Data & methodology
What is in this dataset, where it came from, and the ways in which it is incomplete. Stated plainly, because a rendered map reads as more settled than a hand-curated seed actually is.
What it covers
- Firms
- 40
- Companies
- 175
- Still held
- 96
- Exited
- 79
- Period
- 1989 to 2025
- Most recent record
- August 2025
- Geography
- United States and Canada
- Industries
- 11
How records are built
Each record names a company, the firm that acquired it, the month of acquisition, an industry and sub-industry, and where known the deal value, the stake taken, and the month and manner of exit. Nothing ships without an acquisition date and at least one source URL. A record whose date cannot be established is held back rather than drawn at an approximate depth, because on this map depth is the date — a guess would be indistinguishable from a fact.
Dates are month-precision. Deal values are as reported at the time of announcement, in US dollars, unadjusted for inflation, and are frequently the number a press release chose to publish rather than an audited figure.
Confidence
Every record carries a confidence grade, assigned when it was written:
- high
- 144 records
- medium
- 27 records
- low
- 4 records
High means the date and counterparty were corroborated directly. Medium means the deal is well attested but the month may be off. Low means the record is included because the ownership is not in doubt even though the specifics are thin.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- 172
- Wikidata
- 2
- Blackstone
- 1
The distribution above is the honest state of things and the single biggest limitation of this dataset: the great majority of citations are still encyclopedia references, used as placeholders while the pipeline that replaces them with SEC filings and primary press is built. They are good enough to establish that a deal happened and roughly when. They are not good enough to quote as a primary source, and they are why every page here carries the same caveat.
What it does not cover
- Deals between two private companies, which never reach a public filing and so cannot be found systematically.
- Minority growth investments below the threshold at which they are announced.
- Firms and regions outside the United States and Canada.
- Ownership changes after the most recent record above. A company listed as still held may since have been sold.
Corrections
If a record here is wrong, it is worth telling us — a dated, sourced correction is more useful than a takedown. Every page links the source it was built from so the error can be traced.
Logos
Company and firm marks shown on the map are trademarks of their respective owners, used only to identify the company they belong to, and sourced from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. Files under a Creative Commons BY-SA licence are credited in the map’s About panel as that licence requires.
Nothing here is investment advice.