How to find a company's legal entity before you introduce it

How do you find a company's legal entity name?

Search the state business-entity registry where the company is incorporated, match the name against its contracts and website footer, and confirm which entity employs the staff and holds the records. The name on the brand, the name on the invoice and the name of a holding company can all differ, and an introduction should name the operating company.

Getting this right matters for two reasons. Qualification depends on the operating company's headcount and records, and attribution depends on a clean, verifiable application. This guide covers the lookups, the checks and the common mix-ups. The registry search tools themselves are run by each state, and their layouts vary, so this guide describes the approach rather than a fixed screen.

What do you need before you start?

• The brand name and website of the company.
• Any contract, invoice or terms page that names the contracting party.
• The state where the company is headquartered, and your guess at the state where it is incorporated.
• Your reason for needing the name: an introduction, a referral form entry, or both.

You do not need access to any confidential material. Everything below uses public or company-supplied information.

What is the step-by-step process?

1. Start from the footer and terms. Read the website footer, terms of service, privacy policy and invoices for phrases such as "operated by" or "a subsidiary of." These usually name the contracting entity and its state.
2. Search the headquarters state first. Use that state's secretary of state business search. Many states also have a separate corporations or division-of-corporations office; the right site varies by state.
3. Search the incorporation state. Many companies are incorporated in Delaware or another state different from where they operate. Search there too.
4. Compare results. Match the name, entity type (corporation, LLC, limited partnership), status (active, inactive, dissolved) and registered agent against what you found in step 1.
5. Check for a DBA. A "doing business as" name is a trade name filed with a state, county or city and is not a separate legal person. Find the owner of the DBA.
6. Check the parent or subsidiary. If the entity looks like a holding company, find the operating subsidiary that employs staff.
7. Confirm with the sponsor. Ask the owner, CEO, CFO or authorized representative to confirm the exact name to use.
8. Record it. Write down the legal name, state, status and date of your check.

How do you tell the operating company from a holding company?

Ask who employs the people and holds the records. The qualification baseline looks at the entity with 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) and several years of documented operations, so naming the wrong entity can make a good company look too small or a shell look large.

If you cannot tell, ask the sponsor which entity runs payroll. The guide to finding a private company's employee count helps confirm whether the operating entity meets the baseline.

What are the common mistakes?

What if the company belongs to a sponsor or has been acquired?

If a financial sponsor owns the company, the legal operating entity may sit several layers below the sponsor's name. Decide whom to approach with introducing through the sponsor or directly to the CEO. If the company was acquired, the entity that holds the records may be a different one now; see whether your referral credit survives an acquisition. For companies known to you from a confidential process, first read can you refer a company you learned about under an NDA.

Illustrative example

Illustrative, fictional: you want to introduce "Harbor Dispatch," a freight software firm. Its footer says "Harbor Dispatch is operated by HD Logistics Software, LLC." The Delaware registry shows an active LLC with that name, and the state where it operates shows a foreign registration with the same name. Job postings are issued by HD Logistics Software, LLC. A parent, "HD Holdings, Inc.," appears in the privacy policy as an affiliate. You name HD Logistics Software, LLC as the operating company and ask the CFO to confirm.

How does this feed into the introduction?

Put the confirmed legal name in the referral form, or make sure the company uses it on the application you started with your referral link at sourcex.si/apply. The introduction email builder can prepare a note that names the entity. If you are comparing how a company's records may be valued later, what data valuation means explains the concept at a high level; it is not required for the lookup.

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 cumulative per referred company, and only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. No reward is guaranteed.

Related ways to gather context

If you are building a longer list, the guides on asking clients for introductions and introducing a vendor to a client show how to approach contacts once you have the right entity. Keep a dated note of what you found, in case you are asked later how you identified the company.

Next step

Pick one company on your list, find its legal entity using the steps above, and confirm the name with its sponsor. Then register as a partner to get your referral link, and read how it works before you make the introduction.