Here at Link, we’ve been diving deep into databases over the past few months. We’re currently working on two projects that require extensive database research.
Databases are essential tools in Competitive and Market Intelligence. The choice of database depends on the information you need.
In one of the projects, we used BuiltWith, which we were already familiar with but hadn’t had the opportunity to use in a project before. The other database used was ImportGenius, which we’ve used in several projects.
It’s always interesting to discover new databases, but with experience, you start to have your favorites, the ones you know will provide the necessary data reliably.
We’re going to share this experience with you by telling you about our favorite databases, which should be the starting point for a good intelligence study.

BuiltWith – Parser that identifies technologies used on a website. It can be used, for example, to identify customers of some technology companies (hosting, e-commerce, payment gateways, advertising, CRM, etc.) | builtwith.com

ImportGenius – Database of shipping intelligence. Provides details of a company’s or sector’s imports and exports. It has data from various countries, some with more details than others. | importgenius.com

Featured Customers – Aggregator of customer lists, reviews, and testimonials. It can also be used to identify company customers but can be used to generate lead lists. | featuredcustomers.com

ProPublica Non-Profit Explorer – ProPublica project that collects data from 990 forms (mandatory financial statements for US NGOs). Very helpful when analyzing markets with a strong government presence (health, defense, security). | projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Plataforma Nacional de Transparencia de México – Mexican government data, with information from various segments, statistics, etc. | plataformadetransparencia.org.mx

Dados Abertos do governo brasileiro – Aggregator of open data from the various levels of government. There is a lot of variation between the data, but much of it can be imported and used in apps like PowerBI, Tableau, etc. | dados.gov.br

DocuBiz – Interesting for obtaining information about French companies (or subsidiaries based in France). Aggregates data from the government and other information sources in that country. | docubiz.fr

Companies House – Public information about companies and institutions in the United Kingdom. Interesting for studying players operating in that country, as the government requires many of them to disclose information on changes of directors, executive salaries paid, etc. | gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house