Frequently asked questions

How do you source/collect this deal information?

All information on Internet DealBook has been collected from public news sources. It has then been stored on and collated from our internal database. Whilst we aim to have an extensive data set, people should not rely on the site to be comprehensive.

How do you determine a company/deal’s “sector”?

A company/deal’s “sector” is a classification applied by Internet DealBook to represent what we deem to be the core/prime offering of the company receiving investment or being acquired. There are a number of companies that could potentially fall into more than one category, but in the interest of classification and ease of categorisation we endeavour to classify all companies into their prime sector. For all classifications we endeavour to align companies with our seven sectors:

  • Ecommerce  – businesses that sell goods or services online to either consumers or businesses
  • Games – businesses involved in the publishing of games in an online environment
  • Marketing – businesses that provide products or services to the online marketing and advertising industry (including advertising, analytics, data, marketing)
  • Media – businesses that provide information or entertainment and tend to generate revenue through advertising (including affiliates, content, local, search, social, video)
  • Mobile & Apps – businesses that solely provide mobile software and applications
  • Software & Services – businesses that provide services online, usually through a subscription or pay-per-use business model (including SaaS, software development)
  • Transactions – businesses that facilitate interactions between two or more parties (including crowd sourcing, directories, group buying, marketplaces, payment systems)
  • Hardware & Infrastructure – businesses that produce, sell, or operate hardware or physical infrastructure (including cloud computing, ISPs, hosting, mobile devices, personal computers)

How do you determine/report an investor/buyer/company’s country?

Investor/buyer/company’s countries are reported in accordance with their publicly reported head office. If that information is unavailable (sometimes the case in deals involving entrepreneurs) the founder/co-founder’s place of residence is reported. For truly global companies it can sometimes be difficult to determine their “head office”.

How are the deal values determined?

We use the the publicly reported USD value acquired via news sources. Where the deal is announced in a local foreign currency, we calculate the USD value on the announcement day using XE.