If privately held companies do not have to give up any detailed financial information, how do you know the information you get from a business information specialist is accurate? Good question. There is no way to prove that private company research is accurate unless the company officials actually confirm it for you. But the leading publishers of business information rely heavily on selling private company research for their own business success. If their private company research isn’t consistently accurate, no one’s going to buy it for very long. Manta subscribes to four different publishers — Dun & Bradstreet, Current Analysis, Datamonitor and Snapdata.

This means you can compare and contrast private company research from different providers. If the information is consistent across the different information providers, chances are it is probably accurate.