OPENCORPORATES LTD

Their core work

OpenCorporates operates the world's largest open database of corporate entity information, aggregating official company registry data from jurisdictions worldwide. In H2020 projects, they contribute their unique corporate data infrastructure to enable supply chain transparency, business graph analytics, and public procurement intelligence. Their core value lies in providing structured, machine-readable company data that other partners use to build transparency tools, detect ownership networks, and link procurement records to verified corporate identities.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

OpenCorporates' H2020 participation spans a short window (2016–2020), making dramatic shifts hard to detect. However, there is a clear progression: from supply chain visibility (ChainReact, 2016) to structured business data products (euBusinessGraph, 2017) to public procurement intelligence (TheyBuyForYou, 2018). This trajectory shows a broadening from private-sector supply chains toward public-sector data and economic governance applications.

OpenCorporates has been moving from corporate transparency toward public data ecosystems — future collaborations likely involve open data, beneficial ownership, or anti-corruption use cases.

How they like to work

OpenCorporates always participates as a partner, never as coordinator, which is consistent with their role as a specialized data provider that other consortium members build upon. With 23 unique partners across 9 countries in just 3 projects, they work in medium-to-large consortia and bring their data asset rather than project management capacity. They are a reliable specialist contributor — expect them to deliver data infrastructure and APIs, not to lead work packages on policy or dissemination.

Despite only 3 projects, OpenCorporates has built connections with 23 partners across 9 countries, reflecting the broad European consortia typical of data-intensive Innovation Actions. Their network is strongest in Northern and Western Europe.

What sets them apart

OpenCorporates holds a genuinely unique asset: no other H2020 participant offers comparable global coverage of official company registry data in open, machine-readable form. This makes them irreplaceable in any consortium that needs to verify corporate identities, map ownership structures, or link entities across datasets. If your project involves corporate transparency, beneficial ownership, or connecting public data to real companies, OpenCorporates is the de facto data partner in Europe.

Highlights from their portfolio

• euBusinessGraph
  Largest EC contribution (EUR 266,175) and most aligned with OpenCorporates' core mission of building a pan-European company data graph.
• TheyBuyForYou
  Extended corporate data into public procurement — a high-impact application linking government spending to verified company identities.