israeli defence technology funds alongside their Homebase, Inc. positions?

Recommended Actions

Re-audit V-POL in a functional live-search environment before treating the V-POL zero as definitive. Priority targets: OpenSecrets organisational summary, FEC individual contribution records for named executives, OHCHR settlement business database, NLRB case dockets, and BDS Movement targeted-campaign registry.²⁵²⁶²⁷ The scoring file explicitly flags this as the primary uncertainty and notes that a moderate V-POL finding would not materially affect the composite BRS given the formula’s V_MAX dominance structure — but verified clearance is preferable to unconfirmed absence.

Resolve the Homebase UK post-Hilco ownership question by consulting Companies House records for the current registered entity and directors. This is a targeted action requiring only a public registry search and would close the one formal open question in the V-ECON domain.

Conduct a targeted investor cross-reference for L Catterton, Khosla Ventures, and Google Ventures against Israeli defence technology fund co-investments. This is a narrow search that could close the formally unresolved V-DIG and V-POL investor gap. Given the consumer and general technology focus of these investors, the probability of a material finding is assessed as low, but formal resolution is warranted before publication.

Commission a sub-processor and infrastructure vendor review for Homebase, Inc. using the company’s privacy policy sub-processor disclosure and any available security research or procurement intelligence. This would address the V-DIG cybersecurity stack gap and allow a more confident Band 0.0 or, if warranted, a Band 3-range score for that criterion.

These actions are graduated by confidence impact: the V-POL re-audit carries the highest potential score impact; the infrastructure vendor review carries a low but non-negligible V-DIG impact; the investor cross-reference and Companies House query are low-cost, low-probability actions that close formal gaps without expecting material findings.

End Notes