Tag Archives: companies house

Company finance search tool Duedil receives further funding

Duedil, which describes itself as the world’s largest database of free company financials, has just finalised a second round of investment from Jonty Hurwitz, the founding CTO of loans firm Wonga.

Duedil is a free tool that all journalists should take a look at, as it provides a hugely valuable way to search for information on company finance, directorships and more.

Duedil’s database lists every company and director in the UK and Ireland allowing anyone to access the information for free.

It has recently added new features including alerting you to which of your LinkedIn contacts may be able to provide information on that company.

In a release, Duedil said it “has ambitious plans to revolutionise the way business information is accessed and used”.

Angel investor Hurwitz, who is investing an undisclosed sum and has a minority stake in Duedil, “has built a team and technology platform that have radically altered the short-term finance market,” the release states.

Founded in 2007 with Errol Damelin, Wonga turned over £74 million in 2009, and is growing every year.

The release states:

With an eye for the next big thing, Hurwitz sees the vast potential for business growth in big data analytics. He will bring both his technical and strategic expertise to Duedil, which he hopes will develop into the premier source of business information in the world.

Channel 4 News: Benjamin Cohen’s life torn open by Wired

Benjamin Cohen, technology editor at Channel 4 News, has blogged about the experience of being sent the latest, personalised edition of Wired magazine.

Well, personalised for some. “Opinion formers” around the UK have been sent a copy of Wired, titled “Your life torn open”, with personal information about them splashed over the front cover. Cohen was shocked by the information that they printed – and it is shocking at first. But then it is all publically available through Facebook, Twitter, Companies House and the Land Registry.

What’s shocking though is seeing all of this printed in black and white (or yellow in this case). Everything was available from Facebook, Twitter, Company House and the Land Registry but it shows the information is so readily available. It also shows how powerful these resources can be for private detectives or government agents.

Read his post in full here…

Currybet: What open government data giveth, closed state data taketh away

Government information architect Martin Belam has an interesting post about some of the limitations of the recent government data release, particularly the difficulty of – and cost associated with – cross-referencing the data with Companies House records.

Using the Guardian’s data explorer tool, you can get a comprehensive list of suppliers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could instantly cross-reference that with the records at Companies House?

I’d love to be able to get an instant snapshot of how many of these companies are large, medium or small enterprises. Over time you could use that to measure whether the intention to open up Government service tendering to wider competition was on track or not.

Full post at this link…