What’s the Best Database for Company Information?
There are plenty of company databases on the market, each varying in accessibility and depth of coverage. Some focus on international reach, while others stand out for the quality of their proprietary data.
And depending on the industry you work in, or your role in an organisation, some options will be more relevant to your use cases than others. For example:
- Some databases focus on specific geographies. Some only hold information on particular regions, like the USA or APAC, or have granular data on smaller localities, such as towns in southwest England.
- They have different levels of data. One may provide detailed information on a company’s whole lifecycle, including past directors and funding rounds, while others offer an overview of a region’s broad business trends.
- They use different sources of data. For instance, some are just registries of legal entities, while others compile data from multiple sources to create a richer picture of businesses and their operating environments.
- They’re better-suited to different types of research. Some business databases are built for journalists or civil society groups. Others provide sales teams with professional contact information. As a result, the information itself differs.
- They differ in pricing, too. Most government registries are free. But the more premium services with deeper business profiles charge for access.
As such, there’s no “best database for company information” that will fit every single use case. Let’s look at a few examples as to why some organisations would seek high-quality company data.
Local authorities
If you’re working in a local authority or inward investment team then the ability to find reliable information on local companies — or fast-growing companies that could be looking to expand into your region — is vital.
Likewise, having the means of measuring the impact of policy interventions would be equally important.
Investors
As an investor, you likely want a company database that can help find early-stage companies with desirable attributes including strong growth rates, patents, or a healthy P&L (profit and loss) line.
Business development teams
If you’re a BDM (Business Development Managers) or Sales Executive, you may be looking for company information and contact details for businesses that could use your company’s services, such as those that have recently secured funding, expanded their team, or appointed new leadership.
Knowing which companies are growing quickly or entering new markets can help you time your outreach effectively.
Whatever your use case, the most important factor when you’re choosing a database is the quality of data it provides. After all, if you’re going to base your organisation’s critical decisions on this information, you need to have trust that the data is up-to-date, complete, and accurate. Sadly, that’s not always a given.
In this guide, we’ll introduce you to more than 20 of the best databases for company information. We’ll cover everything from government registries to startup platforms, and databases for general research.
You can access our data via one of our four platforms built with different users in mind: universities and governments, investors, financial and professional services, and sales teams.
Read on to find out more or book a demo to see how Beauhurst works for you.
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1. Beauhurst: The best database for private company information in the UK and Germany
Beauhurst is the ultimate private company database for UK and Germany companies. Through our data, you can access insights on every single business in these countries, from disruptive startups launched last week, through to centuries-old stalwarts of industry. What’s more, you can search for and compare these businesses across hundreds of criteria.
But you’re not limited to searching by specific companies. With Beauhurst, you can also examine broader regional trends, search for companies across industries, and even find influential business leaders in particular fields.
That’s why we’re trusted by banks, law firms, universities, local and national governments, sales teams, and investors.
"Beauhurst is one of the most powerful company data platforms available for public sector intelligence."
For example, we’ve helped a leading Scottish law firm expedite their due diligence and AML checks, plus assisted a major UK-based angel network find and support early-stage startups.
We also support a number of councils, including Northern Ireland-based Ards & Northdown Borough Council and Lancashire County Council, gain a richer understanding of their business ecosystems and better support growing companies.
We also support companies in the banking and investment industries to find and win new clients, including Coutts and Yeo Ventures.
Get up-to-date, in-depth data on all UK and German companies
With Beauhurst data, you can find the latest information on every single company across the UK and Germany.
We bring together thousands of data points from a huge range of different data sources, including government offices such as HMRC and Companies House, censuses and patent registries, the media, and companies themselves. All of this is made possible with our team of 60+ data analysts and machine learning, enriching and standardising that data so it’s searchable, comparable, and easy to navigate.
Thanks to this, whenever you search for a company through Beauhurst, you’ll get a rich, complete profile of that business. Whatever information you’re looking for — whether organisation structures, spinout status, patent activity, grants and funding rounds —it’s all designed with accuracy and depth in mind.
For instance, you can find key information on each company profile including:
- Key events in a business, such as whether it has received funding, any news associated with the company, key person changes, and acquisitions.
- Its operating headquarters and other trading addresses. On many other databases, you’ll only find its legal registered address, which is often different to where they actually operate.
- Industry classifications (replacing SIC codes), fit for the modern business landscape, enabling you to find companies in any industry — from fintech and AI to agriculture and manufacturing, including the IS-8 sectors outlined in the UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy.
- Signals, including growth, risk, innovation, and ESG — you can read more about these here.
- Financial information, including annual reports with key data points such as turnover, total assets, GVA, and EBITDA.
- Influential people, including founders, directors, executives, and investors.
- And lots more. You can find out more about our company data here.
You can use this data to uncover the exact kind of businesses you’re looking for. For example, you can easily see what the company does, how it is growing, who works there, and how they contribute to the local economy.
For example, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) uses Beauhurst to support its work in forging links between the science community and businesses. One task to which Beauhurst’s data is central is in identifying and supporting early-stage space tech startups to innovate and scale.
“The ability to create very specific custom searches on almost any company characteristic lets me target businesses with a really high level of granularity,” says Sue O’Hare, Operations Manager at the STFC. “If you need timely and comprehensive information about early-stage high-tech startups, you should be looking at Beauhurst.”
Search for businesses by industry, people, and many other criteria
Beauhurst makes it easy to search across the entire UK and German business environment. Rather than trawling through thousands of profiles individually, Beauhurst lets you immediately identify companies that match the specific criteria you need.
For instance, if you’re an investor looking for German companies to fund, you’ll have particular industry, location, or size criteria they need to match. The same if you’re a local authority looking for business directors, or a university seeking local knowledge partners.
Searching for these manually is a huge drain on time. With Beauhurst’s ‘Advanced Search’ functionality, you can find precisely what you need, in just a few clicks.
“It's like having a digital Filofax in your pocket.”
You can find companies by highly specific, overlapping criteria, including:
Company size of growth trajectory
Based on employee count, turnover, funding received, or any other metric.
What the company does
Industries and Buzzwords enable you to drill down right into a company’s activities far more effectively than SIC codes.
From renewable energy and precision medicine through to retail and accounting. This now includes the eight high-growth sectors (IS-8) as outlined in the UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy.
And if you need to get really specific, you can also search over company descriptions.
People
Look for serial founders, phoenix founders, directors, shareholders, secretaries, or angel investors by age, gender, location, or activity — it’s all there.
Significant events
Such as whether the company has spun out of a university, received a grant or funding, IPO’d, made an acquisition, or has been acquired.
Financials
For example, you can refine your search to companies that have a turnover above/below a specific threshold — or have grown their headcount or turnover by a value or percentage.
All of these criteria can be layered on top of one another so that you can drill down to the precise list of companies that match your business needs.
For instance, say you’re looking for robotics companies based in London with pre-tax profits of £5m and female-founded. With Beauhurst, those companies are simple to find in just a couple of clicks.
You don’t have to only search for companies with Beauhurst either.
You can also search for funds, fundraisings, grants, MBO/MBIs, M&A activity, corporate spinouts, IPOs, accelerators, high-growth lists, and more.
Explore Germany’s top high growth lists
Discover how you can find Germany’s high-growth lists and the companies that feature on those lists.
See a picture of live, local trends
You can also use our company database to get an up-to-date picture of the business landscape in a particular area.
For example, if you search Beauhurst for businesses in Edinburgh, you’ll be shown in-depth and up-to-the-minute information about what’s happening in the city. The below graphs show the amounts raised through fundraisings and the latest turnover of some of the bigger businesses based in the city.
Plus, you can also see other data on:
- The number of newly incorporated businesses — or those that ceased operating
- A breakdown of industries by number of businesses or highest growth
- Employee numbers in each company, including by gender
- Media stories about specific businesses
- Overall trends
Just as you would if you were searching for individual businesses with Beauhurst, you can also layer these criteria.
For example, you can limit your search to companies that are at seed, venture, or growth stages in Edinburgh, to get a closer look at local growth trends.
The table below shows the proportion of these growth companies by the industries they work in.
If you’re particularly interested in a local area — or in companies that meet any criteria — you can create dynamic company lists by saving your search to the “My Collections” tab in your Beauhurst dashboard.
This means that you don’t need to start a new search to be alerted to changes in your area. Simply set up a Collection, and you’ll be notified whenever a new business has entered the market, there has been a merger, or a company has received a round of funding (and more). You’ll be alerted in real time, or whenever you choose to receive the notification.
Lancashire County Council uses Beauhurst’s Collections feature to track specific businesses in the local area.
“With Beauhurst, we have access to real-time information, with a level of detail that we wouldn’t get anywhere else. And it’s very, very easy to use,” says Amin Vepari, Business Finance and Scaleup Lead at Lancashire County Council
Government databases of business information
Alongside Beauhurst, another potentially useful source of company information is government business registries. It’s often obligatory for businesses to provide some basic information, which is then listed publicly by various government offices.
As such, government registries are a great starting point for business information.
However, they won’t give you the depth of information you’d get from any of the Beauhurst platforms. Plus, every locality will have different requirements for the information they include.
That said, here are five government business sources that can be useful.
Region: UK
Cost: Free
Companies House is the UK’s official registry of legal entities. All companies that are based in the UK are obliged to provide information to the database when they’re set up, and then at least once per year.
That means that if you’re looking for UK businesses, Companies House is a pretty comprehensive resource. In fact, it has the reputation for being one of the most easy to use national business registries in the world.
However, for those seeking deep, clean, standardised information, it does have its limitations. One is that companies need to update the information themselves, and Companies House explicitly says it “does not verify accuracy of information filed.”
Region: UK
Cost: Free
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is less a database than a collector and publisher of statistics.
That means it’s not searchable by business in the way that something like Beauhurst or Companies House is. Rather, it’s used more as a useful source of information on national trends and broader patterns, which it aggregates from censuses and its own surveys.
As the UK’s official government body responsible for data on business, society, and demographics, the information it provides is incredibly authoritative. And it can be used as an effective complement to other data providers.
We’ve compiled a full breakdown of the key places where Beauhurst and the ONS data differ.
Region: USA
Cost: Free
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the US government agency that oversees the stock market. As part of this role, it holds the national register of publicly traded companies.
This database is often compared to the UK’s Companies House, as it can provide in-depth information on companies that are included. However, as the SEC only includes publicly traded companies, you won’t find data on smaller businesses or those that are privately owned.
Alongside its business register the SEC regularly releases other datasets, on financial statements or other business metrics, that can inform your research. Note that these are published at irregular intervals and you’ll need to download .zip files to access the data.
Region: US states
Cost: Free
In the US, state authorities collect information on individual businesses. But as laws differ from state to state, the information collected differs depending on where that business is located.
State business databases differ dramatically by the depth and quality of data. You can find a lot of useful information, depending on what you need. Just be aware that it is not very easy to compare companies in different states.
For instance, you can use:
Region: Europe
Cost: Free
Most countries in Europe have their own business registers, just like the UK’s Companies House. The European Union set up the European Business Register to centralise and standardise all the information from these databases, via the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS).
Currently, you can only search the system by business name, and you’ll receive basic information on companies including registered addresses.
Region: Germany
Cost: Free for basic access; charges may apply for document downloads
The Handelsregister (Commercial Register) is Germany’s official government database for businesses engaged in commercial activity. Operated by the regional courts (Amtsgerichte), it holds legally required filings such as articles of association, changes in managing directors, capital increases, and insolvency notices.
It’s a valuable source if you’re looking for formal legal details on German companies, especially GmbHs and AGs. You can search by company name or registration number and access scanned documents and filings.
However, as with many government registers, the Handelsregister provides raw documents rather than clean, structured datasets. Information is also available only in German, which can make access difficult for non-native speakers.
Region: Germany
Cost: Free for basic use; fees apply for document retrieval
The Bundesanzeiger (Federal Gazette) is Germany’s official publication platform for mandatory legal and financial disclosures by companies. It’s where businesses file annual accounts, management reports, and insolvency notices—much like a financial reporting bulletin.
Since 2007, it has become the primary location for publishing financial statements of German companies, especially smaller private firms that are otherwise difficult to find in other registers. Filings include balance sheets, income statements, and often auditor notes, making the Bundesanzeiger an essential resource for financial due diligence.
The platform can be tricky to navigate for non-German speakers, and company searches must often be done by legal entity name. Data is provided as PDFs or HTML documents, without standardisation or aggregation — so while rich in content, it requires more manual work to extract insights.
Region: Germany
Cost: Free for basic use; fees apply for document retrieval
The Unternehmensregister (Company Register) complements the Handelsregister by aggregating information from multiple German public sources — including the Handelsregister, Bundesanzeiger (Federal Gazette), and other official filings.
It serves as a broader gateway to company disclosures, including annual financial statements, auditor reports, shareholder structures, and announcements relevant to capital markets.
If you need structured financial data or want to track corporate developments, the Unternehmensregister is a more comprehensive destination than the Handelsregister alone. However, usability and standardisation remain limited compared to commercial providers, and much of the content is available only in German.
Region: France
Cost: Free for basic searches; fees for document access
Infogreffe is the official register of French companies, managed by the country’s commercial courts (Greffes des tribunaux de commerce). It provides legal and financial information about all registered companies in France, including:
You can search by company name or SIREN number (France’s company registration number). While summaries are freely available, full documents (such as balance sheets or statutes) often require payment.
Most of the site is in French and not particularly user-friendly for non-fluent users. However, for compliance or company verification in France, Infogreffe is the go-to source.
- Company status and legal form
- Directors and shareholders
- Annual financial statements
- Insolvency filings and legal notices
You can search by company name or SIREN number (France’s company registration number). While summaries are freely available, full documents (such as balance sheets or statutes) often require payment.
Most of the site is in French and not particularly user-friendly for non-fluent users. However, for compliance or company verification in France, Infogreffe is the go-to source.
Region: Ireland
Cost: Free for basic searches; fees for reports and filings
Ireland’s Companies Registration Office (CRO) is the statutory body responsible for the incorporation and regulation of companies in the Republic of Ireland. It provides public access to:
- Company registration details
- Directors and secretaries
- Annual returns and financial statements
- Mortgage and charge filings
The CRO’s online portal is relatively accessible and includes both company and document searches. While many filings require payment to download, summaries and registration data are free to access.
Business databases for international research
Some of the best business databases aggregate data from different regions across the world. The right choice for you will depend on the specific region you are interested in, as well as the type of research you are performing.
Region: Global
Cost: Free
Featuring over 200 million companies in 140 geographies, OpenCorporates calls itself the largest open database of corporates in the world. The platform sources data from government business registries across the world, giving it an incredible breadth of coverage.
The platform does standardise all the information across all regions, making it really easy to navigate and compare. But if those registries have any inaccuracies, those same limitations will pop up in OpenCorporate data.
What distinguishes OpenCorporates from other databases of business information is its social purpose, which makes it a preferred tool of journalists, universities, civil society, and anti-corruption investigators. Its central goal is to boost corporate transparency, and as such it’s completely free.
Region: US and global
Cost: Institutions pay an annual fee
Mergent Online is a database that holds information on a large range of global companies, but its focus is on publicly traded companies.
It’s based in the US and that’s where the best part of the 40,000 companies it includes are from. Alongside that, it offers users access to financial data on public companies from around the world, representing a total of 95% of the non-US global market capitalisation.
As it features profiles of both active and inactive companies, Mergent is a great source of historical data on companies and industry reports. Researchers and analysts mainly use it to access financial information on companies, including stock prices and annual reports. Plus, it provides up-to-date news on each of the 15,000 US companies it tracks.
Region: US and global
Cost: Institutions pay an annual fee
Gale Business: Insights is mainly aimed at researchers in academic contexts, although businesses can use it too. Whatever type of research you’re doing, you can access over 430,000 company profiles, plus country overviews and industry summaries.
Like many of the other databases for business intelligence on this list, Gale offers comprehensive information on company history, hierarchy, financial data, and news. Plus, if you want to compare different companies, that’s really easy through the downloadable competitive comparisons.
One of the main appeals of Gale is its UX, with interactive tools for visualising data.
Region: US and global
Cost: Unknown
Compustat is the database of Standard & Poor Global, the US-based corporation for business analytics. As such, the focus of the data is financial.
Its core product is its standardised financial statements for over 80,000 publicly traded companies, both in North America and globally, and both active and inactive. Plus, it includes other financial reports from these companies too, including balance sheets, cash flows, and income data.
If you need financial information on public companies, or you’re doing market research, this could be a good tool.
Region: North America
Cost: Starting from $99 a month
Previously known as ReferenceUSA, Data Axle is a data platform offering information on private companies and consumers in the United States and Canada.
It has data on 17 million businesses in North America, from the Fortune 500 to independent shops and freelancers. With data including contact information, numbers of employees, and more, it’s an impressive resource if you’re not looking just for publicly traded companies.
Data Axle also has a large team of data experts who call businesses directly to verify information and update the platform in real time.
Region: Global
Cost: Contact Orbis for pricing
Moody’s is one of the largest data providers in the world, and Orbis is its global business database. It has information on over 450 million companies and legal entities across the world, which it sources from over 170 sources. Plus, like Beauhurst, it standardises that information and makes it comparable.
For a comprehensive database of global companies, it’s a good choice.
Region: Global
Cost: There are multiple products with different pricing, up to $5,000 annually
AngelList started life as an introduction board for startups that wanted seed funding, but over the years it’s become the platform where startups and investors can connect and get funding.
If you’re an investor, you can search the platform to find startups that match your investment criteria. Or you can download industry reports to discover broader startup trends.
Region: US-based but global data
Cost: Individual plans start from $79 a month. Contact Crunchbase for enterprise plans
While Crunchbase claims to be a database for all private and public companies, most of its users make use of its data on tech companies in particular.
It’s primarily a prospecting tool, where businesses and other people can find information on early-stage startups and other companies, plus who works in each company. All that information is crowdsourced, meaning it’s supplied by the users themselves — which can sometimes lead to inaccurate information.
Crunchbase also provides reports on startups, industry news, and relevant trends by region.
Region: Global
Cost: Contact CB Insights for pricing
CB Insights claims to have the world’s largest dataset on technology companies and trends. It’s used by some of the biggest companies — including Microsoft, IBM, and Wells Fargo — to find information they need to build relationships, understand markets, and decide who to fund or to acquire.
Much of this data is provided by startups themselves, which CB Insights asks for information through its “Analyst Briefing” program. But it complements that information with multiple other data sources.
Region: Asia
Cost: Unknown
e27 is the specialist database for business information on Asian startups. If you’re looking for data on the tech ecosystem in this part of the world, e27 may be your best resource.
At the time of writing, e27 had almost 37,000 startups listed on its platform. All of them are searchable and comparable by location, industry, funding, and more.
Then, once you’ve found a specific company that matches your criteria, it’s easy to connect with them too. The platform will link you to the startups’ social media sites including LinkedIn.
Company information databases for lead generation (only)
One common reason why professionals look for databases of company information is for lead generation. Some databases are built only with this use case in mind, but the data quality is hit-and-miss.
(Note: You can find contact details for key personnel on any of Beauhurst’s platforms, too).
Region: UK and Ireland
Cost: Prices start from £50 + VAT annually
One well-known platform that’s used for lead generation is Company Check. With data on over five million companies in the UK and Ireland, it’s a reasonably comprehensive source of business information.
Users can access financial information on businesses too, as well as business credit checks for purposes of due diligence.
Region: Global
Cost: The five different products have different prices. Contact ZoomInfo for details.
ZoomInfo is one of the largest databases of company contact information. It works like a search engine, where businesses can search for prospects and their contact information. The platform sources its data from multiple providers, alongside a team of researchers as well as community contributors.
This way, it tries to keep its data as up-to-date as possible. Although this tool serves its purpose by providing contact details for potential clients, it lacks accompanying company data. That’s where Beauhurst comes into play, enabling sales teams to identify the most promising accounts to prioritise their efforts.
Region: Nordics and global
Cost: Plans for Nordic data only start at €4,200. Plans for global data start at €12,000.
Vainu is a B2B data platform that’s designed to speed up customer acquisition. You can access Vainu’s broad range of company data directly through the website, through your CRM, or through a browser extension. You can find the companies that are most relevant to you by searching through multiple overlapping criteria.
The company is based in Helsinki and has focused on Nordic companies, making it the most comprehensive database in the region. However, more recently Vainu collects data on companies globally.
Region: Global
Cost: Contact Cognism for pricing details
Cognism is another database of business contact information. It claims to have the largest dataset of European companies, as well as the richest collection of mobile phone details in the US. The database allows you to search for companies by location, industry, size, and more, allowing you to identify your specific market. One of the things that makes it stand out is that it verifies key contact details.
Beauhurst complements this tool by providing the missing company data component, allowing sales teams to make informed decisions on which accounts to prioritise, while still utilising the tool’s functionality to find contact details for potential clients.
Beauhurst: The database for company information in the UK and Germany that you can trust
In this guide, we’ve covered 25 databases of company information, for different use cases, regions, and industries. Depending on your needs, you’ll find the perfect fit.
If you’re looking for a premium database of rich, comprehensive, searchable, and comparable UK and German company information, Beauhurst is your best choice. With a Beauhurst subscription, you can:
- Access the deepest information available on all UK and German companies
- Search for companies and people by region, industry, fundraising, and many other overlapping criteria
- Track the performance of regions or companies in real-time
To see the platform in action, take a two minute tour of the data — or to speak to a member of the team, simply book a demo to find out how Beauhurst can work for your organisation.
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