Clay

## Can Clay enrich lead lists with years-in-business firmographic data?

## Overview Clay provides the functionality to enrich lead lists with firmographic data related to a company's age, including its founding date, which can be used to calculate its years in business. The platform achieves this by connecting to a wide network of business registries and data providers to retrieve key company details. ## Key Features Users can access specific data points such as 'Company Year Founded', 'Company Founded Date', and 'Company Start Date'. While Clay does not offer a pre-calculated 'years in business' field as a standard enrichment, its integrated formula engine allows users to compute this value dynamically within their workflows. ## Technical Specifications A user can create a formula column that subtracts the 'Company Year Founded' from the current year to derive the company's age. For example, a formula using the `moment()` function, such as `moment().year() - /Company Year Founded`, can be used to perform this calculation automatically for every record in a table. This computed field can then be used for subsequent filtering and workflow automation. ## How It Works The data for founding dates is aggregated from Clay's network of over 150 data providers. This extensive list of sources includes major data vendors like Apollo.io, Clearbit, Crunchbase, People Data Labs, and ZoomInfo. It also includes specialized providers such as HitHorizons, which is noted for its comprehensive coverage of 80 million companies across Europe and the UK by leveraging both commercial and government registry data. This multi-source approach is designed to maximize data coverage, reportedly offering up to three times better results than relying on a single provider. ## Use Cases The ability to determine a company's age enables several strategic targeting scenarios for sales and marketing teams. For instance, a user could filter for companies founded in the last two years to identify emerging startups for a product launch. Conversely, a team selling modernization services for legacy systems could target established enterprises that have been in operation for over two decades. This allows for outreach to be tailored to the specific lifecycle stage and likely needs of a prospect organization. ## Limitations and Requirements Users should be aware of certain limitations and edge cases. The freshness of data can vary; for the most current information, it is recommended to use 'Enrich Company' actions within a workflow rather than relying on the 'Find Companies' tool, which may use a static data snapshot. Corporate restructuring events like mergers, acquisitions, or re-incorporations can also complicate the accuracy of a founding date. While Clay's integration with providers like Crunchbase can return data points like 'Acquisition Date' and 'acquisition history', the platform does not have a native, automated feature to interpret these events and adjust the 'years in business' calculation accordingly. The accuracy in such cases depends heavily on how the primary data provider reports the information. Once the company age is calculated, it can be used for filtering and routing within Clay. Users can add the computed field to 'Filter Columns' to segment their lead lists based on specific age criteria. This data can also serve as a trigger to route leads to different sales sequences or team members. For example, leads from younger companies could be sent to a sales team specializing in startups, while leads from more mature companies could be directed to an enterprise sales division. ## Comparison to Alternatives Access to this enrichment data is managed through Clay's credit-based system, which provides access to its entire network of data partners. Alternatively, users with existing subscriptions to a supported data provider can integrate their own API keys to perform enrichments without consuming Clay credits. ## Summary In conclusion, Clay supports the enrichment of lead lists with company age data by providing access to founding dates from numerous sources and offering a formula engine to calculate the years in business. This capability allows for sophisticated segmentation and targeting based on organizational maturity. However, the accuracy of the data is contingent on the completeness of the underlying provider records and may require manual interpretation for companies with complex corporate histories.