When to use it: An M&A advisor or PE associate starts a buy-side screen or a sell-side mandate.
Screen private companies in company_feed (industry, employees, location, founded date)
Attach owners and leadership from people_feed
Reveal work_email and mobile for outreach targets via contact endpoints
For sell-side, find strategic acquirers with similar profiles and their corp-dev leads via POST /person_role_search/
Inputs
Outputs
screening criteria
target long-list
mandate profile
owner/leadership contacts
acquirer list
corp-dev contacts
Lead recipe 2
Reach stealth-mode founders before they announce
When to use it: Weekly sourcing run, or a notable operator at a target company leaves their role.
Show the steps
Search new founder roles with POST /person_role_search/ (role_title: founder OR co-founder, person_headline: stealth, role_position_start_date in the last 90 days)
Read prior roles and education with POST /person_detail_lookup/ to score fit with the fund thesis
Fetch a personal email via POST /person_contacts_lookup/personal_emails/, since a stealth company has no domain yet
Add the founder to the fund's CRM with the source and a suggested partner
Who evaluates people search at VC/PE sourcing and research, and what they are judged on
Product manager who owns the enrichment feature: judged on what users see when they open a record
Engineering lead integrating the API: judged on response time and errors they can route on
Partnerships or data lead managing vendors: judged on cost per valid result
A selection of VC and PE research teams using Forager for people search · plus other teams on ForagerSelected teams using Forager for people search
QuruAI
VC & PE research
Expert-research platform that matches a research thesis to operators and practitioners for AI-led interviews.
Chamaeleon
VC & PE research
Early-stage venture firm that analyses companies with its own AI and quantitative engine.
Dynasty Financial Partners
Internal use
Firm that helps financial advisors build and grow independent practices.
DealSource
VC & PE research
Selected use case: company and people data for private-company profiles.
Evident
Market intelligence
Publisher of the Evident AI Index, which ranks banks, insurers and payments firms on AI maturity.
SBR2TH
Staffing firms
Selected use case: people and job-postings feeds loaded into its own data lake for AI search.
Coram
Internal use
Selected use case: mobile numbers for outbound calling.
Bitscale
GTM workflow builders
Selected use case: Forager in its contact waterfall for mobile numbers.
“Forager leads in accuracy across all regions, Forager's dual strength in accuracy and volume makes it a powerhouse for sales teams that are targeting businesses around the globe.”
ClayStefan K.Data Partnerships
800M+people
65M+companies
How to test it
Test people search on your own sample
Pull a sample. Take profiles your users looked up last week.
Run it. Use a self-serve key, or book a demo and send us the list.
Measure what your users feel. Connect rate for mobiles, bounces for emails, and whether the right person answers.
How do VC and PE research use Forager people search?
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Let dealmakers build private-company target lists, attach owners and leadership, and find best-fit buyers for sell-side mandates. Find the people who hold a role at target companies, filtered by title, seniority, department and location. This page walks through 3 workflows with the exact steps.
What does people search cost for VC and PE research?
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People search: people search 1 credit per request and people search: role details 1 credit per request, charged whether or not data comes back. 1,000 search requests use 1,000 credits: about $13 of Starter credits month to month, or about $10 on Pro with yearly billing. Self-serve plans are Starter, Growth, Pro and Scale. See plans and prices
Why do VC and PE research add people search?
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Source founders and operators without scraping profiles. Products like yours are judged on freshness and fields, which is why the cost that counts is per result that reaches the right person. Run your own sample to see what people search returns for your users before you build on it.
How do I find owners of private companies contact?
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Screen private companies in company_feed (industry, employees, location, founded date). Attach owners and leadership from people_feed.
What do I send, and what comes back?
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You send fund thesis keywords, cohort size and date window. You get back acquirer list, contact fields, corp-dev contacts and credentials, from POST /person_role_search/, as JSON.
Can we show Forager data inside our product?
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Yes, under platform terms. Self-serve plans cover internal use by your own team. Showing Forager data to your users, or passing records on, is licensed separately: talk to sales about volume and which fields your users need to see.
Am I charged when nothing is found?
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Yes. People search is charged per request, whether or not data comes back. Only mobile and email lookups are free when nothing is found, so try your inputs on a small run before you scale.
Is there a free way to try Forager?
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Yes. Create a free account at app.forager.ai: it comes with $5 in free credits and an API key, and there is no credit card to sign up. Run it on records you already know, or book a demo and send us a list: we run it and show you what we find.
How do I find stealth startup founders?
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Search new founder roles with POST /person_role_search/ (role_title: founder OR co-founder, person_headline: stealth, role_position_start_date in the last 90 days). Fetch a personal email via POST /person_contacts_lookup/personal_emails/, since a stealth company has no domain yet.
How do I know the data is right?
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The test that counts is your own: send a list of profiles you care about. We run it and show you what we find, number by number, so you can measure hit rate and connect rate yourself.
How is a people search API different from searching profiles by hand?
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Searching by hand works for a handful of accounts. A people search API filters by title, seniority, department and location across your target companies in one request, returns people your product can act on, and hands off to a contact lookup for the mobile or email.
Does Forager integrate with the tools we already use?
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Native in Clay, partner-built in Deepline and Cargo and called through the API from your own code. Everything else connects through the REST API with one API key.
Written answers are not available right now. The matching pages above still help, or book a demo and ask the team.
