Multi-Sector Holdings Data: Institutional Positions, Ownership Chains and Utility-Scale Energy Inputs · Head-to-head
OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database vs WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker
Which multi-sector holdings data: institutional positions, ownership chains and utility-scale energy inputs data fits your job: OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database, or WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database
WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database | WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker |
|---|---|---|
name | Registered legal name of the company exactly as the source register reports it. | not in this set |
company_number | Identifier assigned to the company by its own company register - the natural join key within a jurisdiction. | not in this set |
jurisdiction_code | Registering jurisdiction: an ISO country code, or an underscored ISO 3166-2 code for sub-national registries such as individual US states. | not in this set |
incorporation_date / dissolution_date | Dates the company was incorporated and, where applicable, dissolved. | not in this set |
company_type | Legal form as defined by the company register itself. | not in this set |
current_status / inactive | The registry's own status description plus a normalized boolean flag that maps dissolved, removed and liquidated statuses onto one comparable value. | not in this set |
registered_address | Structured registered address object (street_address, locality, region, postal_code, country) plus a registered_address_in_full one-string form. | not in this set |
previous_names[] / alternative_names[] | Prior and alternative names with start_date, end_date and type. | not in this set |
identifiers[] | Other official identifiers held for the company, each with uid, identifier_system_code and identifier_system_name. | not in this set |
industry_codes[] | Industry classifications in native or mapped code schemes. | not in this set |
corporate_groupings[] | Named corporate groups the company belongs to - the fast route from brand to group. | not in this set |
controlling_entity / ultimate_controlling_company | Reported parent and control relationships for the company where the register or a control statement provides them. | not in this set |
Coverage, side by side
| OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database | WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | Global - over 140 government registries including all 50 US states, Canadian provinces and UAE emirates | US-listed securities held by 13F filers headquartered anywhere in the world |
| Temporal | Continuously refreshed from registries; each company's history starts at its own incorporation date | 13F holdings Q1 2001 to present; Form 4 and 13D/G roughly 2006 to present; fund/ETF constituents since 2019 |
| Granularity | Per-company record with officer-, filing-, statement- and datum-level detail | Filer x security x quarter, aggregating up to fund, stock and combined-holdings views |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| OpenCorporates - World's Largest Open Legal-Entity Database | WhaleWisdom - Hedge Fund and Institutional Holdings Tracker | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | OpenCorporates Ltd | WhaleWisdom |
| Subject lens | Legal-entity registry aggregation: companies, officers and corporate groupings standardized across official government registers | SEC-disclosure analytics: institutional and hedge-fund positions rebuilt from 13F, Form 4 and 13D/G filings |
| What one row is | One registered company, with nested officers, filings, statements and provenance-tracked data items | One filer's position in one security for one quarter, with prior-quarter comparison columns |
| Geographic coverage | Global - over 140 government registries including all 50 US states, Canadian provinces and UAE emirates | US-listed securities held by 13F filers headquartered anywhere in the world |
| Temporal reach | Continuously refreshed from registries; each company's history starts at its own incorporation date | 13F holdings Q1 2001 to present; Form 4 and 13D/G roughly 2006 to present; fund/ETF constituents since 2019 |
| Finest granularity | Per-company record with officer-, filing-, statement- and datum-level detail | Filer x security x quarter, aggregating up to fund, stock and combined-holdings views |
| Documented fields | 17 documented fields, definitions verified | 14 documented fields, definitions verified |
| Formats delivered | JSON or XML responses plus CSV bulk delivery | JSON and CSV responses, HTML reports, Excel exports and emailed CSV extracts |
| Known bias posture | Mirrors whatever each register publishes, with placeholders marking gaps honestly | Explicitly no survivorship bias - delisted securities and defunct funds retained |
| Rubric rating | 8 out of 10 (catalog average 7.81 across 1,744 datasets) | 7 out of 10 (catalog average 7.81 across 1,744 datasets) |
| Best for | Resolving who any company legally is - identity, structure, people, provenance | Tracking who owns what on US exchanges - positions, changes, replication |
Where they're equivalent
More than the identity-versus-ownership split implies.
- Both are aggregation plays, not originators - each repackages authoritative primary material (government registries; SEC filings) into one queryable store rather than publishing its own observations.
- Both keep provenance attached: OpenCorporates cites the registering authority per datum, WhaleWisdom cites the SEC filing per position - attribution travels with the row either way.
- Both are hybrid-delivery records combining interactive search surfaces with programmatic feeds and bulk extracts for larger pulls.
- Both dictionaries are fully verified, every definition checked rather than inferred.
- Both cover the whole market they describe: all registered companies the registries expose; all SEC 13F filers each quarter - neither samples a subset.
- Neither substitutes for the other: a registry row says nothing about who holds the stock, and a 13F row says nothing about whether the issuer is dissolved, renamed or owned through a Cayman chain. Any workflow wanting both buys both capabilities.
Fair questions
Is the OpenCorporates legal-entity database better than the WhaleWisdom holdings tracker?
They answer different questions about the same economy. OpenCorporates resolves who a company legally is: name, number, status, officers and beneficial owners across 140+ official registries, 200 million companies strong. WhaleWisdom resolves who owns what: every SEC 13F filer's quarterly positions since 2001, plus Form 4 insider trades. Scores: 8 versus 7 out of 10.
Do the two field dictionaries overlap?
Only at the spine - four shared roles out of seventeen versus fourteen fields. Both carry a name, an address block, a classification and a source citation with timestamps. Beyond that they diverge: OpenCorporates documents registry identity (jurisdiction code, identifiers, groupings, beneficial owners); WhaleWisdom documents position economics (shares, market values, portfolio percentages, change).
Which archive reaches further back?
WhaleWisdom runs deeper on time: 13F holdings from Q1 2001 to present, Form 4 insider trades and 13D/G activity from roughly 2006, fund constituents since 2019, with delisted securities retained - no survivorship bias. OpenCorporates has no fixed start; each company's record begins at its own incorporation date.
Can the two be joined?
Yes, through the issuer as the hinge. WhaleWisdom gives ticker, security name and sector per position; resolve issuers onto OpenCorporates rows via jurisdiction_code plus company_number or identifiers like gb_vat, and each position gains a registered entity behind it. There is no shared primary key, so plan the resolution step.
Can I get both records from Datadory?
Yes - sample both, pick by fit, or take both in one feed. Each arrives normalized to its documented field dictionary with sample rows attached for validation, delivered on one schedule - daily, weekly, or hourly - your call - next to the rest of the multi-sector holdings catalog.