Reference
How this map is drawn, reviewed and sourced — and how AI is used in building it.
A segment exists on this map because a recognisable set of companies competes for the same budget and gets bought by the same acquirers. Segments split where the buyer universe diverges, not where the product description does — which is why the map does not follow GICS or NAICS. A sub-segment is published when the parent segment's buyer universe splits again at the level a buyer would actually diligence. Sector and segment codes (S01–S18, S01.1 and so on) are stable identifiers: once assigned, a code is never reused, and unassigned codes are reserved for segments in preparation.
The map is a living reference. Segment pages carry a “Last reviewed” date in the footer and are reviewed on a rolling cycle, with sectors re-examined quarterly and pages revised when the facts move — a regulatory date, a landmark transaction, an operator disclosure. Material revisions are dated rather than silently overwritten.
Figures carry their source and year inline. The hierarchy is: primary filings first (10-Ks, earnings releases, merger proxies, regulator notices), then operator disclosures, then named research houses, then reported figures from the financial press. M&A has no official statistics and providers disagree by hundreds of billions of dollars a year; where credible estimates conflict, the range is given, and where a figure could not be confirmed the space is left empty rather than filled with an estimate. Announced transaction values are treated as upper bounds; recorded consideration from business-combination notes is preferred where it exists.
Research and drafting are agent-assisted — this is, after all, the companion reference to a book about agentic AI in M&A. Autonomous research loops monitor transactions, filings and regulatory dates, draft updates, and flag pages whose facts have moved. Every figure that reaches a published page is verified against the cited source, and the analytical positions — where a segment splits, which cost line collapses, which moat erodes — are the author's. The process is itself a working demonstration of the book's thesis.
Ownership data, buyer universes, transaction comparables and deal-timing analysis are maintained privately by El Dorado Capital on the CorpDev.ai platform and are not published here. Request access.