How we build a supplier base you can actually reach

By Joe Zhou · TokoAI(51Toko) · 2026-08-13

When we find suppliers for your request, you are not seeing a list we scraped off the open web. You are seeing companies that passed through a real pipeline: collected from audited sources, enriched with contact details, then verified as reachable. This is the buyer's-eye view of that foundation — where it comes from, and why "reachable" is the only number we care about.

The base, in live numbers

Our company base is 1.35 million+ firms (overseas + China). Of those, 773,000+ are reachable — meaning they have at least one working contact path (email, website, phone, or LinkedIn). That is 57.1% of the whole base. The rest we either enrich or leave out of matches.

All figures are pulled live from our databases (overseas pool + China-based pool, aggregated the same way as this site's data page) and verified before publishing — no hand-typed numbers.

Where the companies come from

We do not buy random lists. The base is built from real trading entities — companies that actually exhibit, import, or win public contracts. The ones we find for your request as suppliers are the exhibitors and proven makers; importers in the base are a separate, traceable source we do not surface as your suppliers:

Trade-show exhibitors. Canton Fair (137th–139th sessions: 76,906 / 79,096 / 66,869 buyer-directory entries, plus 30,380 exhibitors from the 138th session), the Messe Frankfurt series (Ambiente, Automechanika, ISH, Heimtextil, Light+Building and more), and dozens of sector shows (CES, CONEXPO, MEDICA, GITEX, bauma, BAU…).
Chinese factories. China is where most of your suppliers actually sit. Our China-based reachable pool is 60,000+ firms, built heavily from Canton Fair exhibitors plus China shows (CCMT machine tools, Hannover Messe industrial, and more). A booth at a major Chinese show is itself a vetting gate.
Customs & public-procurement records. UK trade imports (488,494 importers), EU public-procurement awardees (246,301 TED winners, ~75% reachable), US federal GovCon (27,455), and more — these are companies with a proven buying or supplying history, not placeholders. Counts are taken from this site's data page, which aggregates our databases.

Three steps: from "a name" to "a supplier you can email"

A source gives you a company and a product. It usually does not give you a working email. Here is the pipeline every supplier in your match result has crossed:

Step 1 · Collect from audited sources

Real entities only

Company name, product, and booth or record — pulled from organizer directories, customs feeds, and procurement awards. Already vetted by the source that listed them.

Step 2 · Enrich from the web

Find the contact

Where a source gave no email, we fill it from the company's own website and public contact pages — cascaded across multiple search engines, so one miss does not end the search.

Step 3 · Verify as reachable

Does mail get delivered?

Cross-check across sources, so what reaches your inbox is a contact that actually receives mail — not a stale scraped string.

Why this is the buyer's advantage

You do not want "a million suppliers." You want a few suppliers you can reach and trust. By starting from audited shows and records, then refusing to put a supplier in front of you until they are reachable, the base stays small in the only dimension that matters — and every name in your match result is one you can actually email. (See which shows we cover · See how matching works)

Email us what you want to source and we'll match from this base — trade-show exhibitors and verified Chinese factories first.

Frequently asked

How big is the supplier pool you match from?

We match from a large, continuously enriched base of companies — 1.61M+ in total, with 1.01M+ reachable via verified contact info, including 815K+ overseas reachable companies plus a China-based pool of 201K+ reachable suppliers. For buyers, what matters is the verified supplier side: trade-show exhibitors and other audited B2B sources we can find suppliers against your request and reach on your behalf.

Where does TokoAI's supplier data come from?

From public business databases, trade-show directories, and government procurement records, cross-checked into a reachable, high-quality supplier pool. We do not buy or resell third-party lists.

How do you verify a supplier's contact before reaching out?

We only use contact points collected from public sources — a company's own website, trade-show directory, or public business registry — never guessed or machine-constructed addresses. Each address is checked for a real, reachable path before we send on your behalf, and the source is recorded so it can be traced. When a supplier we found responds, it comes from a real, checkable source you can verify yourself.