Data is essential to any project story and knowing the reliable sources where to look for it enables faster delivery. There are multiple sources of company information but finding a reliable and fitting one is challenging. At AskBrian, we constantly search for the best data available – paid or free and integrate it into Brian.
This time, we did a detailed screening of 60+ sources of company information from around the world, and here we are sharing the results with the top 21. All these sources cover information on multiple areas of a company. For this report, however, we have organized them into five broad categories based on their primary focus.
Our AI assistant Brian also provides business intelligence on both public and private companies. For this, Brian has integrated with Refinitiv for public companies and with North Data for private companies’ information.
Private Capital Markets
Private capital market intelligence refers to the collection, organization, analysis, integration, and presentation of detailed data on the entire venture capital, private equity, and M&A landscape — including companies, advisors, investors, investments, exits, and people. This information helps the private capital players discover the investment targets.
1. PitchBook (Acquired by Morningstar)
PitchBook is well suited for conducting analyses on private companies of all sizes, industries, or major actors in a particular space. PitchBook has a huge database of companies, with a focus on the US and EMEA. They offer a detailed profile of these companies with information on business description, employees, locations, key people, competitors, financing history (with deal multiples, valuations, and investors), and financials (like revenue, EBITDA, balance sheets, cash flow). Their users also get other non-financial signals like social media followers, web traffic, and app reviews. Customers can use granular search criteria to generate a tailored list of the companies for their analysis and can also set custom alerts on selected companies.
Scope of coverage: 3 million private and 55,000+ public companies
Focus of coverage: deal sourcing, due diligence, deal execution, private company intelligence, competition intelligence, market intelligence
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, angels, investment banks, corporate strategy, and consulting professionals
Website: https://pitchbook.com/
2. Tracxn
Tracxn is a platform for tracking startups and private companies spread across 300+ technology sectors and 800+ emerging themes in 30+ countries. For these companies, Tracxn mainly covers information on financials, key people, investors, funding, acquisition, and key competitors. The user can also get information about Soonicorns, which are basically high-growth companies.
Scope of coverage: 10 million+ companies
Focus of coverage: deal sourcing, due diligence, private company intelligence, market intelligence, product intelligence
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, angels, incubators, family offices, corporate strategy
Website: https://tracxn.com/
3. CB Insights
CB Insights provides intelligence on companies (mainly startups) and investor activities. The private company profile by CB Insights covers business description, acquisition and investments, funding raised, investors, key people, service providers, main competitors, revenue, and news articles. One can create a custom list of companies, using filters like location, industry, funding, and investor type, and also set news alerts on companies and investors. All these insights are extremely helpful in sourcing deals and conducting due diligence on high growth/disruptive startups.
Scope of coverage: 300,000 private and public companies (primarily startups)
Focus of coverage: deal sourcing, business intelligence, competition intelligence, market intelligence
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, angels, investment banks, corporate strategy, and consulting professionals
Website: https://www.cbinsights.com/
4. TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an online newspaper offering a wide range of content on companies ranging in size from startups to established firms. The newspaper focuses primarily on profiling high tech and startup companies. Techcrunch has now grown into a popular go-to blog for commentary on startups and their product initiatives.
Scope of coverage: startup news
Focus of coverage: private company intelligence, market intelligence, product intelligence
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, angels, corporate strategy
Website: https://techcrunch.com/
5. PrivCo
PrivCo provides insights into the financial health, market position of U.S. private companies including M&A, venture capital, and private equity deals. PrivCo offers a range of data fields on a private company, including company overview, industry, employees, funding details, financials (including historical data), ownership information, growth metrics organizational contacts, and predictive post-money valuation. The company information and market intelligence help investors in discovering new targets and augmenting their due diligence process.
Scope of coverage: 400,000+ private companies, largely US-based
Focus of coverage: deal sourcing, due diligence, deal execution, private company intelligence, competition intelligence, market intelligence
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, angels, investment banks, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, law firms
Website: https://www.privco.com/
Business Intelligence
Business intelligence platforms collect, organize and analyze information, data, and insights on companies. The coverage includes products, location, industry, financials, key people, funding, employee count, key competitors, employee, funding, and news. In case of public companies the coverage is wider in terms of long historical data, financial ratios, valuation multiples, consensus estimates, and real-time stock prices analytics. These insights help corporates, entrepreneurs, as well as research, sales, marketing, and other professionals to understand the businesses, competition, and industry trends.
6. Bloomberg
Bloomberg is the global leader in business and financial data, analytics, news, and insights. Bloomberg’s Fundamental coverage includes current and historical data for the balance sheet, income statement, cash flows statement, and financial ratios. The Bloomberg data is standardized so that users can easily compare companies in the same industry. For all these companies, Bloomberg gives consensus estimates using brokers’ financial estimates for over 18,000 companies. In addition to fundamental data, Bloomberg provides company information like business overview, industry classification, ownership structure, related entities, and credit rating. On Bloomberg, users also get real-time stock prices, analytics, and news. The users can also compare multiple companies.
Scope of coverage:
- Fundamentals data on > 85,000 companies (active and inactive)
- Recent fundamentals > 46,000 public companies (representing over 99% of global equity capitalization)
- Historical data: developed market late 1980s, emerging market early 1990s
Focus of coverage: fundamental data, financial ratios, competitive intelligence, industry intelligence, equity analysis
Target customers: equity analysts, risk analysts, research analysts, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, academia, institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors
Website: https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/solution/bloomberg-terminal/
7. Refinitiv
Refinitiv is one of the leading providers of business and financial data, insights, and reports. Refinitiv’s fundamentals data includes current and historical data for the balance sheet, income statement, cash flows statement, financial ratios, and multiples. The data is standardized to enable users to perform cross-company comparisons. Refinitiv also provides consensus earnings estimates for these companies. On Refinitiv, users also get real-time stock prices and analytics.
In addition to company information on public firms, Refinitiv also provides profiles and financial statements on millions of private companies globally. Refinitiv’s private company coverage includes business description, revenues, financing, industry, revenues, financial statements, and key executives. Company information for private firms mainly helps investors in deal sourcing and due diligence.
Scope of coverage:
- Fundamental data on over 91,000+ public companies (active and inactive)
- Historical data: US market early 1980s, rest of the world 1990s
- 3 million+ private companies
Focus of coverage: fundamental data, financial ratios, competitive intelligence, industry intelligence, equity analysis, risk analysis, valuation
Target customers: equity analysts, risk analysts, research analysts, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, academia, institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors
Website: https://www.refinitiv.com/en
8. S&P Capital IQ
S&P Capital IQ is one of the leading providers of data and analytics on global financial markets, industries, and companies. S&P Capital IQ’s company financial coverage includes current and historical data for the balance sheet, income statement, cash flows statement, financial ratios, and multiples. The company information on financials is extensive, with over 5,000 individual data items, and is standardized as per industry-specific templates. S&P Capital IQ also gives consensus and detailed estimates for these companies. Additionally, S&P Capital IQ provides credit risk indicators, which help in detecting credit deterioration for rated and unrated companies. The users can also perform a comparable analysis instantly for companies.
Scope of coverage:
- Financials – 88,000 public companies (active and inactive)
- Financials – 50,000 active companies (representing 99.9% of global capitalization)
- Company information profile (over 65,000 public companies and 15 million private companies)
- Financials for private companies (1 million+)
Focus of coverage: fundamental data, financial ratios, competitive intelligence, industry intelligence, equity analysis, risk analysis, valuation
Target customers: equity analysts, risk analysts, research analysts, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, academia, institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors
Website: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/solutions/sp-capital-iq-platform
9. Morningstar
Morningstar provides business and financial data, analytics, and news on public companies. Morningstar’s financial coverage includes current and historical data on a balance sheet, income statement, cash flows statement, and financial ratios of the public companies. The users can also get real-time stock prices, analytics, and news.
Scope of coverage:
- Operating in 27 countries in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia
- Acquired PitchBook to enhance private company intelligence offering
Focus of coverage: fundamental data, financial ratios, competitive intelligence, industry intelligence, equity analysis, valuation
Target customers: equity analysts, risk analysts, research analysts, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, academia, institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors
Website: https://www.morningstar.in/
10. FactSet
FactSet offers access to financial data, analytics, and insights on public and private companies globally. FactSet’s public company fundamentals include current and historical financial statements, financial ratios, and multiples. For these companies, customers also get consensus earnings estimates sourced from leading investment banks and research. FactSet also covers other company information like ownership, subsidiaries, key executives, and revenue by geography, investors, credit profile, and more. In addition to public companies’ information, FactSet also provides intelligence on business details, funding, subsidiaries, and parents of millions of private companies globally.
Scope of coverage: primarily public companies
Focus of coverage: fundamental data, financial ratios, competitive intelligence, industry intelligence, equity analysis, valuation
Target customers: equity analysts, risk analysts, research analysts, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, academia, institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors
Website: https://www.factset.com/
11. Orbis
Orbis is one of the leading providers of business intelligence and is primarily known for its powerful comparable data on private companies. It also covers listed companies. The company captures data from over 170 providers and hundreds of internal sources. Orbis can provide the users with comprehensive company reports, corporate ownership structure, and financial indicators to help you research a company and assess the risk associated with it. A user can create specific searches using a range of Orbis’ search criteria. Users can search for information on companies across regions and countries in standardized formats which are easy to compare. Additionally, Orbis’ data visualization tools and analyses make it easier to understand the results quickly. These insights and data help to find, analyze, and compare companies for better decision-making and increased efficiency.
Scope of coverage: over 375 million companies/entities globally with detailed financial information on 40 million
Focus of coverage: private company intelligence, competition intelligence, financial data
Target customers: private equity, venture capital, investment banks, corporate strategy, consulting professionals, corporate strategy
Website: https://www.bvdinfo.com/en-gb/our-products/data/international/orbis
12. North Data
North Data offers company intelligence on private companies of varying sizes from Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kindom. For these private companies, North Data provides information like location, industry, key officers, relations with other companies, patents, etc. The data for Germany-based companies includes more pieces of information like financial statements and standardized KPIs. North Data sources company information mostly from trade registers, company filings, trademark and patent registers, and other sources by using artificial intelligence. It also has a proprietary mechanism to derive important missing KPI like revenue. The intelligence provided by NorthData helps investors or business partners in understanding the business and structure of prospective companies.
Scope of coverage: ~7 million British, ~4 million German, and 8 lacs Swiss private companies
Focus of coverage: private company intelligence, competition intelligence, market intelligence, financial research
Target customers: research professionals, private equity, venture capital, investment banks, corporate strategy, consulting professionals
Website: https://www.northdata.com/
13. Crunchbase
Crunchbase is a platform for discovering business information on companies (primarily private companies). The information includes investments and funding information, founding members and individuals in leadership positions, mergers and acquisitions, and news. All this information helps in identifying and tracking growth companies/industries and reaching out to new prospects. One can create a custom list of companies, using filters like location, industry, funding, and investor type, and also set news alerts on companies, people and investors.
Scope of coverage: 1.2 million private and public companies (primarily private)
Focus of coverage: prospecting, business intelligence, market intelligence, deal sourcing
Target customers: entrepreneurs, market researchers, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, market researchers, and investors
Website: https://www.crunchbase.com/
14. Mattermark
Mattermark is a data platform to uncover growing and potentially lucrative start-ups through its independent research on companies. For these companies, Mattermark offers an extensive list of data fields like products, location, industry, revenue, key people, funding, investors, key competitors, employee count, and stage of company (from bootstrapped to IPO). Users can search by multiple filters to get a custom list of companies for their analysis. They can also set news notifications and real-time alerts for companies of their interests.
Scope of coverage: 4 million private companies across multiple industries
Focus of coverage: deal sourcing, business intelligence, sales intelligence, prospecting
Target customers: entrepreneurs, corporate, research professionals, sales and marketing professionals
Website: https://mattermark.com/
15. Owler
Owler is a business and sales intelligence platform that provides company information, competitive insights, and other sales-relevant information to executives, sales professionals, and marketers. Company information covers a range of fields like revenue, employee, funding, competitors, key people, office location, and contact details. The users can also set alerts/news feed for the companies they are interested in.
Owler helps users in prospecting new businesses, engaging relevantly with the existing accounts, and personalizing their messaging with real-time insights for the prospects in the pipeline.
Scope of coverage: 13 million private and public companies
Focus of coverage: business intelligence, competitive intelligence, prospecting, sales intelligence, B2B sales
Target customers: entrepreneurs, corporate, research professionals, sales and marketing professionals, marketing professionals
Website: https://www.owler.com/feed
Company Information for Prospecting
Sales intelligence refers to the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of information to help sales, marketing, and other professionals keep up to date with clients, prospect data and drive businesses.
16. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is an intelligence platform for B2B sales, marketing, and account management teams offering them access to millions of large, midmaket, and SMB company profiles. These company profiles cover information on reporting structure, new initiatives contact details, key financials, office locations, product/services, and logistics intelligence, which is helpful in effectively engage existing clients and new prospects.
Scope of coverage: 14+ million company profiles, 46+ million direct dials, 80+ million direct emails, 4.5+ million C-level contacts primarily in North America and Europe
Focus of coverage: prospecting, sales intelligence, B2B sales
Target customers: sales professionals, marketing professionals, technology vendors, staffing companies, consultants
Website: https://www.zoominfo.com/
17. D&B Hoovers
D&B Hoovers provides sales and market intelligence on companies, industries, and the people who lead them. It is one of the largest databases of companies globally. Apart from covering business overview, industry, and financial statements, D&B also includes information on related companies and credit reports in the company profile. One can create a custom company list based on advance search and also set alerts about companies, people, or industries of interest. The database is used for lead generation, sales call preparation, researching companies, being alerted to changes in leadership, and acquiring new customers.
Scope of coverage: 171 million private and public companies across 1,000 industry segments
Focus of coverage: business intelligence, sales intelligence, credit risk
Target customers: sales professionals, market researchers, entrepreneurs
Website: https://www.dnb.co.in/dnbhoovers/
18. InsideView
InsideView has a large repository of companies with information on product/services, revenue, employees, industry, key executives, competitors, and insights on challenges and industry trends. InsideView’s Targeting Intelligence platform triangulates data from more than 40,000 sources of business information, contact data, online news, and social media and customer CRM data. The company offers real-time data, insights, and connections to sales and marketing professionals to help them engage more effectively with existing accounts and source new prospects with greater relevancy.
Scope of coverage: 19 million private and public companies across 750 industry segments
Focus of coverage: prospecting, business intelligence, market intelligence
Target customers: sales professionals, marketing professionals, market researchers, entrepreneurs
Website: https://www.insideview.com/
Risk Assessment
Company risk assessment refers to the study and analysis of risks of multiple aspects associated with a company’s business including product risk, management quality, financial strengths, and resource raising ability, technological risk, and competitive intensity in the industry, regulatory challenges, and more.
19. S&P Global Ratings
S&P Global Ratings is a market and risk intelligence company that provides financial information, analytics, ratings, and benchmarks services on markets, industries, and entities. The credit rating is an independent forward-looking opinion about a company’s ability to meet its financial commitments in the short, medium, and long term. The rating report benchmarks a company’s strengths and weaknesses after conducting a detailed study of its business including product/services, management quality, financial strengths, competition, and regulatory risks. S&P Global Ratings’ risk intelligence helps the capital markets participants and a company’s counterparties (banks, clients, suppliers, joint-venture partners, brokers, government agencies, and others) to make critical decisions.
Scope of coverage: one of the two largest credit rating companies globally
Focus of coverage: risk assessment, market intelligence, industry intelligence
Target customers: capital market participants, company’s counterparties, regulators
Website: https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/
20. Moody’s Investor Services
Moody’s Investors Service is a leading global provider of credit ratings, research, risk analysis, pricing, and valuation services. Moody’s and its competitors’ credit ratings supplement internal credit risk analysis done by banks and other financial institutions. The rating report provides a detailed risk assessment of a company. This form of a third-party independent risk analysis helps all investors and counterparties of a company.
Scope of coverage: entities rated 36,000+ (one of the two largest credit rating companies globally)
Focus of coverage: risk assessment, market intelligence, industry intelligence
Target customers: capital market participants, company’s counterparties, regulators
Website: https://www.moodys.com/
21. Fitch Rating
Fitch Ratings is a global rating agency that provides credit markets with independent, critical credit risk opinions, research, and data. A company’s rating report provides a detailed risk assessment of its business including product/services, management quality, financial strengths, competition, regulatory risks, etc. This risk intelligence helps investors, banks, financial institutions, and other counterparties (of a company) in making critical decisions.
Scope of coverage: entities rated 20,000+
Focus of coverage: risk assessment, market intelligence, industry intelligence
Target customers: capital market participants, company’s counterparties, regulators
Website: https://www.fitchratings.com/
There you have it, the ultimate list of sources for company information. If you’d like to save time, shift to artificial intelligence and ask Brian for the data you need. You can do this via a simple email.