Turning Data Into Deal Flow: The Future of Private Company Analysis

Challenges Collecting Private Company Data

Collecting reliable data on private companies remains one of the most significant hurdles for dealmakers and investors in many key markets, including the United States. Here’s why:

1.    Unlike public companies, private firms are not required to disclose financials, ownership, or operational details, making it difficult to gain a comprehensive view of their performance.

2.    Data is often fragmented across proprietary platforms, industry databases, and news sources, each offering only a partial perspective.

3.    The absence of universal reporting standards makes for complicated benchmarking and peer comparisons.

4.    Private companies tend to guard their data closely, so even when available, it may be incomplete, outdated, or self-reported, raising concerns about accuracy and reliability for high-stakes decisions.

These obstacles highlight the need for a trusted, unified source of private company intelligence.

Changing Needs in Deal Analysis

The increasing complexity of private markets, general market volatility, and demand for actionable insights means that today’s investors and M&A professionals require more than surface-level private company data.

Needs revolve around:

• A shift from quantity to quality. Dealmakers need data that is comprehensive but also timely and accurate.
• Granular, verified information to assess niche areas of growth potential, benchmark performance, and identify emerging opportunities.
• Advanced analytics trends, such as AI-ready data, standardized data, data classifications, and flexible data delivery solutions, which are now essential tools for uncovering trends, mapping investment flows, and confident decision-making.

The ability to quickly integrate high-quality private company data into deal workflows has become a key differentiator for successful dealmakers.

What’s Included in Our Expanded Private Company Coverage

• Data Coverage & Private Company Profiles:
  58M private companies covered worldwide, 16M+ with financials.
• Transactions Data:
  2M transactions and counting, powering detailed analysis of rounds of funding and deal types including mergers, acquisitions, private placements, buybacks, restructuring, spin-offs and more.
•   Portfolio & Corporate Structures Data:
  Understand and map corporate structures for deeper deal intelligence. We track 9M+ company relationships so you can examine ties through acquisitions, investments, investment arms, lenders, affiliates, index providers, and more.
• People Profiles & Headcount Analytics:
  85M professionals, 4.5M companies with detailed headcount data, 50K investors with contact details.
• ·Private Equity & Venture Capital Fund Coverage:
  Monitor and attract capital with coverage of 120K+ funds.
• Industry Topics Tags & Market Maps:
  Use 290+ tags for niche sectors and emerging trends to quickly pull in granular insights for decision making. Visualize market dynamics with geographic, asset-level mapping to drive growth strategies forward.

How Our Data Enhances Your Deal Insights

Dealmakers can quickly surface M&A trends, benchmark against peers, and uncover hidden opportunities with our solutions:

• The S&P Capital IQ Pro platform enables comprehensive assessments of company performance, capital flows, and ownership structures, supporting everything from target identification to valuation and due diligence.
• Flexible delivery options—via platform, API, or data feeds—allow teams to integrate insights directly into their workflows and streamline deal sourcing or portfolio management.

The Importance of Quality Data You Can Build Deals On

Our commitment to quality insights is reflected in rigorous verification processes, an ever-expanding, comprehensive coverage, and continuous investment in product enhancements.

Our private company data differentiators include:

• A Comprehensive S&P Global Data Universe: Tap into the ecosystem of S&P Global’s trusted, differentiated data and insights, covering private and public markets, sustainability, credit risk, supply chain, deep industry intelligence, and more.
• Detailed Financials and Transactions Intelligence: Our AI-powered niche industry classifications allow you to [JI1] quickly surface trends, new opportunities, major players, and valuations. With a wider range of financial metrics, ownership, corporate relationships, and operational insights at your fingertips, you can deliver deeper assessments of growth potential.
• Capital Flow Transparency: Our private company coverage combined with M&A transactions and rounds of funding data provides a 360-degree view into GP, LP, and both private equity and debt activity. Locate capital, assess fund performance, and draw connections between portfolio companies. Gain clarity and context with deep insights on fundraising, capital deployment, financial performance, and value realization.

By providing a single source of truth for private company intelligence, we help dealmakers reduce risk, enhance due diligence, and build stronger, more resilient portfolios.

Explore Our Private Company Data

Discover how our private company data solutions can transform your dealmaking.