Research, articles & theses
Consultants publish claims; we publish counts. Every number in these pieces is computed from the 756,757-company dataset — when a famous benchmark holds, we say so; when it doesn't, we show the distribution that breaks it.
The State of the Lower Middle Market, 2026
What 756,757 companies with $5–300M revenue actually look like — counted, not extrapolated. Our flagship thesis.
Are there really 200,000 US middle-market companies?
The most-quoted number in mid-market finance, tested bottom-up. It survives — and we can name the companies.
'Only 30% of family businesses survive the second generation'
The most successful scare statistic in private wealth, vs 3,718 family firms founded before 1900 that are still running.
The 'silver tsunami' of retiring business owners
Boomers own half of private business, says the claim. In the $5–300M market, the succession pipeline is real — and countable.
Does Germany really dominate Europe's mid-market?
The Mittelstand cliché, tested against a full count of Europe's $5–300M companies. Half of it survives.
The $200k revenue-per-employee rule
The most quoted benchmark in business, tested across ~180,000 mid-market companies. It's sector-blind.
PE owns 4% of the mid-market. Families own 14%.
The succession-wave thesis, finally quantified: family-owned businesses outnumber PE portfolio companies 3 to 1.
Where the mid-market software companies actually are
California holds a fifth of US mid-market tech, not half. The map of the other 80% is the opportunity.
The digital footprint gap: web traffic across 15 sectors
Median website traffic differs 10x between sectors. 'Every business is digital' — the medians disagree.
Seen a market claim worth testing?
Send us any statistic from a consultant deck, news article or conference keynote — we'll run it against the dataset and publish what we find, either way.
Submit a claim to test