LevelBusiness is a new website that contains copies of the accounts of the 2.4 million companies registered with Companies House. It is free to access and includes simple, clear, easy-to-use search and tracking tools.
It contains, in other words, the same data that we would normally pay Companies House to see. More tellingly, it contains the same data that Bureau van Dijk and ICC offer, at purchase prices ranging from a few pounds to thousands of pounds per annum.
LevelBusiness form part of the shift from data itself as a business asset to data manipulation, data sharing, and leadership in data discovery as the assets.
A few nonprofits are moving in this direction too, using their knowledge of a humanitarian emergency or an environmental disaster to create stories that supporters can follow (for example, MSF). Or to provide useful summary information on a specific situation or condition (for example Drugs for Neglected Diseases)
But there is a long tail of organisations in Europe who could develop valuable data tools building on what they know from their work on the street or in the field. LevelBusiness is showing us why; it is data manipulation, data sharing and leadership in data that counts.