D&B Hoovers was founded by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain in 1990 as an American business research company that provides information on companies and industries through their primary product platform named "Hoover's". In 2003, it was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet and operated for a time as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2017, the Hoover's product was re-branded D&B Hoovers.
Origins and expansion
Hoover's was started in 1990 by Gary Hoover, Patrick J. Spain, Alan Chai and Alta Campbell. Earlier, Hoover had founded the Bookstopbook storechain and then sold it to Barnes & Noble. Hoover's initially was called The Reference Press and published reference books about companies. The company grew rapidly under a business team led by Spain that included 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. Hoover's made an initial public offering on the NASDAQ exchange in 1999. The company then became a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, which bought Hoover's for $119 million in 2003. After the acquisition of Avention by Dun & Bradstreet in 2017, the D&B Hoovers solution was launched and replaced the existing Hoover's product.
Operations
maintains a database 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 prospects. 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 offers proprietary business information through an online platform and integrated workflow solutions. The product houses data on more than 120 million business records across 1,000 industries.
