I have a list of companies A1:A100, and I have a table b1:c5000 that has
companies and industries.

The list in the A column has slight differenations is spelling. For example
"DaimlerChrysler" and "Daimler Chrylser" are two of the values. In the big
table the entry is Daimler Chrysler USA, and the industry is Automotive.

I'd like to use a vlookup or index/match combination to append the industry
to the companies in column A. Because there are slight differences in the
spellings I'd like to have a formula take the first 6 letters of A1, and see
if they are found in any cell b1:b5000, and if there is a match to populate
the cell with the corresponding value in column c, the industry value.

So it's essentially a vlookup, but using a fraction of the lookup value.