How to Search for Companies on LinkedIn: Complete 2026 Guide

Prospecting B2B companies, building an ABM strategy, or recruiting specific profiles? Knowing how to effectively search for companies on LinkedIn transforms your commercial approach. With 69 million active company pages on the platform, LinkedIn company search has become essential for identifying ideal targets, understanding their organization, and contacting the right decision-makers.

Yet most users stick to basic search bar functionality, missing out on advanced filters, Sales Navigator features, and automation methods that multiply their efficiency by 10x.

This guide shows you exactly how to search for companies on LinkedIn in 2026: from free search to Sales Navigator filters, including enrichment and automatic list export.

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Why LinkedIn company search is crucial in 2026

LinkedIn is no longer just an online resume network. It’s become the world’s most comprehensive B2B database, with real-time updated information on 69 million companies.

Concrete business impact:

According to LinkedIn, the platform generates 80% of all B2B leads from social media. Sales teams who master LinkedIn company search reduce their prospecting time by 40% on average because they directly target companies matching their ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).

Typical use cases:

For an SDR at a SaaS company: Find all French startups with 50-200 employees in fintech actively hiring (hypergrowth signal).

For an ABM marketer: Build a list of 100 target accounts in the pharmaceutical industry across Europe, identify their technologies used, then launch targeted campaigns.

For a tech recruiter: Identify companies that recently raised funds and will be hiring massively in the next 6 months.

Why LinkedIn over other sources?

LinkedIn data is updated by companies themselves and their employees. Unlike external databases that become obsolete within months, LinkedIn company pages reflect current reality: new hires, leadership changes, geographic expansions.

This data freshness makes LinkedIn a true business intelligence tool, not just a social network.

How LinkedIn company search works

LinkedIn offers three levels of company search, each with its own capabilities and limitations.

The 3 search levels

1. Free search (standard LinkedIn)

Available to all LinkedIn users, free search allows finding company pages by name, industry, and location. It displays up to 100 results maximum per search.

Strengths: Free, easy access, sufficient for occasional searches.

Limits: Basic filters only, no native export, 100 result limitation.

2. Sales Navigator (paid subscription)

LinkedIn’s premium tool for sales teams offers 30+ advanced filters: precise company size, growth signals, technologies used, recent activity.

Strengths: Very precise filters, automatic alerts on changes, CRM integration.

Limits: High cost ($80-150/month per user), still no native export.

3. Automation via third-party tools

Tools like Derrick allow automatically importing company lists from LinkedIn or Sales Navigator, then enriching them with additional data (emails, phones, technologies).

Strengths: Massive time savings, automatic enrichment, export to CRM/Google Sheets.

Limits: Requires external tool (but often cheaper than Sales Navigator).

Understanding search filters

The power of LinkedIn company search lies in filter combination. The more precise criteria you stack, the more qualified your list becomes.

Concrete example:

Marie, Head of Sales at an HR management SaaS startup, is looking for companies to prospect. She can’t contact all French companies. So she combines:

• Industry: Professional services, Consulting, Tech
• Size: 100-500 employees (her solution isn’t suited for small businesses or large enterprises)
• Location: Île-de-France region
• Activity signal: Companies currently hiring (growth indicator)

Result: a list of 80 ultra-qualified companies, instead of 10,000 off-target companies.

Step 1: Do a free LinkedIn company search

Free search is the starting point for all users. Here’s how to use it effectively.

Access company search

1. Log in to LinkedIn
2. In the search bar at the top of the page, type a company name OR an industry (e.g., “fintech”)
3. Click the “Companies” tab to filter only company pages

Expected result: You see a list of company pages matching your search.

Use basic filters

Free LinkedIn offers 4 main filters:

1. Location

Click “Location” in the left sidebar. You can filter by:

• Region (e.g., Île-de-France)
• Country (e.g., France)
• City (e.g., Paris)

Tip: If prospecting internationally, select multiple regions. LinkedIn accepts multiple filters.

2. Industry

The “Industry” filter displays LinkedIn categories (140+ industries available). Examples:

• Financial Services
• Software and IT Services
• Marketing and Advertising
• Management Consulting

Note: Companies choose their own industry when creating their page. A fintech startup might declare itself in “Financial Services” or “Software.”

3. Company size

LinkedIn offers 7 ranges:

• 1-10 employees
• 11-50 employees
• 51-200 employees
• 201-500 employees
• 501-1,000 employees
• 1,001-5,000 employees
• 5,001-10,000 employees
• 10,001+ employees

Important point: This data comes from employee count declared on the LinkedIn company page. It may not be current if the company doesn’t regularly update their page.

4. Followers

Filter companies by number of people following their LinkedIn page. Useful for identifying the most active and visible companies on LinkedIn.

Expected result: After applying 2-3 filters, you get a much more targeted company list.

Analyze a company page

Once you’ve found an interesting company, click its name to access the full page.

Information available on a company page:

• Header: Name, logo, industry, size, headquarters
• About: Company description, website, founding date, specialties
• Employees: Number of employees on LinkedIn, ability to see list (depending on your connections)
• Updates: Posts published by the company
• Jobs: Open positions (growth signal)
• Products and services: If the company activated this section

Qualification tip: If a company posts job openings, it’s an excellent opportunity signal. Hiring = growing = investing = has budget.

Step 2: Use Sales Navigator for advanced searches

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium tool for sales professionals. It multiplies your search capabilities by 10x.

Access Account search in Sales Navigator

1. Log in to LinkedIn Sales Navigator
2. Click “Search” in main menu
3. Select “Account search” (= company search)

Expected result: You access a search interface with 16+ dedicated company filters.

Essential advanced filters

Sales Navigator offers filters that free search doesn’t have. Here are the most powerful for qualifying your targets.

Company qualification filters

Company Headcount Growth

Unlike free search, Sales Navigator displays more precise ranges AND allows filtering by employee count growth.

Example: Find all companies that increased their workforce by more than 20% in 12 months. This is a hypergrowth signal = available budget.

Multiple industries

You can select multiple industries in a single filter. Practical for targeting adjacent markets.

Example: An HR software vendor can target both “Human Resources,” “Management Consulting,” and “Professional Services.”

Company Headquarters location

Filter by continent, country, region, city, or even postal code. Much more precise than free search.

Technologies used

This is one of Sales Navigator’s most powerful filters. Identify companies by their tech stack.

Filterable technology examples:

• CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive
• Marketing automation: Marketo, Pardot
• E-commerce: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento
• Hosting: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure

Use case: A Shopify specialized agency can target only companies using Shopify and ignore Salesforce or Pipedrive.

Annual Revenue

Filter companies by annual revenue (data available for public or declared companies).

Available ranges:

• Less than $1M
• $1M – $10M
• $10M – $50M
• $50M – $100M
• $100M – $500M
• $500M – $1B
• Over $1B

Opportunity signal filters

Changed jobs in the past 90 days (Spotlight)

Identify companies whose key employees (management, leadership) recently changed. Often means reorganization = budget to redeploy.

Posted on LinkedIn recently

Active companies on LinkedIn are generally more mature in their digital approach. They’re also more likely to respond to LinkedIn outreach.

Hiring on LinkedIn

This filter displays only companies with active job postings. Ultra-qualifying signal.

Example: Thomas, SDR at a recruitment tool, only targets companies actively hiring. His pitch is immediately relevant.

Combine multiple filters for ultra-qualified lists

The real power of Sales Navigator is filter stacking.

Multi-filter search example:

Objective: Find French tech scale-ups in strong growth.

Applied filters:

• Industry: Software, SaaS, IT Services
• Headquarters location: France
• Size: 50-200 employees
• Headcount growth: +20% in 12 months
• Technologies: Uses Salesforce OR HubSpot
• Job postings: Yes

Expected result: A list of 40-60 ultra-qualified companies, all in strong growth, with confirmed tech budget (Salesforce/HubSpot), and hiring.

Step 3: Export and enrich your company lists

Finding companies is good. Being able to export their data and automatically enrich them is better.

The native LinkedIn export problem

Neither free LinkedIn nor Sales Navigator natively allow exporting a company list to CSV or Excel format.

Why this is problematic:

An SDR who finds 150 target companies on Sales Navigator must:

1. Manually copy-paste each company name into a Google Sheet
2. Manually search each company’s website
3. Manually find key contacts for each company
4. Search their emails and phones one by one

Time required: About 5 minutes per company = 12.5 hours for 150 companies.

This is where automation tools come in.

Use Derrick to import LinkedIn companies

Derrick works natively in Google Sheets and automates the entire import and enrichment process.

Method 1: Import from Sales Navigator in 1 click

1. Do your company search in Sales Navigator with your filters
2. Copy the results page URL
3. In Google Sheets with Derrick, use “Import List of LinkedIn Companies (Sales Navigator)”
4. Paste the URL
5. Derrick automatically imports all companies (no 100 result limit)

Expected result: In minutes, you have a Google Sheet with all your target companies.

Method 2: Search companies by name

If you already have a list of company names (from your CRM, external list, etc.), Derrick can automatically find their LinkedIn pages.

1. List company names in a Google Sheets column
2. Use Derrick’s “LinkedIn Company Finder” function
3. Derrick searches and finds each company’s LinkedIn URL

Use case: You have a list of 200 existing clients in your CRM. You want to enrich this list with their LinkedIn data to identify upsell opportunities.

Method 3: Find company from email or contact

Have contacts (emails, personal LinkedIn profiles) but not company pages? Derrick can trace back to the company.

Use the workflow: Find LinkedIn Company URL by Company Contact Email

Process:

1. You have a list of professional emails
2. Derrick identifies the domain (e.g., contact@company.com → company.com)
3. Derrick finds the LinkedIn company page linked to this domain
4. Derrick enriches with 50+ company attributes

Expected result: From a simple email list, you get a complete company database.

Automatically enrich company data

Once your companies are imported, Derrick can enrich them with 50+ attributes per company:

Firmographic data:

• Full company name
• Industry
• Size (employee count)
• Headquarters (complete address)
• Founded date
• Website
• Social accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Contact data:

• Generic company email
• Main phone number

Marketing data:

• Company description
• Business specialties
• LinkedIn follower count
• Recent activity

Technical data (if available):

• Technologies used (via Website Tech Lookup)
• Web traffic (via SimilarWeb Insights)
• Customer reviews (via G2 Company Insights)

All this in a single Google Sheet, automatically.

Common mistakes (and how to fix them)

Even advanced users make mistakes in their LinkedIn company searches. Here are the most common and how to avoid them.

Problem 1: Results too broad (several thousand companies)

Symptom: You launch a search and get 5,000+ results. Impossible to process everything.

Impact: Time wasted manually sorting, risk of prospecting off-target companies.

Solution: Add additional qualification filters.

Before (too broad):

• Industry: Technology
• Location: France

→ Result: 4,800 companies

After (qualified):

• Industry: Technology
• Location: Île-de-France
• Size: 50-200 employees
• Signal: Companies hiring

→ Result: 120 companies (manageable and qualified)

Problem 2: Outdated company data

Symptom: You find companies on LinkedIn, but when you contact them, some have closed, changed names, or no longer exist.

Impact: High bounce rate, lost credibility with prospects.

Solution: Check recent activity signals.

How to do it:

• Check if the company recently published content (“Updates” tab)
• Verify if they have active job postings
• Check their website (link is on LinkedIn page)

Sales Navigator tip: Use “Posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days” filter to ensure company is active.

Problem 3: Can’t find a specific company

Symptom: You know a company exists, but it doesn’t appear in your LinkedIn search results.

Impact: You miss important prospects.

Step-by-step solution:

1. Check spelling: LinkedIn is case and accent sensitive. Try different variations (with/without hyphens, accents, etc.)
2. Search via Google: Type in Google: "Company name" site:linkedin.com/company Example: "Derrick App" site:linkedin.com/company
3. Use company domain: If you know the website, search company employees via people search, then click the company name in their profile.
4. The company may not have a LinkedIn page: Not all companies create a LinkedIn page. In this case, search founders/executives and look at their work experience.

Problem 4: Sales Navigator filters return no results

Symptom: You stack 5-6 filters in Sales Navigator and suddenly: 0 results.

Impact: Frustration, impression that Sales Navigator doesn’t work.

Solution: Remove filters one by one to identify which one is blocking.

Debug method:

1. Start with minimum filters (industry + location)
2. Add one filter at a time
3. Note when results drop to zero
4. This filter is too restrictive: broaden it or remove it

Example: You’re looking for tech companies with 50-100 employees in Brittany using Salesforce AND that raised funds in 2026. There may simply not be any. Expand to all of France or remove the fundraising criterion.

Problem 5: Can’t export company list

Symptom: You found 200 perfect companies, but LinkedIn/Sales Navigator doesn’t offer an “Export” button.

Impact: Time-consuming manual copying, error risk.

Solution: Use an export tool like Derrick.

Process with Derrick:

1. Do your search in Sales Navigator
2. Copy the results page URL
3. In Google Sheets, use Derrick “Import List of LinkedIn Companies”
4. Paste URL
5. Derrick automatically exports all companies with their data

Alternative if you don’t have Sales Navigator:

If using free LinkedIn search, note company names in a Google Sheet, then use Derrick “LinkedIn Company Finder” to automatically retrieve their pages and enrich data.

Best practices: optimize your LinkedIn company search

Now that you’ve mastered the basics, here are advanced techniques used by top salespeople and recruiters.

1. Create segmented company lists

Don’t make just one big list of 1,000 companies. Segment by homogeneous criteria.

Segmentation example:

An HR software vendor creates 4 distinct lists:

• List A: Tech scale-ups 100-500 employees (premium segment)
• List B: SMBs 50-100 employees all industries (standard segment)
• List C: Companies already using identified competitor (switch segment)
• List D: Companies hiring massively (urgent segment)

Why segment?

Each segment requires a different pitch. A 300-person tech scale-up doesn’t have the same challenges as a 50-employee SMB.

2. Monitor timing signals

The best salespeople don’t prospect randomly. They wait for the right moment.

Positive timing signals:

• Recent fundraising
• Massive hiring (5+ active job postings)
• New executive appointed (CEO, CMO, CTO change)
• Geographic expansion (new office opening)
• News mention (growth, acquisition, partnership)

How to detect these signals on LinkedIn?

• Sales Navigator filters: “Changed jobs”, “Hiring on LinkedIn”, “Mentioned in the news”
• Follow target company pages to receive their updates
• Set up Google alerts: "Company name" funding OR acquisition OR expansion

3. Combine company search + contact search

Don’t stop at the company list. Identify the right people to contact.

Complete process:

1. Find your target companies with Sales Navigator or Derrick
2. For each company, identify decision-makers:
   • Use LinkedIn people search
   • Filter by company + job title (e.g., “VP Sales”, “Head of HR”)
3. Enrich contacts with their emails/phones (Derrick Email Finder, Phone Finder)
4. Launch your prospecting with ultra-personalized message

Concrete example:

Sophie, SDR at a project management tool, targets tech scale-ups. Her workflow:

1. Sales Navigator search: 80 tech scale-ups 50-200 employees, Île-de-France, hiring
2. For each company, she identifies Head of Engineering or CTO (decision-maker for her product)
3. She enriches with Derrick to get their emails
4. She sends personalized email mentioning active job posting count (signal she used to qualify them)

Result: 32% response rate (vs 8% classic cold email).

4. Use boolean search (Sales Navigator)

Boolean operators allow ultra-precise searches in Sales Navigator.

Available operators:

• AND: Both terms must be present
• OR: At least one term must be present
• NOT: Excludes a term
• Parentheses (): Groups terms together
• Quotes “”: Searches exact phrase

Practical examples:

Find fintech or insurtech companies:

fintech OR insurtech OR "financial technology" OR "insurance technology"

Exclude consulting companies:

tech NOT (consulting OR conseil)

Target B2B SaaS companies:

(SaaS OR "software as a service") AND (B2B OR "business to business")

Where to use booleans?

In the “Keywords” field of Sales Navigator search. LinkedIn will search these terms in company name, description, and specialties.

5. Create automatic alerts

Company lists aren’t static. New companies matching your criteria appear every week.

How to set up alert in Sales Navigator:

1. Do your search with filters
2. Click “Save search” top right
3. Activate weekly alerts
4. Sales Navigator emails you weekly with new companies

Tip: Create 3-5 saved searches with different angles to never miss an opportunity.

6. Analyze competitors of your targets

Once you’ve identified a few perfect target companies, find their competitors.

Method 1: Via LinkedIn company page

On a company page, scroll down to “Similar companies” section. LinkedIn automatically suggests companies in same industry and comparable size.

Method 2: Via Sales Navigator

Use same filters as target company:

• Same industry
• Same size range
• Same location

Method 3: Via Derrick + SimilarWeb

Derrick can analyze a company’s web traffic with SimilarWeb Insights, which often includes direct competitor list.

7. Enrich with external data

LinkedIn data is excellent but not exhaustive. Combine with other sources.

Complementary data sources:

• Crunchbase: Fundraising, investors, acquisitions
• PitchBook: Detailed financial data (tech/VC companies)
• SimilarWeb: Web traffic, traffic sources, SEO keywords
• BuiltWith / Wappalyzer: Technologies used on website
• G2 / Capterra: Customer reviews, tools used

Derrick directly integrates:

• SimilarWeb Insights (traffic, audience)
• Website Tech Lookup (tech stack)
• G2 Company Insights (reviews, products used)

Complete enrichment workflow:

1. Import companies from Sales Navigator via Derrick
2. Automatic enrichment with LinkedIn data (Derrick Company Scraper)
3. Technology enrichment (Derrick Website Tech Lookup)
4. Web traffic enrichment (Derrick SimilarWeb Insights)
5. Final export to CRM or campaign launch

Result: Ultra-complete database to score and prioritize your targets.

Legal aspects and compliance (GDPR)

Searching for companies on LinkedIn and exporting data raises important legal questions, especially around GDPR.

What is permitted

Consulting public company pages: Completely legal. LinkedIn company pages are public by default.

Using search filters: Authorized. LinkedIn offers these features to facilitate professional networking.

Saving company information: You can legally note public company data in a file (name, industry, size, website).

Contacting a company via public contact details: If a company displays email or phone on their LinkedIn page, you can use it to contact them (respecting B2B prospecting rules).

What is regulated

Mass automated scraping: LinkedIn prohibits in its terms of use automated scraping via bots. However, tools like Derrick operate within a legal framework by limiting volume and frequency of requests.

Employee personal data: If you export contact lists (people), you enter GDPR scope. Company data (legal entities) is not covered by GDPR, but personal emails/phones are.

B2B prospecting in France: In B2B, email prospecting to nominative professional addresses is subject to opt-out (person can unsubscribe). For generic emails (contact@, info@), prospecting is freer.

Compliance best practices

To stay compliant:

1. Limit to public data: Only use information publicly visible on LinkedIn
2. Respect LinkedIn limits: Don’t do 1,000 searches per day
3. Document data source: Note that data comes from LinkedIn (legal profiling based on public data)
4. Offer clear opt-out: In prospecting emails, always include unsubscribe link
5. Don’t resell data: Company lists are for your internal use only

When in doubt, consult a GDPR expert.

Conclusion: take action now

You now know how to do LinkedIn company search from A to Z: from basic free search to advanced Sales Navigator filters, to complete automation with tools like Derrick.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. Free search is sufficient for occasional needs, but becomes limiting when prospecting at scale (100 result limit, no export).
2. Sales Navigator unlocks powerful filters (growth signals, technologies, precise size), essential for qualifying targets and building ABM lists.
3. Automation with Derrick transforms hours of copy-pasting into a few clicks, and automatically enriches your lists with 50+ attributes per company.

Where to start?

If you prospect fewer than 50 companies per month: free LinkedIn search is sufficient.

If you manage ABM campaigns or prospect 100+ accounts: Sales Navigator becomes profitable.

If you want to save 10 hours per week and automatically enrich your data: test Derrick for free.

Automate your LinkedIn company prospecting

Derrick imports, enriches, and exports your LinkedIn company lists in one click. Free trial without credit card.

Start for free →

The real difference isn’t made on quantity of companies prospected, but on quality of your targeting and execution speed. With the right methods and tools, you can prospect 10x more effectively while dividing time spent by 10.

FAQ

How to find a company on LinkedIn without Premium account?

Use LinkedIn search bar, type company name, then click “Companies” tab. You can filter by industry and location. First 100 results are visible for free.

What’s the difference between free search and Sales Navigator for companies?

Free search offers 4 basic filters and limits results to 100. Sales Navigator offers 16+ advanced filters (precise size, technologies, growth signals), no result limit, and automatic alerts.

How to export a company list from Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator doesn’t offer native export. Use a tool like Derrick that automatically imports Sales Navigator search results into Google Sheets with data enrichment.

How much does LinkedIn Sales Navigator cost in 2026?

Sales Navigator Core costs around $80/month per user. Sales Navigator Advanced (for teams) costs around $140/month per user. Discounts exist for annual subscriptions.

Can you search companies by technologies used?

Yes, but only with Sales Navigator (“Technologies” filter). Free search doesn’t offer this filter. Alternatively, use Derrick Website Tech Lookup to identify technologies from a company list.

How to find companies hiring on LinkedIn?

In Sales Navigator, use “Hiring on LinkedIn” filter. In free search, visit a company page and click “Jobs” tab to see if they’re currently hiring.