Crunchbase, the go-to platform for exhaustive startup and enterprise news and information, has today announced that it has added a fresh $18 million to its coffers. The Series B investment has been led by Mayfield. This development is coupled with an official launch of its enterprise-focused premium product. It has dropped hints on an upcoming SaaS product offering called Marketplace as well.
Commenting on the investment, Rajeev Batra, Partner at Mayfield said,
Mayfield is excited to partner with Jager McConnell and the team at Crunchbase to be the place where consumers, professionals, and businesses can easily access the information on companies to sell to, market to, partner with, finance, work for, research, acquire, and do business with.
Crunchbase not only has a globally dominant position and brand, it has the potential to be a true platform company in becoming the actionable master record for company data.
With the incoming capital, the company is announcing the launch of an enterprise and professional-focused premium package that’s designed for teams. It is called Crunchbase Enterprise and can be seen as an expanded version of the company’s Pro offering, which it debuted just last year. While you’re free to access basic info from the company’s informational database, it debuted a $29/month paid tier for power users. It provided them with extended search and analytical features along with a list feature to track startups, CXOs, & investors.
The Enterprise product builds upon the same and provides enterprises access to even more business intelligence data. It leverages the company’s comprehensive live data and targeted prospecting via Crunchbase API, Excel export, and Salesforce integration support. It enables the user to keep track of current investment and industry trends, while also enabling them to keep an eye out for prospective acquisition targets.
Crunchbase Enterprise allows users to follow investment trends, identify growing industries, and supercharge sales and marketing efforts by discovering the companies that will be driving their business objectives and impacting their bottom line.
As for the list of clients, the company has already signed up more than 5,000 companies to use its Enterprise product. These include some prominent names such as Affinity, Datafox, Datanyze, Deloitte, Engagio, Everstring, Infer, Microsoft, Nestle, Samsung, Slack, Target, Volkswagen, and IBM Watson among others.
But, that’s not all. The company is also teasing us with minimal deeds about an upcoming “Marketplace” product, which is scheduled to debut later this very year. It will accompany the release of a completely revamped version of Crunchbase’s web platform (no word on updates for the official iOS app). The company has currently not dispensed much information but TechCrunch suggests that it will be an app store-like model where teams will be able to gain access to integrations to further their Crunchbase experience.
The Marketplace will bring in “best-in-class” data from other large-scale enterprises onto the Crunchbase platform. The company has already signed up ten partners, who’ve agreed to provide their data by means of an API. It is now looking to add fifteen partners to the service by April, according to TechCrunch. For example, it might bring in integrations from Slack for team members to communicate their data findings or Google Docs to collaborate on decisions.
Further, the company plans on deploying the freshly infused capital to accelerate product development and expand on Crunchbase’s existing product offerings. The primary objective will be to accelerate building their existing products, while also focusing on the new ones such as Marketplace.
But, to make all this possible, the company does require a hard-working and dedicated team to shoulder the task of building their data banks and upgrading the service. A large chunk of the funds will also be employed at expanding the teams. Crunchbase is also a part of the Silicon Valley culture and works with several entrepreneurs and enterprises on the daily. Thus, it is looking to build a diverse and cohesive team. Speaking about their hiring goals, Crunchbase CEO Jager McConnell said,
Crunchbase has become the go-to destination for accurate and up-to-date company information for businesses all over the world. As we grow, hiring a diverse team will bring a variety of valuable perspectives into the business, which reflects the culture of Crunchbase. This will remain a focus of hiring as the company doubles in size in the next year.
Crunchbase is known to most individuals who like to keep themselves updated with the happenings of the startup community. This widely popular database platform is a spin out from its parent company AOL, separated from TechCrunch back in 2015. It happened when Crunchbase picked up its first round of venture funding from Emergence Capital Partners, a renowned SaaS specialist. And it has since grown to become not only a database company but an all-around analytical one as well.
