✓ Verified Not PE
Show customers your business isn’t owned by private equity
Private equity has bought thousands of local service businesses and consumer brands: dental, veterinary, eye care and physical therapy practices, HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies, and the brands people buy online and in stores. Most kept their old names, so people who care can’t tell from the sign. PE or Not? tells them, and Verified Not PE puts a green badge on your business wherever they look it up: Google Maps, Yelp, peornot.org and AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude. You also get a seal for your own website.
Below: how would look with the badge.
“No known PE ties” isn’t the same as verified
Most businesses that aren’t tied to a group already show a gray “No known PE ties” label. That only means we found nothing. Verified means the owner certified it and we checked.
What people see today if you’re not on any group’s list. They can’t tell you apart from a business we haven’t looked into closely.
What they see after you’re verified: the owner certified no private-equity, corporate, lender or health-system owner, and we checked it against public records.
On Google Maps
When someone with the PE or Not? extension searches Maps for a dentist, vet, eye doctor, physical therapist or HVAC company, results get a label. Yours stands out.
Illustration. Labels appear for people using the free PE or Not? Chrome extension; clicking yours shows that the owner certified it, with a link to your page.
On Yelp
The same labels show up in Yelp search results and on your Yelp page.
Illustration.
On peornot.org
People who look you up on our site, or browse who owns the practices in your city, see the badge, your own page and a link to book.
- Your page, the answer to “Is [your practice] private equity owned?”: a clear “No”, the date you were verified, your owners, the year you opened, a short description in your words and a booking link.
- Top of your city’s page, in a Verified Not PE box above the list of every practice in town (marked as paid listings).
- Site search: your practice comes up with the badge.
How the box looks on a city page (illustration).
In ChatGPT, Claude and other AI answers
More and more people ask an AI assistant instead of searching: “Is this dentist owned by private equity?” or “Which vets near me aren’t PE-backed?” Assistants answer from what they can find and the tools they connect to, and PE or Not? is built to be one of them.
Illustration.
- Your page answers the question directly. “Is [your business] private equity owned?” “No”, with the date you were verified, in the question-and-answer markup that search engines and AI tools read.
- Our API and MCP server report you as verified. AI assistants connect to them to check who owns a business. When one asks about you by name, or for businesses in your area, the answer includes your Verified Not PE listing.
- Listed for AI crawlers. Verified businesses are named in our llms.txt, the summary file AI tools read first.
No one can promise what an AI will say. What we make sure of is that when it looks you up, the answer it finds is “Verified Not PE”, not a gray “no known PE ties”.
On your own website
Remember the security seals online stores used to show near checkout? They made people trust the site. The Verified Not PE seal does the same for your ownership: it sits in the corner of your website and links to your page on peornot.org, so anyone can click it and see it’s real.
Illustration. The seal is one line of code you or your web person paste in, in the corner or in your footer. It shows only while your listing is active.
For brands and online stores
Shoppers use PE or Not? to check who owns the brands they buy. Once you’re verified:
- On your website: anyone with the extension who clicks its icon on your site sees “✓ Verified Not PE” and who owns you, and the seal in your corner shows everyone else.
- On peornot.org: your brand shows with the badge in our brands section, next to the PE-owned brands in your category, with your own page.
- In AI answers: assistants that check with us get your verified status when someone asks who owns your brand, or for brands in your category that aren’t owned by private equity.
What you get
- The green Verified Not PE badge on Google Maps and Yelp, for everyone using the extension.
- Your own page on peornot.org with your owners, story and booking link.
- A spot in the Verified Not PE box on your city’s page.
- A mention in AI answers: our API and MCP server report you as Verified Not PE.
- A seal for your own website, linked to your page so visitors can check it.
- One listing per office. A year at a time; cancel any time.
How it works
The owners, any management company and any investors. About five minutes.
Confirm the ownership statement and type your name to sign. You get a copy by email.
$49 a year. If we can’t verify your ownership, you get a full refund.
We compare your statement with the NPI registry, your state business filing and our own data, normally within 5 business days.
$49 a year. You sign your ownership statement online, then pay. If we can’t verify it, we refund you in full.
Who qualifies
Practices owned by their own dentists, doctors, vets or therapists (including groups and co-ops they own), and HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies owned by the people who run them, and brands and online stores owned by their founders, families or employees. No outside investor and no management contract with a PE-backed or corporate-owned company. A business that is PE-backed (even a minority stake), lender-controlled, corporate-owned or part of a health system doesn’t qualify and can’t buy the badge.
Questions
Can I pay to change a label? No. Ownership labels are never for sale. If a label is wrong, send a correction with evidence; that’s free.
We use a billing or staffing company. Do we still qualify? Ordinary vendors are fine. A management or support company that is PE-backed or corporate-owned is not; tell us who you use and we’ll check.
What if we sell later? Tell us within 30 days and the listing ends, with a refund for the unused months.
How many people use the extension? It launched in November 2026, so it’s early. Your page and city listing on peornot.org work for everyone, extension or not.
Verified Not PE is a paid listing, and pages with the badge say so. See our terms and how we label.