Expandi Group Launches B2B Stars to Transform B2B Search, Ratings and Digital Engagement

Innovative freemium platform showcases three million businesses across Europe and the US, empowering companies to find and be found

London, UK, 9^th September 2024 - Expandi Group today announces the launch of B2B Stars, a first-of-its kind platform dedicated to B2B search, ratings and digital engagement. Tailored to B2B interactions, B2B Stars aims to level the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), often overlooked by traditional search engines and social media platforms, and empower them to find and be found.

B2B Stars serves as a comprehensive resource for information on suppliers and prospects, providing unparalleled access to insights on 1.5 million companies at launch, representing 99% of all companies with 10 employees and above in Europe and US. The platform aggregates data from various sources, including Companies House, delivering up-to-date information such as employees’ range, revenue and key fields of activity for each company. This streamlines the search for information, helping businesses become more efficient when searching for prospects or suppliers.

Part of Expandi Group, B2B Stars leverages the company’s more than 25-year heritage as a B2B specialist to create a B2B community professionals want to join. The platform enables businesses to build a community to share, engage and discover insights. Businesses can enhance their profiles by claiming their page, which allows them to update information and add insights such as industry recognition and, if desired, contact information.

B2B Stars’ commitment to accuracy ensures all amendments and additions are verified before being published to guarantee users have completely reliable information with which to make informed decisions.

B2B Stars also allows businesses to leave ratings and reviews of other companies they have interacted with, whether as customers or suppliers. Rigorous control mechanisms prevent the publication of inappropriate reviews, and companies can respond to and engage with reviews left on their pages. This verification process aims to restore trust in reviews and provide users with valuable peer insights for their decision-making process.

A privacy-first platform, B2B Stars operates without cookies and is dedicated to ensuring user privacy and security. It does not share personal information with third parties without explicit consent. Focusing on business-to-business relationships, in-platform messages, known as Bmails, can only be sent to company administrators or reviewers who have explicitly accepted contact. If a recipient does not respond to a Bmail, no further Bmails can be sent for 12 months.

Operating a freemium model, B2B Stars offers all users free access to essential functionality and benefits, while a paid account, which features more premium functionality, is capped at £350, ensuring cost-efficiency for SMBs. Among the paid-for features are a wide range of analytics, including intent data and credit scores, which allows users to build and target their audience effectively, in a way that other platforms do not.

Raffaele Apostoliti, CEO, Expandi Group and B2B Stars, said, “Until now, professionals have had to manually search numerous websites for company information, not only is that a long and arduous process, but they are also faced with often finding outdated, unreliable or incomplete information. It was important for us to help them overcome this dual challenge of finding leads and suppliers, and they themselves being found. General purpose search engines are not effective for B2B queries as companies are ranked not based on business criteria but on soft web metrics (traffic, content, backlinks, etc.)

Our platform is dedicated to streamlining this process by providing reliable and accurate information in a single pane of glass. For instance, companies are ranked based on the assessment provided by peers (customers and suppliers’ review), by industry experts (awards & recognitions) and financial analysts (credit score) In this way, we are empowering businesses to gather reliable analytics for informed decisions on which companies to trust while also giving them a forum to engage with and build communities. With our commitment to affordability, accuracy and insights and the engagement of our B2B Star community on user generated content (claimed paged and company info updates, peers’ review, etc.), we expect the platform to become an essential tool for SMBs looking to enhance their digital engagement and business connections.”

To register and claim your business’ page visit: www.b2bstars.com

About B2B Stars

B2B Stars is the world’s first and only B2B search platform. With listings for more than three million businesses across the UK and Europe, B2B Stars is dedicated to helping companies find and be found to level the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses that have long been disadvantaged by traditional search engines and social media platforms. B2B Stars offers users a suite of analytics capabilities to empower them to build a community, and share, engage and discover insights. Operating a ‘freemium’ model, B2B Stars is a cookie-less, ‘privacy-first’ platform.

Part of Expandi Group, B2B Stars leverages the company’s almost 25 year heritage as a B2B specialist and experience of working with world-renowned brands including HP, Google, IBM, AWS, Hitachi, Lenovo and Samsung.

Visit the B2B Stars website to find out more:www.b2bstars.com