Firstfile: company data intelligence on every new UK business
Thousands of new companies are registered in the UK every week. Most of them will never buy anything from anyone. Firstfile finds the ones that will, researches them overnight, and has them waiting for you by 7am.
The problem with "new company" lists
Anyone can download the Companies House register. The trouble is what's in it. When we counted a full week of new incorporations (21 to 27 September 2026), 43% were noise: shells parked at formation-agent addresses, holding companies, SPVs and dormant vehicles that exist on paper and nowhere else. Call through a raw list and almost half your effort goes on businesses that don't exist in any useful sense.
Firstfile does that sorting for you, every day, across the whole country.
How it works
1. We read the live register. Every new UK company arrives the moment it's incorporated, straight from the Companies House stream. Not a weekly export.
2. We strike out the junk. Formation-agent and virtual office addresses, holding companies, SPVs and dormant activity codes are struck out by hard rules built on real register data. Fast, consistent, and you can see why each one went.
3. Our AI models do the legwork. Every company that survives gets read properly. Our AI models study the company and its website, work out what it really does (a SIC code only tells you so much), judge whether it's actually trading, and dig out its company email and phone number. It's like having a researcher go through the entire register every night and leave only the businesses worth calling on your desk.
4. We cross-check public registers. This is where Firstfile pulls ahead (more on this below).
5. Every lead is scored for what you sell. A new licensed restaurant is a great lead for a card machine provider and a poor one for a van leasing firm. Firstfile scores each company 0 to 99 for your profession, and our AI models write a pitch angle for each lead: a short, specific reason to get in touch, written for what you sell.
6. It's on your desk by 7am. In a fast, inbox-style dashboard, as a CSV, and in your morning email.
Company data intelligence: way beyond Companies House
Companies House is page one. We read the rest.
A register entry tells you a company's name, address and directors. Other public registers tell you what it's about to do: run vans, open a restaurant, start caring for people. Firstfile checks every new company against them and turns each match into a buying signal on the lead, which also lifts its score for the professions it matters to.
Sources in use today:
- The companies register (Companies House): every new UK company, live, with its registered office, SIC codes, and current directors and owners.
- Directors' other companies (Companies House): is the founder a serial entrepreneur? Is the company part of a group? We map each director's other active companies and each corporate owner, with links to the public record.
- New filings (Companies House): a new charge means someone has just lent the business money, and we name the lender. A strike-off notice means it's closing, so it drops out of your feed.
- Vehicle operator licences (the traffic commissioners): the company holds a licence to run goods vehicles or buses, how many vehicles, and where they're based. Gold for van leasing, fleet insurance and payroll.
- Food premises (the Food Standards Agency and every council in the UK): a café, takeaway or restaurant has registered with its council and is waiting for its first hygiene inspection. In other words, it's about to open its doors.
- Care providers (the Care Quality Commission): the company is registered to provide care, and for which activities. A strong signal for payroll, HR and insurance.
- The company's own website: does it have a site, a parked domain or nothing at all? We check every morning, and pull the company email and phone from the site when they're there.
Where a register records the company number, we match on it exactly. Where it doesn't, we need the exact business name in the same postcode district. A wrong signal is worse than a missing one, so we never guess.
And we're expanding all the time. Coming next: council business rates (who has just taken on premises), postcode and area data (distance from you and how affluent the area is), the Charity Commission, the FCA register, public contract awards, and website signals like online booking, card payments, hiring and ad spend. Every new source makes every lead sharper, at no extra cost to you.
Built for anyone who sells to new businesses
Firstfile comes with six profession "lenses". Each one decides which sectors you see, how
they're scored and what the pitch angle says:
- Accountants and bookkeepers: new companies that don't already sit at an accountant's
address.
- Insurance brokers: new businesses with real premises, vehicles, staff or customers to
insure.
- Web designers: new businesses with no website, or only a parked domain.
- Card payment and EPOS providers: new cafés, shops, salons and venues about to start taking money.
- Payroll and HR providers: new businesses in sectors that take on staff early, like care,
hospitality and the trades.
- Van and fleet leasing: new hauliers, couriers and trades with vehicles on the road.
Every plan includes every lens, so you can run as many feeds as you like.
What you get on every lead
- The company's score for your profession, from 0 to 99
- A pitch angle written for what you sell
- Buying signals from the public registers above
- Current directors' and owners' names, and the full registered office
- Directors' other companies and any group the company belongs to
- Website status, plus the company email and phone where they're published
- Outreach tracking: status, follow-up dates, notes and an activity log
- One-click CSV export
Firstfile shows company-level information and directors' names from the public register. It doesn't store dates of birth, home addresses or personal email addresses.
Pricing
Local: £19 a month plus VAT. Your own patch of postcode districts. National: £99 a month plus VAT. Every postcode district in the UK.
Both include every profession lens, and both start with a 7-day free trial. No card needed to start.
Who's behind it
Firstfile is a small, independent UK business. It runs on our own servers and rebuilds the day's leads every night, so when you sit down with your coffee, the best new businesses in your area are already there, researched, scored and ready for your first call.
Try it free for 7 days at https://firstfile.co.uk
- Daily list of new UK companies filtered to remove shells and holding companies
- Cross-checks companies against vehicle licence, CQC, and food hygiene registers
- AI models analyze company data and websites to determine business activities
