Last updated: June 2026
Key takeaways
- No single source covers private markets; match the source to the question: ownership, pricing, or daily flow.
- For what mid-market companies sell for: GF Data (US, by size and sector), the Argos Index (Europe, free), Lincoln MMI (trend).
- PitchBook maps who owns what; Mergermarket reports deals before they close.
- Daily deal flow is free if something classifies it; the trade wires plus an AI filter cover most of what a dealmaker needs.
How we chose
Private-market data is fragmented on purpose: the parties to a deal rarely want it public. So the useful question is not which database is biggest, but which source answers which question: what companies sell for, who is buying, and what is happening this week. We use most of what follows in our own work, and we built the last entry because nothing free did its job.
Quick reference
| Source | Answers | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| PitchBook | Who owns what, fund activity, valuations | Subscription |
| Mergermarket | Deal intelligence and forward pipeline | Subscription |
| GF Data | What mid-market companies actually sell for | Subscription |
| Argos Index | European mid-market multiples, quarterly | Free |
| Lincoln MMI | Private-company value trend over time | Free (published) |
| PE Hub and trade wires | Daily deal announcements | Free |
| LPG Market desk | Classified daily deal flow plus the brief | Free |
The institutional platforms
PitchBookOwnership and fund mapping
PitchBook remains the default map of private capital: who owns what, which funds are deploying, and how valuations have moved across rounds and buyouts. If you need to know a sponsor's portfolio before a call, this is where the industry looks.
Limitations: mid-market coverage thins outside North America and Western Europe, and undisclosed deal values are estimates, labeled as such but still estimates.
MergermarketDeal intelligence
Mergermarket's journalists report deals before they close and processes before they launch, which makes it less a database than an intelligence service. Corporate development teams subscribe for the forward pipeline more than the archive.
Limitations: priced for institutions, and its strength, rumor-stage intelligence, demands judgment about what to act on.
The multiples benchmarks
GF DataMid-market pricing truth
GF Data collects verified terms from PE-sponsored mid-market deals ($10m to $500m of enterprise value) that the parties do not otherwise publish, which makes its multiples by size and sector the cleanest answer to what companies actually sell for. Our own valuation estimator and Multiple Report anchor to its published prints.
Limitations: quarterly, US-weighted, and the full dataset is subscription; the public prints are averages.
Argos IndexEuropean mid-market multiples
The Argos Index publishes the EV/EBITDA multiple paid for European mid-market companies every quarter, free, with a decade of history. For European owners it is the single most useful free number in the market.
Limitations: one blended number; sector and size cuts stay behind the methodology.
Lincoln MMIPrivate value trend
Lincoln's Middle Market Index tracks the enterprise value of thousands of privately held companies quarter over quarter, the closest thing the private mid-market has to a stock index.
Limitations: it describes portfolio marks more than transaction prices; read it as trend, not as your multiple.
The daily flow
PE Hub, AltAssets, Buyouts and the wiresWho bought whom, today
The trade press and the press-release wires (GlobeNewswire's M&A feed above all) remain where deals surface first in machine-readable form. Together they cover sponsor activity from megafund to lower mid-market add-ons.
Limitations: volume without classification; the signal is buried in fund closes and people moves unless something filters it.
LPG Market deskClassified daily deal flow, free
Our Market desk reads those wires daily, keeps only genuine transactions (M&A, PE, large private rounds, no small VC), classifies each by type, sector, and reported value, writes a morning brief, and saves every buyer and seller into a growing entity graph you can click into. It exists because we wanted it for our own deal work.
Limitations: it classifies public reporting; it does not see unannounced processes. For what a specific company is worth, data ends and a process begins.