Building a Proprietary Pipeline When You Can't Afford PitchBook

PitchBook, Grata, and Sourcescrub are built for tech and healthcare M&A. They won't help you find a $2M plumbing company in Charlotte. The lower middle market of boring businesses runs on public data that most buyers never systematically collect.

Free and low-cost data sources that actually work

• Google Maps / Business Profiles — the single best source for local service operators.
• State licensing boards — HVAC, plumbing, electrical often have public licensee databases.
• Secretary of state filings — LLC/Corp registrations with registered agent info.
• YellowPages and industry directories — still relevant for owner-operated trades.
• WHOIS and domain records — age, privacy protection, registrant org (when not redacted).

The hard part isn't finding the data. It's deduplicating, enriching, and keeping it fresh. A plumbing company listed on Maps, YP, and a state license database is three records that should be one.

The proprietary moat is freshness + signals

A static list decays at 15–20% per year (businesses close, rebrand, sell). A living database that re-crawls weekly and scores owner neglect gives you leads your competitors don't have — because they're still working from a CSV they bought in 2023.

When to upgrade to paid tools

After your first close, invest in: a dedicated CRM (Affinity or HubSpot), a QoE firm on retainer, and a part-time analyst to manage outreach. Before your first close, every dollar should go toward conversations with owners, not software subscriptions you won't use.