Introducing the Distill API: News for public and private companies

September 16, 2026

Today, we are launching the Distill Company News API. It allows product teams, engineering teams, and developers to query structured, deduplicated news and direct company updates for any public or private company.

Most existing news and market intelligence APIs are built for financial trading desks. They require public stock tickers, focus mainly on wire syndicates, and return endless duplicate stories. If you need to track startups, unlisted competitors, or private businesses, traditional feeds either return nothing or drown you in irrelevant noise.

We built the Distill API to give teams access to the same structured, high-signal company intelligence that powers the Distill platform, directly within their own applications and data pipelines.

Track any public or private company

You do not need a stock ticker, exchange code, or registry number to query news in Distill. Lookups work with a standard company website domain (for example, stripe.com) or a company ID.

This allows you to track:

Startups and growth-stage companies
Private enterprises
Public corporations
Competitors, customers, suppliers, and portfolio companies

Coverage beyond mainstream media

Mainstream business media mostly focuses on large public corporations. For startups and private companies, product updates, executive hires, and funding announcements rarely make the news wires. Even for larger companies, the most detailed signal usually breaks first on the company’s own channels.

The Distill API tracks traditional press alongside direct first-party sources:

Official company newsrooms and blogs: Product launches, engineering posts, and executive announcements.
LinkedIn updates: Direct corporate posts, hiring milestones, and business updates.
Press release portals and media rooms: Wire distributions, corporate releases, and investor relations pages.
Company Substack and Medium publications: Founder letters and in-depth company writeups.
Global news outlets: National and international business coverage.

In the API response, items are divided by source type: update for direct company announcements and article for media coverage.

Built for signal, not volume

Raw RSS feeds and basic web scrapers produce duplicate stories and low-value content. The Distill API processes and structures the data before returning it:

1. Story clustering and deduplication

When a major story breaks, dozens of outlets often reprint the same press release or report on the exact same event. Distill bundles these into a single record. You get one primary headline and summary, with all publisher sources linked underneath.

2. Business impact scoring

Every update is evaluated with an impact rating: low, medium, or high. Routine operational mentions, boilerplate filings, and automated market recaps are filtered down, so your system can focus on notable or business-critical news.

3. Event categorization

Company announcements are classified into structured categories, such as Product, Finance, M&A, Expansion, Partnerships, People, Operations, and Legal. You can filter by category to receive only the specific types of events you need.

4. Global coverage with English translation

Distill monitors sources globally across multiple languages. If an announcement is published in German, Japanese, or Swedish, the API returns a translated English headline and summary by default, while preserving the original text and language code in an original object.

Available endpoints

The API is organized around REST principles with JSON responses, Bearer authentication, and cursor-based pagination:

GET /v1/companies/{companyIdentifier}/news: Chronological news and announcements for a company by domain or ID, with filters for impact, categories, source type, and dates.
GET /v1/companies & GET /v1/companies/{companyIdentifier}: Search companies across industries, countries, and employee counts, or fetch structured company profiles.
GET /v1/watchlists/{watchlistId}/news: Fetch aggregated news across an entire watchlist with preset filters and semantic topic matching.
GET /v1/topics/{topicId}/news: Track news across broad industry themes or specific keyword queries.

Getting started

The Distill API is currently open for pilot access. Pilot teams receive dedicated API keys, onboarding support, and access to the Distill web app where you can add new companies to track, build watchlists, and configure topic filters.

To learn more, check out the API documentation, visit the API overview page, or request API access to set up a pilot key.