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Business: 45-817: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition: Start

Building Lists of Private Companies

Use the following three databases to build lists of private companies using select criteria. Criteria can include: geographic location, industry(ies), company type - private, revenue, etc.

Data Axle

Follow these steps:

1. Select the "U.S. Businesses" database.

2. Select the "Advanced Search" tab.

3. Select criteria of interest in order to build your list. (Criteria is located on the left-hand side of the page).

4. Click on the blue "Update Count" button to refresh the results list.

5. Select the green "View Results" button to see results.

6. Check all the companies that you wish to download.

7. Select the "Download" button to format and download your list of results. NOTE: you can only download a max of 250 companies at a time, but there is not limit to the number of total downloads.

PrivCo

PrivCo logo

Follow these steps:

1. Log into PrivCo using the account that you created (CMU email and password that you created).

2. Under "Advanced Searches" on the left-hand side of the page, select "Private Companies."

3. Select criteria of interest in order to build your list. 

4. Select the blue "Search" button to run the search.

5. On the results page, select "Export to Excel" to download results. NOTE: PrivCo only allows for 50 downloads per month. They re-set every month. If additional downloads are needed, contact me (rsplenda@andrew.cmu.edu) and we can work with the folks at PrivCo.

Hoover's

Hoover's logo

Follow these steps:

1. Select "Build a List" at the top of the page.

2. Select criteria of interest in order to build your list (ex. geographic location under "Company Location" or industry code under "Industry".)

3. When finished adding criteria, select the yellow "View Results" option at the bottom of the page.

4. See the list of results. NOTE: Hoover's does not allow for downloading/exporting results.