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Crunchbase
Crunchbase is a private-market intelligence platform that tracks 39 billion company signals and refreshes over 15 million AI predictions weekly, forecasting funding, growth, acquisitions and IPOs for investors, sales teams, analysts, developers and founders.
What is Crunchbase?
Crunchbase is a private-market data and intelligence platform published by Crunchbase, Inc. in San Francisco. Long known as a directory of startups and funding rounds, it now positions itself around prediction, under the line "Before It's News, It's In Crunchbase", on three announced pillars: proprietary data, early signal detection and AI prediction models.
The scale claimed by the publisher is considerable: 39 billion live market signals, more than 30 million verified updates a year, over 15 million predictions refreshed every week, more than 4 million private companies and over 80 million users. Five sources feed the dataset, namely a network of market experts with 4,000+ venture partners and 600,000 contributors, aggregated engagement signals from that audience, proprietary ingestion systems, more than 1,000 media outlets and public registries, and validation by a global analyst team. The output is organised in six data types: financials, firmographics, point-in-time events, heat and growth scores, Insights and Predictions.
Seven prediction models cover funding, growth, acquisition, IPO, closure, layoffs and remaining private. Crunchbase reports that 84% of actual funding rounds and 73% of acquisitions were correctly predicted, across more than 16,000 predictions verified after the fact. These remain probabilities rather than certainties.
Access comes in three shapes. The web application carries advanced search, saved lists, activity alerts, a Kanban tracking board and Scout, a conversational search that answers questions written in plain English. A documented REST API and a data licensing offer feed external systems and CRMs. A first-party Crunchbase MCP server exposes the same material, up to 790 fields per company, inside Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, Azure or SageMaker, through an OAuth "Log In with Crunchbase" connection and without any API key.
The range runs from Crunchbase Free through Crunchbase Pro and Crunchbase Business to the Crunchbase API, Crunchbase MCP, Data Enrichment, Data Licensing and Data Boost. At the time of its Series D the company reported 200+ employees, 60,000 customers and 75 million annual unique users, and it displays a 4.5/5 G2 rating alongside customers such as Atomico, Clay, HubSpot for Startups and Dialpad.
What it does
- Look up any private company and read its funding history, leadership and events
- Ask Scout questions about companies or market trends in plain English
- Receive predictions on funding, growth, acquisition, IPO, closure, layoffs and remaining private
- Build advanced multi-criteria searches, then save them as lists and alerts
- Track target accounts on a Kanban-style board with notes and tags
- Export data to CSV, up to 2,000 rows a month on Pro and 5,000 on Business
- Feed external systems: CRM enrichment through Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier, the REST API, or the MCP server inside Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Cursor
When to use Crunchbase / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Crunchbase is the right fit.
When to use Crunchbase
- Venture capital and private equity investors sourcing deals, running due diligence and tracking portfolio companies
- Sales and go-to-market teams prospecting on funding and growth signals, then enriching their CRM records
- Market and competitive intelligence analysts mapping sectors, rivals and funding trends
- Wealth managers and equity analysts watching for liquidity events such as acquisitions and IPOs
- Founders and product developers who need investor shortlists or programmatic access through the API and MCP server
When not to use Crunchbase
- Users who need a mobile app: the iOS app was removed from the App Store on 9 December 2022 and no Android app has ever existed
- Teams that need a non-English product, since the interface, the documentation and the help centre are English only
- Public-market investors, because coverage is centred on private companies rather than on listed securities
- Anyone expecting certainty from the forecasts, which stay probabilistic: the publisher claims 84% of funding rounds and 73% of acquisitions correctly predicted
- Occasional or budget-conscious users, as the cheapest paid plan is 99 USD per month and Business, API, MCP and data licensing are quote-only through a sales representative
How to use Crunchbase
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create a free account on the registration page to browse company profiles, or start a 7-day free trial from the product selection page
- Search for a company from the search bar, or put a question to Scout in plain English
- Refine with the advanced search filters, then save the search or turn the results into a list
- Turn on activity alerts for the accounts you follow, which the free account limits to a single list
- Work within the search quotas: 5 results per search on the free plan, up to 1,000 on Pro and Business
- Organise target accounts on the tracking board and attach notes and tags to the profiles
- Export what you need to CSV, up to 2,000 rows a month on Pro and 5,000 on Business, or export a profile as a PDF
- Connect Salesforce, HubSpot or Zapier, CRM enrichment being available from 10 seats upwards, and enable SSO on Business
- For the API, go through a sales representative via the pricing form or the demo page, then follow the documentation at data.crunchbase.com/docs
- For the MCP server, connect a compatible LLM client with the OAuth Log In with Crunchbase step, no API key required, access staying bound by your licence and seat rights
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Depth and freshness of the dataset, with 39 billion signals tracked and more than 30 million verified updates a year
- Predictions published with figures and checked afterwards: 84% of funding rounds, 73% of acquisitions, 16,000+ verified events
- A permanent free account is enough to consult a company profile, and a 7-day free trial covers the paid products
- Three ways in: web interface, documented REST API and a first-party MCP server
- The MCP server needs no API key, connects over OAuth and works with most mainstream LLM clients
- Solid GDPR apparatus: dedicated notice, Article 27 representatives for the EEA and the UK, standard contractual clauses and subprocessors named in the Data Use Addendum
- Native CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot, plus Zapier, and a 4.5/5 G2 rating displayed on the site
Cons
- The pricing page is rendered entirely in JavaScript and shows no amount: the 99 USD per month figure is only reachable through the help centre
- Business, API, MCP and Data Licensing are quote-only, so no self-serve price exists beyond Pro
- No mobile app since the iOS application was pulled from the App Store in 2022, and no Android version
- Interface and documentation in English only
- Export quotas look low against the price, at 2,000 rows a month on Pro, and CRM enrichment starts only at 10 seats
- The privacy policy acknowledges selling Profile data to customers and partners, Resultant Data belongs to Crunchbase, and no opt-out from model training is documented
- No security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is published on the site, and refunds are refused once data has been exported
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available, Crunchbase Free, and the lowest paid entry point is Crunchbase Pro at 99.00 USD per month on monthly billing, cancellable at any time. An annual Crunchbase Pro subscription is offered at 38% off for new customers during the first year only. A 7-day free trial covers the paid products, with automatic charging when it ends, and every subscription renews automatically. Crunchbase Business, the Crunchbase API, Crunchbase MCP and Data Licensing are priced on quotation. Note that the 99.00 USD figure comes from the publisher's own help centre, the public pricing page displaying no amount.
- free and permanent
- giving access to company profiles
- profile creation and editing
- 5 results per search
- alerts limited to a single list and Insights limited to AI search
- 99.00 USD per month
- or annually at 38% off for new customers in the first year
- with full search up to 1
- 000 results
- Insights
- alerts
- tracking board
- notes and tags
- on quotation
- adding the Growth
- Funding
- Acquisition and IPO predictions
- CRM enrichment from 10 seats
- 5
- 000 export rows a month
- SSO and team administration
- on quotation
- for programmatic access
- the seven prediction models and data licensing
- on quotation
- with separate usage-based pricing
- for conversational access to the same data from an LLM client
- Crunchbase Lite
- Crunchbase Starter
- Crunchbase Pro with Data Boost
- Crunchbase Enterprise and Marketplace add-ons
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Crunchbase handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR implementation is documented rather than merely claimed. A dedicated GDPR Privacy Notice for the EEA and the United Kingdom, effective 26 November 2024, presents Crunchbase, Inc. as controller and states its legal bases: contractual necessity, legitimate interests and consent depending on the processing. It lists the rights of access, rectification, erasure, withdrawal of consent, portability, objection, restriction and complaint to a supervisory authority or the ICO, with privacy@crunchbase.com as the single contact point. Article 27 representatives are named: DP-Dock GmbH in Hamburg for the EEA and DP Data Protection Services UK Ltd. in London, reachable at crunchbase@gdpr-rep.com. Transfers are covered by the EU standard contractual clauses and the UK addendum set out in the published Data Use Addendum. The service is operated and the data processed from the United States, and the minimum age is 16.
Who owns the data?
Under the Terms of Service last updated on 26 November 2024, ownership is split. Crunchbase Content, including AI Content, stays the copyrighted property of Crunchbase, Inc. Anything a user posts remains a User Submission, but the user grants Crunchbase a royalty-free, perpetual, sublicensable, irrevocable and worldwide licence to translate, modify, aggregate, reproduce, display, distribute and otherwise exploit it for the company's business purposes. Resultant Data produced through use of the service belongs outright to Crunchbase, the user irrevocably assigning any residual rights. Data drawn from connected productivity tools such as CRM, email or engagement software cannot be published in identifiable form without written consent, and sensitive data must never be submitted.
Reuse rights
Reuse by the end user is licensed, not free: the Terms of Service of 26 November 2024 keep Crunchbase Content under copyright and expressly forbid using it to train models, while separate Data Enrichment and Data Licensing products exist for feeding internal systems. On the publisher's side, reuse is broad. Crunchbase assembles person and company Profiles from several sources and makes them available to customers and partners; the privacy policy states outright that Profile data is sold to customers, resellers and syndication partners, subject to a CCPA opt-out. Resultant Data is analysed and shared on a pseudonymised basis to improve the service and to produce benchmark studies and marketing material. The prediction models are trained on funding activity, leadership changes, news velocity and engagement signals described as aggregated and anonymised across more than 80 million users. Named subprocessors, published in Exhibit B of the Data Use Addendum, include AWS, Snowflake, Salesforce, Stripe, Zendesk and Google Analytics.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Crunchbase states in its GDPR Privacy Notice, effective 26 November 2024, that the company is based in the United States and therefore operates the service and collects and processes personal data from the US. No European hosting region is offered, and no country beyond the United States is named anywhere on the site. There is no trust or security page and no list of data centres. Infrastructure providers can only be inferred from Exhibit B of the Data Use Addendum, where AWS and Snowflake appear among the authorised subprocessors. Transfers out of the EEA are covered by the EU standard contractual clauses, with the UK addendum for the United Kingdom and the EU clauses used for Switzerland. In short, hosting is American by default and by declaration rather than by a documented architecture, and buyers with data residency requirements will have to raise the question with the vendor directly.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Crunchbase.
- The 7-day trial charges the payment method automatically when it ends, and subscriptions renew automatically
- No refund is granted once data has been exported, including during the trial, and cancellation takes effect only at the end of the current period, with no pro rata
- Real prices are invisible on the pricing page, which is rendered in JavaScript: confirm the current amount before buying
- The 38% annual discount is restricted to new customers and to the first year only
- The privacy policy states that Profile data is sold to customers and partners, with a CCPA objection right that has to be exercised
- Resultant Data belongs to Crunchbase and the user irrevocably assigns any residual rights, so building a business on data you believe you own deserves a careful read of the terms
- Disputes go to mandatory arbitration in California unless you opt out within 30 days of signing up, and using Crunchbase content to train models is contractually prohibited
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Effort depends entirely on the route chosen. The web interface needs no installation: a free account takes a few minutes. The Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier integrations are standard administrator-side configurations, with CRM enrichment reserved for accounts of at least 10 seats. The API requires a commercial agreement and an API key, with public documentation. The MCP server needs neither key nor development work, only an OAuth Log In with Crunchbase connection from the LLM client, though it may have to be added as a custom connector by following the publisher's guides, and an administrator controls which seats may connect.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Crunchbase
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free version of Crunchbase?
How much does Crunchbase Pro cost?
Is there a free trial?
Does Crunchbase offer an API?
What is the Crunchbase MCP server?
Which integrations are available?
Is there a mobile app?
Where is the data processed, and is a DPA available?
How accurate are the predictions?
Can I get a refund, and is the interface available in other languages?
Should you pick Crunchbase?
Crunchbase remains the reference source on private companies, but the product it sells today is no longer a directory: it is a prediction engine sitting on top of that dataset. Seven models, published hit rates and 16,000+ predictions verified after the fact make the promise unusually checkable for this market, and the three ways in, web interface, REST API and a first-party MCP server that needs no API key, cover very different maturities of use, from an analyst running a search to an engineering team piping company data into its own systems. The permanent free account is genuinely useful for evaluating the coverage before spending anything, and the 7-day trial does the rest.
The reservations are real and mostly commercial or contractual. Only Crunchbase Pro has a public price, 99.00 USD per month, and even that has to be found in the help centre because the pricing page renders in JavaScript and shows nothing; everything above it goes through a sales representative. Export quotas are modest for the price, CRM enrichment starts at 10 seats, there is no mobile app since 2022 and no language other than English. On the data side, the terms give Crunchbase ownership of Resultant Data with an irrevocable assignment of residual rights, the privacy policy states that Profile data is sold to customers and partners, and no opt-out from model training is documented. The GDPR apparatus is otherwise solid, with a dedicated notice, Article 27 representatives and named subprocessors, though no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification appears on the site. Worth the money for teams whose work depends on private-market signals; hard to justify for occasional lookups.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.