Instant access to an unprecedented database of the world’s private companies at the touch of a button, that’s the vision that Damian Kimmelman is trying to build with DueDil.

It’s been described as the “Bloomberg for private companies”, in truth Kimmelman’s aspirations are far grander.

“A lot of this information was locked up in Government agencies like Companies House [the UK’s registrar of companies], in businesses themselves, in other data providers, the banks or online,” says Kimmelman, who wants to unlock all of it.

But it’s a huge challenge.

While there are less than 100,000 publicly listed companies traded across the world’s stock markets (about which a wealth of information is available), there are a huge 5.2 million private businesses in Britain alone and data on these private companies is not easily accessible.

According to Kimmelman, even the data that is available is worthless to recruiters, salespeople and prospective company buyers without a lot of work.

On official documents most of London’s boundary-pushing financial technology (FinTech) businesses are classed as “financial intermediation not elsewhere classified” or “other business activity”.

Basically they don’t fit into the archaic existing categories that the Government uses, so they remain classed as “other”.

“How can the Government know how these businesses and the economy is doing if they can’t segment them properly?” Kimmelman asks, clearly vexed by the Government’s failure to fix a problem that DueDil has solved by scanning every single private British business’s website looking for the keyword that signify what the companies actually do.

Damian Kimmelman, CEO of DueDil

Market leading data

DueDil’s vision and market leadership in this space is already being recognised, Kimmelman himself has been awarded international entrepreneur of the year by Vince Cable and investors have put $22m into DueDil over the past five years.

The DueDil team, 80-strong in their plush library-style headquarters just off Finsbury Square, hail from over 25 different countries.

The company has embraced the London tech scene staples of free breakfast, lunch and beer in the office, as well as hosting its own Friday tech talks from outside experts who are invited in to talk to the team.

Along with flexible working hours and pilates classes on a Wednesday, DueDil’s office boasts an iPad-controlled coffee machine, the surest sign of a startup that’s hitting the big time.

Turning into a sales machine

Today much of DueDil’s hiring is focused on the next stage of the company’s development, turning DueDil into a sales machine to start selling access to their vast database, not just in Britain but around the world.

A year ago DueDil had a small two-person sales team selling their £99 a month service to business customers including Royal Mail, Stripe and private equity groups like HG Capital and Providence Equity.

Today Kimmelman won’t say exactly how big DueDil’s sales operation has grown—there’s space for more than a dozen staff or so where their team sit in the office—he says only that “they’re hitting quota” with a smile.