# Crunchbase News Scraper (`axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Crunchbase News at scale — funding rounds, M\&A, layoffs, IPOs and VC coverage. Filter by keyword, category, tag and date; get clean JSON with authors, categories, tags, images and optional full article text. Great for deal-flow monitoring and lead gen. Pay only for the results you get.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [axly](https://apify.com/axlymxp) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Business, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 5.00 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 dataset items

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Crunchbase News Scraper

Turn **Crunchbase News** into a structured dataset. This Actor scrapes
[news.crunchbase.com](https://news.crunchbase.com) — Crunchbase's editorial desk
covering **funding rounds, M\&A, IPOs, layoffs, unicorns and venture-capital
moves** — and returns clean JSON you can drop into a spreadsheet, database, CRM or
AI pipeline. Filter by keyword, category, tag and publish date; optionally pull the
full article text.

No login, no API key, no CAPTCHAs — just reliable, well-structured article data.

### Who it's for

| You are… | You use this to… |
| -------- | ---------------- |
| **VC / PE analyst** | Monitor daily funding & M\&A coverage; build a date-filtered deal-flow feed |
| **Sales / lead-gen** | Surface companies that *just raised* (venture/seed/funding categories) as warm outbound leads |
| **Researcher / journalist** | Assemble topic archives (AI, fintech, crypto, cybersecurity) and startup-trend datasets |
| **Content / SEO team** | Track competitor coverage, authors and headlines over time |

### What you get — output fields

| Field | Type | Description |
| ----- | ---- | ----------- |
| `article_id` | integer | Stable article identifier |
| `url` | string | Canonical article URL |
| `slug` | string | URL slug |
| `title` | string | Headline (entities decoded) |
| `excerpt` | string | Short summary / dek (plain text) |
| `date_published` | string | Publish datetime (site local, ISO-8601) |
| `date_published_gmt` | string | Publish datetime (UTC) |
| `date_modified` | string | Last-modified datetime |
| `author_names` | array | Author display names |
| `author_slugs` | array | Author slugs |
| `category_names` | array | Category names (e.g. Venture, Artificial intelligence, M\&A) |
| `category_slugs` | array | Category slugs (e.g. `venture`, `ai`, `ma`) |
| `tag_names` | array | Tag names |
| `tag_slugs` | array | Tag slugs |
| `featured_image_url` | string | Lead image URL |
| `seo_description` | string | SEO / OpenGraph description |
| `content_html` | string | Full article HTML *(when “Include full article text” is on)* |
| `content_text` | string | Full article plain text *(when enabled)* |
| `word_count` | integer | Body word count *(when enabled)* |
| `scraped_at` | string | UTC timestamp of the scrape |

### High-value use cases

- **Deal-flow monitoring** — schedule a daily run of `categories: ["venture", "seed"]`
  with `dateFrom` = yesterday to capture every new funding story.
- **Warm-lead generation** — filter the funding categories, then push
  `title`/`url`/`date_published` into your CRM as "recently funded" signals.
- **Sector research** — pull the entire `ai` or `fintech-ecommerce` archive with
  `includeContent: true` for text mining, summarization or embeddings.
- **Competitive/author tracking** — group by `author_names` and `category_slugs`
  to see who covers what, and how often.
- **Newsletter / alerting** — keyword-search (e.g. `"acquisition"`) on a schedule
  and forward new hits via webhook.

### Input parameters

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| ----- | ---- | ------- | ----------- |
| `searchQuery` | string | — | Full-text search across title and body |
| `categories` | array | — | Category slugs or names; OR-combined (e.g. `venture`, `ai`, `ma`, `ipo`, `seed`, `crypto`, `fintech-ecommerce`, `cybersecurity`) |
| `tags` | array | — | Tag slugs or names; OR-combined |
| `dateFrom` | string | — | Published on/after (ISO date or datetime) |
| `dateTo` | string | — | Published on/before (ISO date or datetime) |
| `includeContent` | boolean | `false` | Include full article HTML + plain text + word count |
| `sortBy` | enum | `date` | `date` or `relevance` (relevance needs a search keyword) |
| `order` | enum | `desc` | `desc` (newest first) or `asc` |
| `maxItems` | integer | `100` | Stop after this many articles |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | off | Optional; not needed (the site is open) |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "AI funding",
  "categories": ["venture"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
  "includeContent": false,
  "sortBy": "date",
  "order": "desc",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

#### Example output row

```json
{
  "article_id": 94018,
  "url": "https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/biotech-startup-investment-exits-steady-ai-2026/",
  "title": "Biotech Startup Investment Held Steady Even As AI Funding Surged",
  "excerpt": "Venture funding to biotech startups held roughly flat in the first half…",
  "date_published": "2026-08-31T04:00:52",
  "author_names": ["Joanna Glasner"],
  "category_names": ["Artificial intelligence", "Health, Wellness & Biotech", "Venture"],
  "category_slugs": ["ai", "health-wellness-biotech", "venture"],
  "tag_names": ["biotech"],
  "featured_image_url": "https://news.crunchbase.com/wp-content/uploads/concentrated-capital.jpg",
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-10T02:38:11+00:00"
}
```

### Scheduling & integrations

- **Schedule** runs (hourly/daily) from the Apify Console to build a live news feed.
- **Webhooks** — trigger a downstream service on run completion.
- **Integrations** — export to Google Sheets, Airtable, S3, or push to Make/Zapier.
- **Storage** — every run writes a dataset you can pull via the Apify API in JSON,
  CSV, Excel or RSS.

### Use with AI assistants (MCP)

This Actor works as a tool for AI agents via the Apify MCP server, so an assistant
(Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) can fetch Crunchbase News on demand — e.g. *"get this
week's AI funding articles"* — and reason over the structured rows.

### Incremental scraping

Pass `dateFrom` (and optionally `dateTo`) to pull only articles in a window. For a
daily monitor, set `dateFrom` to the previous run's date and let `order: desc`
surface the newest stories first. The Actor de-duplicates within a run and resumes
cleanly if interrupted.

### FAQ

**Is there a result limit?** No hard cap — `maxItems` controls run size. Crunchbase
News has ~8,700 articles total; a single category can exceed 5,000. For very large
unfiltered pulls, narrow with a date range (the source paginates up to ~100 pages
per query).

**How fresh is the data?** Live. Each run hits the site's current WordPress API, so
you get articles the moment they're published.

**Does it need proxies or logins?** No. Crunchbase News is a public site with no
anti-bot gate — the Actor runs without proxies or credentials.

**Is this the same as company/funding profiles?** No. This Actor covers Crunchbase
**News articles**, not the company/investor profile database (a separate,
license-gated product). If you need company profiles, use a dedicated Crunchbase
company Actor.

**Is scraping this legal?** The Actor collects publicly available editorial content
and is intended for research, monitoring and analysis. You are responsible for how
you use the data and for complying with Crunchbase's terms and applicable law.

**Reliability?** The backend is a stable WordPress REST API with retry/backoff and
schema-consistent output, so integrations don't break silently. Fatal errors are
monitored.

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Full-text search across Crunchbase News articles (title + body), e.g. "Series A", "OpenAI", "layoffs". Leave empty to list articles by category/tag/date only.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Filter by Crunchbase News category slug or name. Common slugs: venture, startups, business, ai, public, fintech-ecommerce, ma, ipo, seed, crypto, cybersecurity, diversity, layoffs. Multiple categories are OR-combined.

## `tags` (type: `array`):

Filter by article tag slug or name, e.g. "artificial-intelligence", "venture-capital". Multiple tags are OR-combined.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Only articles published on or after this date/time (ISO-8601, e.g. 2026-01-01 or 2026-01-01T00:00:00).

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Only articles published on or before this date/time (ISO-8601, e.g. 2026-06-30).

## `includeContent` (type: `boolean`):

Also include the full article body (HTML + plain text + word count) in each row. Off by default to keep rows small and fast.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Ordering of results. "relevance" only applies when a search keyword is set (otherwise falls back to date).

## `order` (type: `string`):

Sort direction for the publish date.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many articles. Crunchbase News has ~8,700 articles total; a single unfiltered category can exceed 5,000.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional. Crunchbase News has no anti-bot protection, so no proxy is needed and it is off by default. Enable a proxy only if you run very large jobs and want IP rotation.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "artificial intelligence",
  "categories": [
    "venture",
    "ai"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "artificial-intelligence"
  ],
  "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-12-31",
  "includeContent": false,
  "sortBy": "date",
  "order": "desc",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `articles` (type: `string`):

All scraped article rows in the default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchQuery": "AI funding",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchQuery": "AI funding",
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQuery": "AI funding",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,axlymxp/crunchbase-news-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Iu8bbPIgxyXG7igkM/builds/cNJ0RpvyDYU1oKCKf/openapi.json