Research Guides: Company Information: Private Companies

Private Companies

Information about private companies is more difficult to acquire. Unlike a publicly traded company, a privately-held company does not have the same filing requirements with the SEC. However, privately-held companies may file some SEC reports (usually S Forms or 10-Q) when required for raising equity.

PrivCo
Data on privately-held companies: family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and selected international unlisted companies. Over 850,000 firms, 20,000 investors and 100,000 private market deals. Note: Only 20 users allowed at a time. If you cannot login, try again later. NOTE: Click Direct Access to access the database without a personal PrivCo account.
Mergent Online
Includes D&B Private Company Database. Comprehensive global company database with custom reporting features. 15,000 U.S. public companies. 20,000 non-U.S. based corporations, representing 95% of the non-U.S. global market capitalization. Basic information on approximately 1 million global private companies, including up to four years of full financial information on over 400,000 firms. 20+ years of U.S. and International HSD Equity Pricing. Note: Only 12 users allowed at one time.
Data Axle Reference Solutions
Data Axle Reference Solutions (formerly ReferenceUSA) is a directory of business and residential listings. Includes the following databases: U.S. Businesses, U.S. Consumers / Lifestyles, U.S. Jobs / Internships, U.S. New Businesses, U.S. New Movers / Homeowners, U.S. Standard White Pages, Canadian businesses, and Canadian White Pages. Filter searches on nearly 40 unique data points, including geography, business type, number of employees, ownership, etc.
ProQuest One Business
All of ProQuest's business content is now available in one new platform. More than 130 million documents. Includes more than 2,400 journals, plus eBooks, news and magazines, videos, and hundreds of thousands of reports on companies, industries, markets, and countries. Includes The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Economist.
Business Source Complete
Over 3,800 full-text journals, including nearly 2,000 peer-reviewed journals. Industry reports, market research reports, SWOT analyses, case studies, country economic reports, conference proceedings, working papers collections, and over 1 million company profiles.
Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.

See also: State-level Resources

Companies must file in the state they are registered or incorporated. Visit the state's home page to identify any publicly available filings and the agencies regulating the business registrations. Articles and Press Releases will contain information about private companies. Also consider searching local newspapers near company headquarters.