CERVED GROUP SPA

Their core work

Cerved is Italy's leading business information and credit risk management company, providing commercial data, analytics, and credit ratings on millions of European companies. In H2020 projects, they contributed proprietary business registry data, company graph databases, and data integration expertise to build pan-European data marketplaces and business intelligence platforms. Their core value lies in transforming raw corporate and financial data into structured, queryable products that support economic analysis and procurement transparency.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Cerved's H2020 involvement (2015–2020) shows a coherent progression from general data marketplace concepts toward more targeted applications of business data. The early project (proDataMarket) explored broad data-driven business models, while later projects narrowed to specific use cases: mapping European business relationships (euBusinessGraph) and enabling public procurement transparency (TheyBuyForYou). The trajectory moves from "how do we trade data" to "how do we use linked business data to solve specific economic problems."

Cerved is moving toward applied data products that connect company registries with public sector data (procurement, economic indicators), suggesting future interest in open data integration and transparency-driven platforms.

How they like to work

Cerved operates exclusively as a participant, never as a coordinator, contributing domain data and commercial expertise rather than driving project governance. With 22 unique partners across 7 countries in just 3 projects, they work in medium-to-large consortia and show no sign of repeated partner loyalty — indicating they are comfortable joining new teams where their data assets are needed. They function as a data provider and domain expert rather than a research driver.

Cerved has collaborated with 22 distinct partners across 7 European countries, building a moderately broad network for a 3-project portfolio. Their partnerships span academic institutions, technology companies, and public sector data providers across Western and Northern Europe.

What sets them apart

Cerved brings something most research organizations cannot: a live, commercial-grade database covering millions of European companies with financial data, ownership structures, and credit ratings. This makes them an irreplaceable partner for any project that needs real business entity data rather than synthetic or scraped datasets. For consortium builders, Cerved offers immediate access to proprietary data that would otherwise take years and significant budget to assemble.

Highlights from their portfolio

• proDataMarket
  Largest EC contribution (€285,688) and the earliest project, establishing Cerved's role as a data marketplace participant in the H2020 ecosystem.
• TheyBuyForYou
  Most applied of the three projects, directly linking business data to public procurement for economic development — closest to Cerved's commercial offering.
• euBusinessGraph
  Focused on building a pan-European business entity graph, directly aligned with Cerved's core competency in company registry data.