Our Machine Learning team has made some improvements to the Similar Companies tab on tracked company profiles.

With this new set of changes, the list will show closer matches to the company you’re looking at—with the added bonus of a snappier loading time.

Previously, the Similar Companies list was based on matching sectors, buzzwords, and description words. But because of the simplistic word matching, this sometimes led to less relevant companies being matched. The improved tool uses a machine learning language model to understand and match meanings of descriptions. For example, a company that “builds software for drug discovery” and a company that “provides computational chemistry solutions for pharmacology research” will now be matched: although there are no common words, these companies operate in the same space.

This update has resulted in a significant improvement in the relevance of companies in the Similar Companies list. If you see a company that you don’t think is similar, you can tap the “Not similar” button to the right of the company in the list to continually improve the algorithm.

Following user feedback, we’ve replaced our sector ranking chart with a customisable breakdown on Advanced Search, Collections, and Explore. This new chart ranks sectors, buzzwords, and SIC code groups, allowing you to run top-level analysis in just a few clicks.

Less time in spreadsheets—phew!

Previously, many of our subscribers had to export data offline in order to answer questions about their region. In particular, users with access to our All Company Data add-on needed a quicker way to report on SIC codes, rather than just the sectors for our core companies. You can now do this straight away from Advanced Search and Explore:

Percentage (raw) of companies per SIC code group for companies in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly LEP

As with other charts on the platform, you can export the chart of your choice to a .png or .csv file—perfect for adding to your presentations and reports.

Which industries are powering your local economy?

You can also gain deeper insight into your local economy by choosing ranking metrics such as percentage of companies, total turnover, or total employee count.

Using these options, you can find out which industry in your region is the top employer, or which has the highest turnover, in order to inform your decision making:

Sector ranking for companies in Oxford, by total turnover and total employee count

Showcase your portfolio and expertise

Using this new chart on your Collections means reporting on your portfolio is easier than ever. Perhaps you’d like to showcase your strengths, and back this up with data.

Or perhaps you have a large client base and want to find out where the untapped opportunities lie, by taking a look at underrepresented industries.

Buzzword ranking for a collection of tracked companies in London

Check out the chart on Advanced Search, Explore, and Collections. 

You might have noticed our shiny new dashboard! This new version is more tailored to your activity on the platform, and allows you to bridge the gap between our analysis and yours.

Shareable blogs and reports 

The new Latest From Beauhurst panel showcases our latest blogs and reports. New blogs will be posted weekly, meaning you can effortlessly keep up to date with trending topics. Feel free to repost our content to your socials to start conversations with your customers and boost engagement!

We often receive questions about the data and searches that power our blogs. So, each post on the dashboard will include links to pre-filled advanced searches, so you can see how we conducted the analysis, and further explore the organisations and transactions featured. 

Stay up to date with news and transactions

Our feed of recent news and transactions is still available, with a fresh look and feel. Many of our subscribers scroll through this feed at the start of the day to keep up to date with all the latest deal activity.

News headlines link to original source articles, so you can gain more context, and transactions link to transaction pages, so you can delve deeper into the deals.

Pick up where you left off

The Recently Viewed panel is based on the profiles, collections and saved searches you last accessed, meaning you can easily pick up where you left off.

Let your Account Manager know your thoughts on the update!

If you’re looking to find out about a specific persons’ shareholding in a company, wading through a long list of shareholders can be time consuming. We’ve added some simple improvements to the ownership tab on company profiles to make your navigation much more efficient.

The new search bar allows you to narrow down your view, so you can look up a particular person and their shareholding:

Or perhaps you’d like to know whether you have any connections at the company. If you have access to the Networks add-on, you can filter the ownership table to show people in your network—perfect for planning your next introduction.

As ever, let your account manager know if you have any questions or feedback on the platform!

What’s the health of my local economy? Is the picture better or worse than last year? Is my sector of interest thriving–or just about surviving? 

Many of our subscribers use Beauhurst to answer questions like these, by exporting our data to create charts and reports. We wanted to take out this middle step, and help you gain insights straightaway on the platform.

The foundations and cessations chart displays the number of companies that were founded and ceased operations over time. Perhaps you need to visualise the success of businesses in your region in order to report on your organisation’s impact. For this, you might choose to view foundations and/or cessations in your area–or simply the net change in the number of companies.

Foundations and cessations in the Coast to Capital LEP

You can also adjust the time frame and time periods of the charts to suit your needs– for example, you might want to view month by month changes, in order to spot patterns, and predict and adjust planned spend in your LEP. 

Or, perhaps you are looking for a simpler overview of an industry to evaluate the landscape: the ‘active companies over time’ chart is ideal for this. 

Active companies in the Clean Technology sector

Take a look at the new charts in Explore and in the statistics tab of Advanced Search.

We’ve added a raft of new improvements to make understanding and finding the directors behind every UK company easier. 

Secretary data

Our dataset of key people is now more comprehensive. If you’ve got access to both the All Company Data and Networks add-ons, you can now access and search over current and previous secretaries for every UK company.

People profiles

On our people profiles, there’s now more information at your fingertips–including summary tables and charts that make it easier than ever to see which companies they’ve been involved with and when.

Want to avoid people involved with a lot of dissolved companies? Interested in signals of fraudulent activity for Know Your Customer checks? Use the concise summary of a person’s current and previous directorships, shareholdings and key positions.

Please note that people profiles are visible for users who have the Networks add-on. Please contact your account manager or client services executive to find out more.

Company pages: visualise Directors’ involvement

On company profiles, you’ll see new charts which visualise Directors’ involvement over time.

These charts can be found on tracked and non-tracked company profiles, so you can quickly gain an understanding of any UK company’s Directors.

Advanced Searches

If you’ve got access to both the All Company Data and Networks add-ons, you can now search over current and previous directors and secretaries for every UK company.

For example, you can now find directors who are also shareholders at the same company and who are above a certain age–i.e. those who may be looking to retire.

As ever, we look forward to hearing how you get on with these improvements–let your Account Manager know if you have any thoughts.

If you’ve got access to our All Company Data add-on, you’ll now see data on dissolved UK companies stretching back to 2004. This comprehensive dataset means you can conduct your due diligence all in one place (without having to check Companies House alongside Beauhurst). 

Use Advanced Search, exports, and our company profiles to learn more about these companies and join the dots.

We’re pleased to be launching another feature from our “frequently requested” list: you can now use business descriptions from filings to refine your searches for all companies. These descriptions come from a company’s Financial Statement, where full accounts are being filed (please note that the Beauhurst data team does not curate these descriptions).

Example: Barclays

Subscribers who have access to our All Company Data feature have fed back that whilst SIC codes are useful, they are sometimes too broad or old fashioned to capture current innovative markets. We have added these descriptions from filings to help you unlock more powerful, specific searches, and find relevant companies.

For example, you may be interested in the vegan market. The various food retailing and manufacturing SIC codes are too broad for this, meaning you may have to sift through thousands of irrelevant companies. But now, you can hone in on this specific area using the keyword:

Or perhaps you are interested in a specific area of medical research:

You can find business descriptions on company profiles, advanced search (in the “basic details” section) and exports.

A much requested feature–you can now export charts across the platform.

Bring your presentations and reports to life with simple png image exports. These are compatible with all major presentation software packages such as PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Alternatively, you can now export the data behind the chart to .csv format for import to Excel, Google Sheets or similar. This allows you to create your own on-brand visualisations of our data, or to do further data analysis offline.

You’ll find the export options on the top right hand corner of each chart. Happy exporting!

It’s not brand new, but we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this small but powerful addition to Advanced Search!

The “Collections contained in” criteria makes it possible to run powerful searches and answer questions based on your existing collections. For example, if you have a collection of cohort companies you’ve partnered with, you could find out which of these are scaleups with the search below:

Or perhaps you’ve uploaded your portfolio companies from your CRM system to a collection, and you want to run some quick research on their fundraisings–that’s now super simple:

You could even use this feature to put together a contact list of founders–perhaps of the companies at an event:

(Note that people searches are available to subscribers with access to the Networks add on–please contact your account manager to find out more.)

Finally, this new search criteria can also be useful for preventing companies you, or your colleagues, have already contacted from cropping up again in your next search. If you have a collection set up of companies you’ve already reached out to, you can use “none of” with this new search criteria to prevent duplication in your outreach–just like this:

Try out the “Collections contained in” criteria in Advanced Search.