Whether you’re seeking M&A opportunities, guiding your clients, or observing new entrants in your industry, it’s essential to be aware of emerging private companies in your industry. But staying up to speed on this ever-changing landscape is harder than it should be.
Our clients tell us there are two major pain points in tracking the private company data landscape to learn about appealing acquisition targets and/or understand how an insurgent company present threats to their business:
There’s limited data
Unlike public companies, private companies aren’t legally required to document their financial information, making it much easier for companies to fly under the radar and encroach on your territory. When private companies do have funding events or are mentioned in the news, there’s no central place to collect all data points, so you’re left scouring multiple sources and often don’t have much to show for the hunt.
It’s hard to verify the numbers
In the words of one of our clients, “the information provenance is key” when assessing private company data. Offering counsel to your clients or upper management means that it’s essential to understand with confidence the source of any data points, and to be able to support those data points to the greatest extent possible with other materials or citations that provide additional context beyond the numbers.
Introducing AlphaSense Private Company Search
We designed our Private Company Search to address these pain points.
Given the sparseness and non traditional methods used by some providers to gather data and track private companies, we knew our clients would value the ability to see structured financial data for private companies paired with all relevant unstructured data points from news, filings, press releases, broker research, etc.
An example: let’s say you work in a large insurance company and your boss asks you to share your POV on PolicyGenius, an emerging insurance company that’s not on your radar currently. You have 5 minutes to prep before the meeting.
No problem.
First, type the company name into the ticker/company search bar – in this case, PolicyGenius.
In an instant you get a summary of what the company is – a consumer insurance company that positions themselves as a “one-stop shop for financial protection”, selling everything from life insurance to renters insurance. Plus, you see a snapshot into their financials: they have a Series C investments led by a very well-respected VC firm, Norwest:
You’re starting to feel a little prepared.
So you decide to move past the structured data and flesh out your understanding of this company. What’s next for them? How are they planning on scaling?
On the left side of the page, you begin to browse relevant documents tagged to PolicyGenius, including press releases and news coverage. Sorting by Relevance, you quickly hone in on a press release mentioning that PolicyGenius is partnering with ID Experts to sell an identity theft insurance product.
With time to spare, you’ve now established a cogent narrative about this company, both in terms of its current financial health as well as some insight into their strategy to scale their business. And it took less than five minutes.
Ready to experience Private Company Search for yourself? Log in and try it now.
Clarke Levidiotis leads Product Marketing at AlphaSense. Previously, she launched the Product Marketing functions at both Fiverr (FVRR) and CB insights.
Read all posts written by Clarke Levidiotis
