Live data on 5,527,587 owner-operated businesses across 6 English-speaking markets and 46 industries. 98.6% have no website on record, and most will never appear on BizBuySell or a broker's roster. Sources: OpenStreetMap, Companies House (UK), SBA loan records and proprietary enrichment.
Who this page is for. Acquirers, researchers and journalists citing SMB succession and off-market supply figures.
Updated July 2026. See your match on a free live map.
Key finding: 29% of mapped businesses with a known founding date (611,324 companies) have been in business 15+ years, a strong succession signal. Across those companies, the average is 11.9 years in business.
Most small businesses barely show up online, so listing-site buyers compete over a sliver of the market.
of the 5,527,587 businesses in this dataset (5,450,998 companies) have no website on record. They are found mainly through direct sourcing: local records, licensing data and enrichment. That is why off-market acquisition works, with large supply and thin competition.
Website presence is a proxy for discoverability. A business with no web footprint rarely gets inbound acquisition interest, which correlates with lower entry multiples for a proactive buyer. Source: Serava.AI database, 2026.
Across 772,672 UK companies with a known director birth date, the average director is 50.2 years old. A growing share are near retirement with no obvious successor: the "silver tsunami" expected to drive a wave of ownership transfers over the coming decade.
Director birth month and year come from UK Companies House officer and PSC records, so these shares describe UK companies with a known director birth date, not all 5,527,587 businesses. Source: Serava.AI database, 2026.
A long operating history is a strong public signal of a coming ownership change. Shares are of the 2,077,594 companies with a known founding date; companies with no known age are left out.
Cyan bars indicate the succession-ready cohort (15+ years in business). Source: Serava.AI database, 2026.
The fit score is a model estimate for sorting, not a measurement. For most companies its size input is a placeholder, and for many its age is too.
Green bars indicate high-priority targets (score 80+). Source: Serava.AI scoring model, 2026.
Count, average years in business (known ages only, each capped at 40) and average fit score for all 46tracked industries. "Top Market" is the largest state, province or region for each vertical.
| Industry | Companies | Avg Yrs in Business | Avg Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental Practices | 357,000 | 13.7 yrs | 61.1 |
| HVAC | 312,000 | 11.4 yrs | 58.1 |
| Plumbing | 246,000 | 11.4 yrs | 60.5 |
| Electrical | 238,000 | 11.6 yrs | 57.1 |
| Auto Repair | 235,000 | 13.2 yrs | 60 |
| Landscaping | 212,000 | 11.9 yrs | 58.6 |
| Construction & Building | 205,000 | 13.7 yrs | 61.4 |
| Manufacturing | 184,000 | 9.7 yrs | 64.7 |
| Janitorial / Cleaning | 151,000 | 8.3 yrs | 56.8 |
| Law & Professional Services | 145,000 | 11.3 yrs | 55.6 |
| Property Management | 127,000 | 11.1 yrs | 50.8 |
| Roofing | 118,000 | 9.9 yrs | 59.3 |
| Child Care / Daycare | 116,000 | 12 yrs | 56.6 |
| Pest Control | 106,000 | 9.4 yrs | 53.6 |
| Painting Contractor | 96,000 | 11.5 yrs | 58.3 |
| Veterinary Practices | 92,000 | 13.3 yrs | 65.5 |
| Concrete & Masonry | 91,000 | 11.8 yrs | 54.1 |
| CPA / Accounting Firms | 91,000 | 10.4 yrs | 59.7 |
| Insurance Agencies | 88,000 | 14.8 yrs | 58.8 |
| Chiropractic | 84,000 | 17.4 yrs | 63.2 |
| Pool & Spa | 82,000 | 9.6 yrs | 60.2 |
| Physical Therapy | 73,000 | 9.8 yrs | 60.3 |
| MSP / IT Services | 72,000 | 9.6 yrs | 65.3 |
| Security Systems | 68,000 | 9.9 yrs | 53 |
| Software & IT Services | 65,000 | 11 yrs | 46.7 |
| Behavioral Health | 64,000 | 9.3 yrs | 65.3 |
| Transport & Logistics | 58,000 | 10.1 yrs | 58.8 |
| Home Health / Hospice | 52,000 | 19.1 yrs | 66.9 |
| Engineering Consulting | 47,000 | 11.1 yrs | 54.7 |
| Facility Management | 44,000 | 15.7 yrs | 47.5 |
| Healthcare Facilities | 44,000 | 13.4 yrs | 57.6 |
| Collision Repair | 43,000 | 15.7 yrs | 57 |
| Energy Services | 42,000 | 11.2 yrs | 69.3 |
| Optometry / Eye Care | 41,000 | 15.8 yrs | 65.5 |
| RIA / Financial Advisory | 38,000 | 7.5 yrs | 62.6 |
| Staffing & HR Services | 34,000 | 12.1 yrs | 52.2 |
| Self-Storage | 31,000 | Not known | 58.4 |
| Independent Pharmacy | 29,000 | 13.4 yrs | 63.5 |
| Aged Care | 26,000 | 12.7 yrs | 54.4 |
| Car Washes | 24,000 | 19.2 yrs | 56.9 |
| Urgent Care Clinics | 22,000 | Not known | 68.1 |
| Restaurants & Bars | 20,000 | 9.1 yrs* | 59 |
| Agriculture & Food Production | 20,000 | Not known | 59 |
| Dermatology / MedSpa | 19,000 | 12 yrs | 59.9 |
| Hearing Care / Audiology | 18,000 | Not known | 65.1 |
| Funeral Homes | 17,000 | 9.9 yrs | 60.1 |
* Restaurant ages come from Texas TABC liquor licence years (licensed since), so they are a lower bound.
Data sources: OpenStreetMap (OSM) business listings, Companies House UK bulk CSV (active companies incorporated 3+ years ago), SBA 7(a) and 504 loan records (FOIA public data), and proprietary enrichment via Diffbot, Yelp Fusion, and Wikidata SPARQL.
Deduplication: A normalized name + location index (0.01 degree precision). Toll-free numbers are excluded from phone dedup to avoid false franchise matches.
Acquisition fit score: Computed per mandate from years in business, revenue profile, rating and review count, and recurring revenue indicators. The same company may score differently across mandates. The fit score is a model estimate for sorting, not a measurement. For most companies its size input is a placeholder, and for many its age is too.
Succession readiness: 15+ known years in business, as a share of companies with a known age. It is a proxy for a coming ownership change, not a sign that any specific business is for sale.
Years in business: The average of known years in business. Companies with no known age are left out. Industry averages cap each age at 40 years and need at least 100 known ages; otherwise they show as not known. Restaurant ages come from Texas TABC liquor licence years, so they are a lower bound. No source here carries owner tenure.
Off-market share:A business counts as "off-market" when it has no website on record, the best available proxy for whether online buyers and listing platforms can find it.
UK director age: From the director birth month and year in UK Companies House officer and PSC records. Age figures describe UK companies with a known director birth date only.
Update frequency: The database is refreshed via automated Overpass API scraping on a bi-weekly cycle.
Serava.AI. (2026). 2026 State of SMB Acquisitions Report. Live data report. Retrieved from https://serava.ai/report
For press inquiries or data licensing: sadra@serava.ai
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Per-industry numbers are in the ownership & succession data hub, free to cite.