Founded in 1965 by Cornelius Vanderhelm, a former maritime strategist, our institution began with a single mission: to map the invisible arteries of global trade. In an era where information was scarce, Vanderhelm developed the proprietary "Ground-Truth" methodology—a system of physical verification that remains the cornerstone of our intelligence gathering today.

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the firm played a pivotal role in advising multinational corporations through the complexities of market globalization. We witnessed the rise and fall of curated directories, the birth of the algorithmic web, and now, the emergence of the Agentic Web.

Vanderhelm Research does not rely on secondary sources. Our analysts are stationed in every major logistics hub—from the Port of Singapore to the industrial corridors of the Midwest. This Primary-Source Mandate ensures that our whitepapers and audits are built on a foundation of verifiable reality.

Every strategic audit undergoes a triple-blind peer review process comprising data integrity audits, domain sensitivity reviews, and final executive synthesis.

In 2026, we recognized a critical shift in the information economy. Strategic intelligence, once reserved for the boardrooms of the Fortune 50, has become a necessity for individual builders in the Agentic era.

Our Sovereignty Access initiative provides the same deep-layer research found in our institutional portals to independent developers and small firms. This "Fractional Research" model is our commitment to maintaining the integrity of the decentralized web.