The most-cited number in American mid-market commerce comes from the National Center for the Middle Market at Ohio State: roughly 200,000 companies with $10M–$1B in revenue, producing a third of private-sector GDP. It anchors bank decks, PE fund theses and countless LinkedIn posts. It is also, methodologically, an estimate calibrated from surveys — so we ran the obvious test: count them.
“There are nearly 200,000 U.S. middle market businesses with revenues between $10M and $1B, accounting for one-third of private sector GDP.”
— National Center for the Middle Market (Ohio State); repeated by Capstone Partners and most mid-market M&A literature
Confirmed — from the bottom up. Our dataset counts 186,304 U.S. companies with $10M–$300M in estimated revenue, one by one. NCMM's definition runs to $1B; adding the $300M–$1B tail (a thin slice of the pyramid) closes most of the remaining gap to 200,000. Two completely different methods — their survey calibration, our company-level count — land within a few percent of each other. The number holds.
Why a confirmation matters more than a takedown
Data checking is not contrarianism. When two independent methods agree, you can finally trust the number enough to build on it — fund models, territory plans, market-entry cases. When we test a claim and it survives, we say so. (When it doesn't, we say that too — see our family-business survival piece.)
Source: Veltria dataset, 756,757 companies, computed 2026-07-02.
The part the survey can't give you
NCMM's work tells you the middle market exists and how executives feel about it. It cannot tell you which 186,304 companies they are — their names, domains, industries, headcounts and locations. That roster is the difference between quoting the market and working it.
The full U.S. $10M+ roster — every company behind this data check, as a CSV.
Get this data →
