🏛️ Delaware Corporations Search Scraper — DE Entity Registry Lookup

Search the Delaware Division of Corporations entity registry — the canonical source of every Delaware-incorporated business. By name (partial match) returns matching entities with their state-issued file number and exact registered name.

Delaware is the legal home of two-thirds of all Fortune 500 companies, virtually every YC C-corp (Stripe Atlas defaults to DE), and the lion's share of US LLCs / LPs / LLPs. If you need to verify a counterparty exists, hunt brand-new C-corp incorporations before they appear on Crunchbase, or catch shell-company patterns — the DE Division of Corporations is where the truth lives.

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What you get per match

Each dataset row is one Delaware-incorporated entity match:

• search_query — the input string that matched
• file_number — the official Delaware-assigned file number (numeric, the system of record)
• entity_name — the canonical entity name as registered in DE (uppercase, exact legal entity name including suffix like INC., LLC, L.P., L.L.C.)
• state_of_formation — DE (passthrough — useful when you union this dataset with other state-registry actors)
• source — icis.corp.delaware.gov

Note: the free public name search returns file_number + entity_name. Full entity detail (registered agent, status, formation date, entity type) requires a CAPTCHA-protected detail-page step that is not part of this Actor. If you need detail-page data, you can take the file_number returned here and run an order via Delaware's official paid API or use a downstream registered-agent service. For directory-listing use cases (KYC, journalism, sourcing, deduping a contact list) the file_number + entity_name pair is usually all you need.

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6 use cases

1. VC associate / pre-seed sourcing — A new Stripe Atlas C-corp filing shows up in DE before Crunchbase has heard of the company. Search every founder's last name + product name; the DE filing date is the earliest signal a startup exists. Beats Crunchbase, beats LinkedIn, beats every other paid signal.
2. KYC / AML compliance — Verify that a counterparty entity actually exists in Delaware as registered. Cross-check the file_number with the company's W-9 / EIN paperwork. If the entity name doesn't return any DE match, that's a red flag.
3. M&A diligence / target lists — Hunt every entity matching a parent company's brand keyword to find subsidiaries, holding companies, and SPVs that all incorporate under variations of the parent's name.
4. Journalism / shell company tracking — Reporters investigating shell companies, LLCs tied to political donors, or PE-firm portfolio companies frequently use the DE search as the discovery layer (then escalate via paid registered-agent services for the detail).
5. Lawyer / paralegal litigation prep — Before suing or sending a demand letter, confirm the defendant is actually a registered DE entity and grab the official legal name + file number for the complaint caption.
6. Real-estate / counterparty deduping — Roll up multiple variations of Acme Properties LLC / Acme Holdings LLC / Acme Capital, L.P. to a clean canonical legal-entity list with file numbers as the dedupe key.

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Quick start (JSON input)

{
  "entityNames": ["Stripe", "Apple Inc", "Acme"],
  "maxEntities": 200
}

Each name is a partial-match search; results union into a single dataset.

Python SDK

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("nexgendata/delaware-corporations-search-scraper").call(run_input={
    "entityNames": ["Stripe", "OpenAI"],
    "maxEntities": 100,
})
for ent in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{ent['file_number']} — {ent['entity_name']}")

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~delaware-corporations-search-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"entityNames":["OpenAI"],"maxEntities":50}'

Integrations

Pipe results to Zapier, Make.com, or n8n. Common pairings: Salesforce / HubSpot CRM enrichment when you want to verify an account's legal name + file number; deduping a vendor master list; KYC pipelines via Snowflake / BigQuery.

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Pricing (Pay Per Event)

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.00005
Per entity match returned	$0.10

Cost calculator:

• 50 matches (a single deep search like "Acme") = $5.00
• 200 matches (a small KYC batch) = $20.00
• 500 matches = $50.00
• 2,000 matches (a large diligence sweep) = $200.00

Compare to LexisNexis (~$25–$100/document for entity reports), CT Corporation registered-agent services ($100s per lookup), or a paralegal hour ($75–$150/hour). For directory-listing intel this Actor is two orders of magnitude cheaper.

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FAQ

Is this the official Delaware Division of Corporations API? No. Delaware does not publish a free public API for entity search. We submit the same form a human would on icis.corp.delaware.gov/Ecorp/EntitySearch/NameSearch.aspx (the official ASP.NET WebForms search) and parse the result table.

Why not return registered agent + entity type + status? Those fields live on the entity-detail page, which is gated behind a CAPTCHA challenge. Capturing detail data from Delaware is not feasible without their paid commercial API. The free directory listing — file_number + entity_name — is what this Actor delivers and is usually enough for the use cases above.

How does partial matching work? A search for Stripe returns every DE entity whose name contains "STRIPE" — including unrelated entities like STRIPED BASS L.L.C.. Refine with longer queries (e.g. Stripe Inc or Stripe Capital) for tighter results, or filter the result set client-side.

Are queries case-sensitive? No — Delaware normalizes search input to upper-case.

What if my search returns nothing? Either the entity isn't registered in DE, the name was misspelled, or the entity is filed in another US state (Wyoming, Nevada, etc). Each DE-only result with state_of_formation: DE confirms that specific entity is incorporated in Delaware.

Is this dataset commercially usable? The Delaware DOC public search results are public records issued by a state government. We respect the site's free-access tier (single-threaded, ~500ms between searches). Confirm your specific commercial use case with your legal team if you plan to redistribute the data.

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Related actors

• 📑 SEC Form D Scraper — Form D private placements, often filed by the same DE entities you find here
• 🪙 Startup Funding Tracker — funding rounds + investor data downstream of the DE incorporation event
• 🔍 SEC EDGAR Search — surface every public filing tied to a company once you have its name

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