Niche industries - refining investment thesis & outreach?

October 21, 2025

by a searcher from University of Melbourne in Melbourne VIC, Australia

I'm conducting a geographically focussed search here in Melbourne, Australia. Doing a brokered search but in order to scale up and narrow down my prop outreach i'm building a list of industry niches - to both work on my investment thesis and personalise my approach to Owners. There's only so much that reading the very "broad" IBISWorld reports can provide you with in terms of insights and listing niches - same goes for the various LLMs. So the question i have for fellow searchers is twofold: - What databases/industries have you used to dig up industry niches? From here one can obviously start the search and target Owners directly - Other than getting up and close in the industry (both online, scuttlebutt f2f) what other information sources do you recommend for very niche industry research? Thank you

Reply by a professional
from University of California, Berkeley in Washington, D.C., USA

^redacted‌ happy to chat if it would be helpful. I've worked with a couple of folks regarding niche evaluation, building pipeline, and outreach. Are you able to share a bit more about your background? Do you have any niches that you've already evaluated? If you want to connect, I'd be happy to share some about different databases for sourcing companies and niches that I'm familiar with.

Reply by a searcher
from Northeastern University in Sydney NSW, Australia

Thanks Luke. Jerom, happy to chat. You are on point with your question as generalist advisors can only offer so much for niche industries and I have found that while one one one conversations with industry participants is the most productive way, it can be frustrating in the time it takes. What I have been doing it dilligencing via people in industries one step removed to the one I am focused on - so essentially suppliers, customers and service providers.

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