Help: Investor Types definitions
Overview
When you’re researching investors, it isn’t always clear how each one is classified or where to find that classification. Every investor on our platform is tagged to at least one Investor Type. This means that you can find investors through their business activity with ease. An investor’s primary investor type is their main investment focus; however, investors may be tagged to other investor types as well. This article defines each Investor Type and shows where you can find them throughout the platform.
Methodology
Research process
Here at PitchBook, we depend on our teams of industry experts and data researchers to develop our data methodology. We only include information that our industry experts and data researchers have verified. PitchBook’s Data Operations team identifies the Investor Type(s) for all investors added to the platform using their business website, press releases, news articles, and government filings. Only information that has been confirmed is put on the platform. Visit PitchBook’s research process to learn more about our data collection and validation.
Investor Type definitions
Angels/Incubators
Angel Group
A group of individuals who provide both finance and business expertise to a company they invest in.
Angel (individual)
A private individual investor who provides both finance and business expertise to a company they invest in.
Accelerator/Incubator
An organization that provides services and/or funding to early-stage companies. Services provided can include office space, mentoring, and network connections, along with a capital injection.
Venture Capital
Venture Capital
An investor specializing in financing new businesses or turnaround ventures usually combines risk with the potential for high returns.
Corporate Venture Capital
A unit of a corporation specializing in investing in startups or acquiring smaller, less established companies and growing those companies so they can potentially provide value to the main corporation as a part of the company or through a sale.
Not-For-Profit Venture Capital
This primarily relates to institutions that provide grants/money to early-stage companies, and the investor’s goal is not solely a financial return. This can be tagged as a secondary type of universities and governments that are making early-stage investments.
Private Equity
PE/Buyout
An investor specializing in purchasing mainly a controlling interest in an established company (in a leveraged buyout).
Growth/Expansion
A sector of PE focuses on investing in minority stakes in already established businesses to fund growth.
Other Private Equity
Used for private equity firms that hold investments longer than the average private equity firm.
Strategic Acquirers
Corporation
A company that has no VC or PE backing but acquires, sells, or invests in other companies.
Corporate Development
A formalized internal corporate development group assumes the investment responsibilities for financial transactions, partnerships, operations, and other strategic initiatives.
PE-Backed Company
A company with active private equity investors that also makes acquisitions.
VC-Backed Company
A company with current venture capital investors that acquires other companies.
Other Investor Types
Asset Manager
A firm that manages assets across multiple asset classes and investment vehicles, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and separately managed accounts. These firms typically serve a global client base composed primarily of institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and endowments. They operate across multiple jurisdictions and offer both active and passive investment strategies, often supported by proprietary investment or risk management platforms.
Asset manager investors should be involved in direct investments, including acquiring companies, lending, and deploying capital through managed funds. Also known as money managers, investment managers, or investment advisors, asset managers play a central role in capital allocation and portfolio construction across public and private markets.
Business Development Company
A form of regulated company in the United States whose sole business purpose is to invest in small and mid-sized companies. A BDC may take the form of a public company offering shares on the open market (a listed BDC) or a non-listed private company.
Family Office
A small private company that manages investments or trusts for one or several families.
Fund of Funds
An investor with funds or a fund that takes equity positions in other funds.
Fundless Sponsor
A fundless sponsor is a group or individual seeking to identify acquisition candidates and negotiate acquisitions without having the equity financing required to complete the transaction upfront (hence, they are “fundless”). At PitchBook, we include search funds. A search fund is a group or individual that has raised a small amount of capital from investors to search for an acquisition target. They identify and negotiate a transaction with a target, and then the investors receive an option to invest in the target company, or not, as they so choose.
Government
A state body with the power to make and the authority to enforce rules and laws within a civil, corporate, religious, academic, or other organization or group. It can be a development organization, trade department, or regional development fund.
Holding Company
A firm created to buy and possess the shares of other companies, which it then controls. It exists for the sole purpose of controlling another company, which might also be a corporation, limited partnership, or limited liability company, rather than to produce its goods or services. The firm buys other companies to hold long-term or for the full life of that company.
Hedge Fund
An investment manager employs a variety of strategies to earn an active return (alpha). Primary characteristics of a hedge fund include flexibility with investments, encompassing both long and short positions, the ability to borrow money (and further increase leverage through derivatives) to enhance returns, and minimal regulation. Access to hedge funds is limited to accredited individuals and institutions, such as endowments, pension funds, and so on.
Impact Investing/Impact Investor
A firm that makes investments into companies, organizations, and funds, intending to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return.
Infrastructure
A firm that invests in infrastructure projects such as transportation, communication, sewage, water, and electric systems. These projects are vital to a country’s economic development and prosperity.
Investment Bank
A firm acting as an underwriter or an agent that serves as an intermediary between an issuer of securities and the investing public.
Leasing
An investor that specializes in fixed-term leases, usually non-cancellable and used by businesses in financing capital equipment.
Lender/Debt Provider
A firm that extends money to a borrower with the expectation of being repaid, usually with interest. Usually a bank.
Limited Partner
An investor that commits money to private equity/venture capital funds, including pensions, unions, educational institutions, endowments, and foundations. Occasionally, they invest directly on their own.
Merchant Banking Firm
Traditional merchant banks primarily perform international financing activities such as foreign corporate investing, foreign real estate investment, trade finance, and international transaction facilitation. Merchant banks tend to operate on small-scale companies and offer creative equity financing, bridge financing, mezzanine financing, and several corporate credit products.
Mezzanine
An investor that provides both equity and debt. Investments typically come in the form of subordinated debt and minority equity.
Mutual Fund
A fund raised from investors and invested in stocks, commodities, futures and options, or money market securities.
Real Estate
An investor that purchases, owns, manages, or sells real estate for profit.
SBIC (Small Business Investment Company)
A company licensed by the Small Business Administration to provide financial assistance to small businesses.
Secondary Buyer
An investor that specializes in buying an interest in an existing fund from a current investor.
Sovereign Wealth Fund
A state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and precious metals, or in alternative investments such as private equity funds or hedge funds. Sovereign wealth funds invest globally.
Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC)
Publicly traded companies that raise capital through an IPO to purchase or gain a controlling stake in a company which is then able to go public through a reverse merger without undergoing the traditional IPO process.
University
An educational institution.
Other
An investor type that does not fall into any of the other defined investor categories.
In the platform
This section shows you the major locations in the platform where this term appears. Some terms defined in the Help Center also appear in other locations that are not included here.
Profiles
You can find Investor Types in the General Information section of an investor profile.
Screeners
You can search by Investor Types in various screeners, including on the Investor Types tab of an Investors & Funds Screener or the Investors tab of a Companies & Deals Screener. Selecting Search for primary investor type only narrows your results to investors tagged primarily to one of the type(s) you’ve selected.
Search results
You can find Primary Investor Type and Other Investor Types on the Investors search results tab of an Investors & Funds Screener or a Companies & Deals Screener.
Download templates
Investor Types are available in multiple download templates, such as templates from the Investors and Funds search results tabs.
In the Excel Plugin
In the Excel Plugin, you can find Investor Type data points in the Entities section of the Formula Builder:
- Click on the + symbol next to Entities to expand the section.
- Click on the + symbol next to Investors to access the full list of formulas.
Select a Company ID as the identifier to run the formula.
You can also search for specific Investor Type formulas using the Keyword field at the top of the builder. By default, the Exact Match checkbox is selected; deselect it to broaden your results.
