Crunchbase is a platform for finding business information about private and public companies. Crunchbase information includes investments and funding information, founding members and individuals in leadership positions, mergers and acquisitions, news, and industry trends. Originally built to track startups, the Crunchbase website contains information on public and private companies on a global scale. Crunchbase sources its data in four ways: the venture program, machine learning, an in-house data team, and the Crunchbase community. Members of the public can submit information to the Crunchbase database. These submissions are subject to registration, social validation, and are often reviewed by a moderator before being accepted for publication.
History
Crunchbase was originally founded in 2007 by Michael Arrington, as a place to track the startups that parent companyTechCrunch featured in articles. From 2007 to September 2015, TechCrunch maintained control of the Crunchbase database. In September 2010, AOL acquired TechCrunch and Crunchbase as one of TechCrunch's portfolio companies. In November 2013, AOL entered into a dispute with start-up Pro Populi over the company's use of the entire Crunchbase dataset in apps that Pro Populi developed despite having distributed the data under the Creative Commons CC-BY attribution license. Pro Populi was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. AOL eventually conceded that Pro Populi could continue to use the dataset but adopted the CC BY-NC license for future revisions. As of August 2019, a snapshot of the 2013 dataset is still available for download under the CC-BY license on the Crunchbase website. In 2014, Crunchbase added incubators, venture capital partners, and a new leaderboard feature to the startup database. In 2015, Crunchbase separated from AOL/Verizon/TechCrunch to become a private entity. In September 2015, in conjunction with the spin out, Crunchbase announced $6.5 million in funding raised from Emergence Capital. This was shortly followed with a follow-up round of $2 million in November 2015. In 2016, the company rebranded from CrunchBase to Crunchbase and launched its first product: Crunchbase Pro. In April 2017, Crunchbase announced an $18 million Series B from Mayfield Fund. At the same time, Crunchbase launched two new products – Crunchbase Enterprise and Crunchbase for Applications. In 2018, Crunchbase launched "Crunchbase Marketplace". In October 2019, Crunchbase announced an $30 million Series C led by Omers Ventures. Existing backers Emergence, Mayfield, Cowboy Ventures and Verizon also participated.
Products
;Crunchbase Pro ;Crunchbase Marketplace ;Crunchbase Enterprise ;Crunchbase for Applications
User base
Crunchbase has more than 560,000 active community contributors on the platform. Over five million users access the Crunchbase website each month.
