Stop Navigating the Future with a Map from 1987: Introducing Specter’s Dual-Lens Taxonomy

If you’ve ever tried to map a market, build a TAM analysis, or source highly specific deals, you know the universal founder pain of company data: classification is broken. We are tracking companies building autonomous drones, agentic AI frameworks, and CRISPR therapeutics, yet the global standard for classifying them hasn't fundamentally changed since the invention of the fax machine.

At Specter, we got tired of fighting bad data. So, we ground it out and built our own.

Today, we are thrilled to announce our completely rebuilt Industry and Tech Vertical Classification System—a dual-lens taxonomy designed for the way modern dealmakers, founders, and GTM teams actually work.

The NAICS & SIC Graveyard 🪦

Let’s state the obvious: standard classification codes are obsolete. The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system was last updated in 1987. NAICS tries to keep up with five-year updates, but it fundamentally misunderstands software and modern tech.

If you are looking for an LLM infrastructure startup, NAICS will cheerfully categorize them as “518210: Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services.” That same code applies to a local IT server-rack cleaning business. It's practically useless for modern market intelligence.

The "Tag Soup" Illusion 🍲

So, how has the market adapted? Platforms like LinkedIn and Pitchbook realised these codes were dead, but rather than building a rigorous new framework from scratch, they slapped "tags" on top of broad industries.

The result is a messy, overlapping "tag soup." A single AI startup might be tagged as SaaS, B2B, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Information Technology depending on who submitted the profile. They aren't developing quickly enough to capture niche, emerging markets, and the lack of hierarchy leaves you sifting through thousands of false positives just to find five relevant companies.

The Specter Solution: A Dual-Lens Approach 🔭

We realized that trying to force a SaaS startup and a steel manufacturer into the same classification tree doesn't work. Different teams care about different things.

We locked ourselves in a room, analyzed millions of data points, and mapped out the global economy across two distinct dimensions: What a company is (Industry) and What technology they are building (Tech Vertical).

1. The Industry Framework: The Economy, Mastered

Built specifically for Private Equity, Investment Banking, M&A, Roll-ups, and GTM teams selling into traditional sectors.

This is a deep, hierarchal, 3-level breakdown of the real-world economy. We map 21 core Level-1 industries into hundreds of highly specific niches.

• Level 1: Manufacturing
• Level 2: Computers and Electronics Manufacturing
• Level 3: Semiconductor Manufacturing

Instead of vague buckets, you get precise targeting. Whether you are rolling up Commercial and Industrial Equipment Rental businesses or acquiring HVAC and Refrigeration manufacturers, our Industry framework gives you exact matches without the noise.

2. The Tech Vertical Framework: The Future, Mapped

Built specifically for Venture Capital, Growth Equity, Corporate Development, and Tech-focused GTM.

This is where the magic happens. We’ve mapped 33 top-level Tech Verticals—from Quantum & Frontier Materials to ClimateTech—and broken them down into over 300 highly specific sub-verticals. Instead of searching for a generic "AI tag," you can filter by exactly what the company is building:

• AI & Machine Learning ➡️ Agentic Frameworks and Orchestration
• Energy & Storage ➡️ Long-Duration & Grid-Scale Storage
• Space & Frontier ➡️ Space Manufacturing, Materials and Test Infrastructure
• FinTech ➡️ Payment Infrastructure & Orchestration

No overlapping tags. No crowdsourced mess. Just a clean, constantly evolving taxonomy that moves as fast as the founders building it.

The Grind Pays Off

We didn’t crowdsource this, and we didn't buy a legacy database. We ground through the data to build the most accurate, modern, and actionable taxonomy on the market because we know how much time it takes to manually scrub bad prospect lists.

Whether you are looking for 100-year-old roofing material wholesalers or a seed-stage company building LLMOps tooling, Specter actually speaks your language.

Ready to stop searching and start finding? Jump right in at https://app.tryspecter.com.