Database of the Month: PrivCo

PrivCo is an indispensable tool for company and industry research.  Its primary focus is on private, public, and foreign companies in specialized industries like On-Demand Services, e.g. Grubhub, DoorDash, or Transferwise.    

What sets it apart from other company directories are the up-to-date funding and M&A histories, which are cross-listed with company and investor profiles directly on PrivCo. 

The company overviews are concise and state the company’s business and all the industries it operates in.  Furthermore, the organization information is current and accurate.  For example, Takeaway.com BV, a Dutch online food delivery marketplace, bought Grubhub in June 2020.  Accordingly, PrivCo gives Takeaway.com BV as its parent.  In other company directories, Grubhub Inc. is still given as the parent.  Former names are given too, e.g. Grubhub Seamless, which aid in researching the company history on our other databases such as Nexis Uni.

Industry classifications do not capture the dynamism of companies operating across boundaries.  To that end, PrivCo traces connections between companies through its crowdsourced keywords describing the new demands and opportunities companies are pursuing.  In one snapshot, the keywords capture the diversity of a company like Amazon and link you to its competitors. 

Those same keywords can also be your starting point to find companies and investors on PrivCo.  In the Search feature, you can look up existing keywords for those entities.  The Search feature also allows you to select specialized industries, focus on specific geographic regions, and specify ranges for revenue, revenue growth, employees, employee growth, funding, and founding years.  You can also limit your search to companies backed by Private Equity or Venture Capital. 

Below the Search feature, A 100+ page Knowledge Bank lays out important industry terms and meanings for you to interpret content.  Above the Search feature, PrivCo’s Dashboard you can view updates for M&A deals, funding, and specialized industries. 

Industry convergence defines business today, and PrivCo is the tool to learn about the companies making it happen. 

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to useful library databases, highlighting key features you should know about. If you would like more information about this resource (or any of the library’s databases), please contact us for research assistance. If you would like a demonstration of these resources for a class, please schedule a research instruction class using the instruction request form.