D&B Hoovers was founded by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain in 1990Solomon, Steve.
The Dynamic Duo
" '' Inc.''. October 15, 1997. Retrieved on April 7, 2014. as an American business research company that provided information on companies and industries through their primary product platform named "Hoover's". In 2003, it was acquired by

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financia ...

and operated for a time as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2017, the Hoover's product was re-branded D&B Hoovers.

is headquartered in

Short Hills, New Jersey Short Hills is an unincorporated community located within Millburn Township, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a popular commuter town for residents who work in New York City. As of the 2020 United States Census, the CDP's pop ...

, US. D&B Hoovers has sales, marketing and development resources in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, US.

Origins and expansion

Hoovers was started in 1990 by Gary Hoover, Patrick J. Spain, Alan Chai, and Alta Campbell. Leading up to this, Hoover had founded the Bookstop book store chain, ultimately purchase by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 ...

. itation neededHoover's initially was called The Reference Press as it published reference books about companies. The company grew rapidly under a business team led by Spain. This team iincluded Carl Shepherd, Lynn Atchison, Elisabeth DeMarse, Jani Spede, Kris Rao, and Gordon Anderson, among others. Spain was CEO from 1993 to 2001, and chairman from 1994 to 2002. Hoovers made an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange in 1999. The company then became a subsidiary of

, which bought Hoover's for $119 million in 2003. After the acquisition of Avention by

in 2017, the D&B Hoovers solution was launched, and replaced the existing Hoovers' product.

Operations

maintains a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

of more than 330 million companies with 30,000 global data sources updated 5 million times per day. It combines Dun & Bradstreet's data with Avention's sales acceleration platform. Subscriptions are sold primarily to sales, marketing, and business development professionals seeking contact information for prospective customers.See, e.g., Hoover's SEC filing 10-K, 31 March 2002 The database is used for lead generation, outreach, prepping for sales calls, researching companies, being alerted to changes in leadership, and acquiring new customers. Besides publishing information through the D&B Hoovers product, information is also distributed via data feeds and third-party licensing agreements. D&B Hoovers claims to offer proprietary business information through an online platform and integrated workflow solutions, houses data on more than 120 million business records across 1,000 industries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:DandB Hoovers Online databases American companies established in 1990 Companies based in Austin, Texas Dun & Bradstreet 1999 initial public offerings 2003 mergers and acquisitions

Origins and expansion

Operations

See also

References