Crunchbase Scraper

Search and extract company data from Crunchbase — the world's largest startup and company database. Get funding details, employee counts, founders, investors, categories, and more without needing a Crunchbase API key.

Why Use This Scraper?

Crunchbase is the go-to platform for startup and company intelligence, but their API starts at $29/month and full access costs $49+/month. This Actor extracts publicly available data from Crunchbase using their autocomplete endpoints, JSON-LD structured data, and Google-indexed pages — giving you actionable company data at a fraction of the cost.

What You Can Extract

Field	Search	Company Details
Company name	Yes	Yes
Short description	Yes	Yes
Full description	-	Yes
Crunchbase URL	Yes	Yes
Founded date	Yes	Yes
Employee count	Yes	Yes
Total funding	Yes	Yes
Website URL	Yes	Yes
Categories/Industry	Yes	Yes
Location/HQ	Yes	Yes
Founders	-	Yes
Investors	-	Yes
Funding rounds	-	Yes

Use Cases

1. Lead Generation for Sales Teams

Build targeted prospect lists by searching for companies in specific industries. Filter by funding stage, employee count, and location to find ideal customers for your product.

Example workflow:

1. Search for "fintech" companies → get 20 results with funding data
2. Filter for companies with $1M-$10M funding (early-stage, budget for new tools)
3. Extract website URLs → find contact pages
4. Import into your CRM with funding context for personalized outreach

{
    "action": "search",
    "query": "fintech",
    "maxItems": 50
}

2. Startup Research & Due Diligence

Investors, accelerators, and corporate development teams use Crunchbase data to evaluate startups. This Actor lets you systematically gather data on companies you're evaluating.

Example workflow:

1. Get detailed profiles for shortlisted startups
2. Compare funding histories, investor quality, and team composition
3. Export to spreadsheet for side-by-side comparison
4. Track changes over time with scheduled runs

{
    "action": "company",
    "url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe"
}

3. Investor Prospecting

Founders raising capital can identify active investors in their space. Search for companies similar to yours, then extract their investor lists to build a warm outreach pipeline.

Example workflow:

1. Search for 10 competitors or comparable companies
2. Extract investor lists from each company profile
3. Cross-reference to find investors who funded multiple companies in your space
4. Prioritize investors with pattern-matching interest

{
    "action": "company",
    "query": "openai"
}

4. Competitor Analysis & Market Mapping

Map your competitive landscape by searching for companies in your category. Track their funding, team size, and growth trajectory to inform your strategy.

Example workflow:

1. Search for your industry keyword (e.g., "developer tools")
2. Build a competitor matrix with funding, headcount, and location
3. Identify market gaps — categories with demand but few well-funded players
4. Schedule weekly runs to catch new entrants

{
    "action": "search",
    "query": "developer tools",
    "maxItems": 100
}

5. Market Intelligence & Trend Analysis

Track emerging sectors by monitoring which categories attract the most new companies and funding. Useful for VCs, corporate strategy teams, and journalists.

Example queries to run regularly:

• "artificial intelligence" — track AI startup formation
• "climate tech" — monitor cleantech investment
• "healthcare AI" — intersection of two hot sectors
• "web3" — track crypto/blockchain trends

6. Recruitment Intelligence

HR teams and recruiters use company data to identify potential employer competitors, understand compensation benchmarks (based on funding stage), and find companies likely to be hiring.

Signal: Companies that recently raised funding are almost always hiring. Search for recently funded companies in your target market to find warm leads.

7. Academic & Journalistic Research

Researchers studying entrepreneurship, innovation ecosystems, or specific industries can use this Actor to build datasets for analysis. Much faster than manual Crunchbase browsing.

8. Partnership & BD Prospecting

Business development teams can identify potential integration partners, distribution channels, or acquisition targets by searching for complementary companies.

Input Schema

{
    "action": "search",
    "query": "fintech",
    "url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe",
    "maxItems": 20
}

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
action	string	Yes	search	search to find companies, company to get details
query	string	Conditional	-	Search keyword or company permalink
url	string	Conditional	-	Full Crunchbase URL (company action)
maxItems	integer	No	20	Max results (1-100, search action only)

For search action: query is required. For company action: Either url or query (with permalink) is required.

Output Examples

Search Result

{
    "name": "Stripe",
    "permalink": "stripe",
    "url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe",
    "shortDescription": "Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet.",
    "foundedOn": "2010-01-01",
    "numEmployees": "c_05001_10000",
    "fundingTotal": 8700000000,
    "websiteUrl": "https://stripe.com",
    "categories": ["Financial Services", "Payments"],
    "location": "San Francisco, California, United States",
    "source": "odm_autocomplete"
}

Company Detail

{
    "name": "Stripe",
    "permalink": "stripe",
    "url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe",
    "description": "Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet...",
    "foundedOn": "2010-01-01",
    "headquarters": "San Francisco, California, US",
    "numEmployees": "c_05001_10000",
    "fundingRounds": [],
    "investors": [],
    "websiteUrl": "https://stripe.com",
    "categories": ["Financial Services"],
    "founders": ["Patrick Collison", "John Collison"],
    "source": "json_ld"
}

How It Works

The Actor uses a multi-endpoint strategy to maximize data extraction:

1. ODM Autocomplete API — Crunchbase's organization search endpoint. Returns structured company data including funding totals, employee counts, and categories. No authentication required.

2. V4 Autocomplete API — Alternative search endpoint with similar data. Used as fallback when ODM is unavailable.

3. Google Index Fallback — When direct Crunchbase APIs are blocked, searches Google for indexed Crunchbase organization pages to discover company permalinks.

4. Company Page Extraction — For detailed company data, fetches the organization page and extracts:

   • JSON-LD structured data (richest source)
   • Embedded Apollo/Next.js state
   • OpenGraph meta tags (last resort)

Anti-Blocking Notes

Crunchbase uses Cloudflare protection. The Actor works best when:

• Running on Apify platform (US-based IPs are less likely to be blocked)
• Using residential proxy if available
• Keeping request rates reasonable (built-in)

If you consistently get empty results, try enabling Apify's residential proxy in the Actor's run configuration.

Pricing

This Actor uses the pay-per-result model:

Event	Cost
search-result	Per company found in search
company-detail	Per company detail fetched

You only pay for results actually returned — if Crunchbase blocks a request, you're not charged.

Integrations

Export your data to:

• Google Sheets — automatic sync for team collaboration
• Airtable — build a CRM on top of Crunchbase data
• Zapier/Make — trigger workflows when new companies match your criteria
• Webhook — push results to your own API
• Email — get notified when runs complete

API Usage

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

# Search for companies
run = client.actor("YOUR_ACTOR_ID").call(run_input={
    "action": "search",
    "query": "artificial intelligence",
    "maxItems": 50
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{item['name']}: {item.get('fundingTotal', 'N/A')}")

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call({
    action: 'search',
    query: 'fintech',
    maxItems: 20
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(item => console.log(`${item.name}: ${item.fundingTotal}`));

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need a Crunchbase API key? No. This Actor uses publicly available endpoints that don't require authentication.

Q: How fresh is the data? Data comes directly from Crunchbase's live endpoints, so it's as fresh as what's on their website.

Q: Why are some results missing fields? Different data sources provide different fields. The source field in each result tells you which endpoint provided the data. Autocomplete endpoints have fewer fields than full page extractions.

Q: What if I get no results? Crunchbase uses Cloudflare protection that may block some requests. Try running with Apify residential proxy enabled, or try a different search query.

Q: Can I scrape thousands of companies? The search endpoint returns up to 25 results per query. For large-scale extraction, use multiple specific queries (e.g., "fintech new york", "fintech london") rather than one broad query.

Local Development

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Create input
echo '{"action": "search", "query": "stripe"}' > storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json

# Run locally
apify run

# Check results
cat storage/datasets/default/*.json

Limitations

• Search results are limited to ~25 per query (Crunchbase autocomplete limit)
• Some company pages may be blocked by Cloudflare
• Detailed investor and funding round data depends on page accessibility
• Rate limiting may apply if running many requests in quick succession

Legal & Ethical Use

This Actor accesses only publicly available data from Crunchbase. Users are responsible for:

• Complying with Crunchbase's Terms of Service
• Using extracted data in accordance with applicable laws
• Not overloading Crunchbase's servers with excessive requests

The Actor includes built-in rate limiting and respectful crawling practices.

🔒 Avoiding Crunchbase Rate Limits

Crunchbase aggressively blocks automated access and restricts API usage. Residential proxies distribute your requests across real IP addresses, avoiding detection.

ThorData Residential Proxies provide 200M+ rotating residential IPs across 195 countries — essential for scraping Crunchbase company data at scale without blocks.

Support

• Apify documentation
• Report issues
• Apify Discord community