# TechCrunch Articles Scraper (`parseforge/techcrunch-articles-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes TechCrunch articles from a specified category URL. Returns each article's title, author, publication date, and full body text in a structured dataset.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/techcrunch-articles-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Business, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.71 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### TechCrunch Articles Scraper

**Scrape TechCrunch articles from any category page, from the latest funding rounds to startup news.** Each article comes with its title, author, date, and full text. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

TechCrunch is the pulse of the startup and venture capital world, but manually tracking every funding announcement or industry shift across its categories is a full-time job. This scraper reads the public article feeds from any TechCrunch category page you specify, such as funding, startups, or apps, and returns each article in a clean, structured dataset. No API key, no RSS wrangling, the data you need.

| Who uses it | What they scrape TechCrunch for |
|---|---|
| Venture capital analysts | Monitor funding rounds and startup launches in specific sectors. |
| Market researchers | Track emerging technology trends and competitor announcements. |
| PR professionals | Build media lists and track coverage of specific companies. |
| Data journalists | Gather a corpus of articles for quantitative analysis of the tech industry. |

### What it does

This Actor collects TechCrunch articles from a given category URL and returns each one as a flat row with its title, author, publication date, and full body text.

- 📂 **Category targeting:** Provide any TechCrunch category URL, like funding, startups, or enterprise, and scrape only those articles.
- 🔢 **Volume control:** Set a maximum number of articles to scrape, from a small sample up to a full category archive.
- 📄 **Full article text:** Extracts the complete body content of each article, not the headline and snippet.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with TechCrunch data

**💰 Track startup funding announcements.**

A VC analyst runs the scraper on the funding category daily to get a structured list of every new deal, which they then filter by industry and round size to identify potential investment signals.

**📈 Monitor a specific tech niche.**

A product manager scrapes the enterprise category weekly to track new product launches and feature announcements from competitors, feeding the data into a competitive intelligence dashboard.

**📰 Build a TechCrunch news archive.**

A data scientist scrapes the AI category over several months to build a historical dataset of article texts for trend analysis and natural language processing projects.

### Why choose this scraper

| | What you get |
|---|---|
| **Complete article text** | Get the full story, not a truncated preview, for content analysis or archiving. |
| **Structured output** | Every article is returned in a consistent, flat schema ready for spreadsheets and databases. |
| **No coding required** | Run it directly from the Apify console or API with a URL and a number. |

### How it compares

This Actor focuses exclusively on scraping full-text articles from TechCrunch category pages, while the alternative is a multi-source tool that covers TechCrunch as one of several sites.

| Feature | ParseForge | Tech News Article Scraper |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated TechCrunch category scraping | Yes, built for TechCrunch category URLs | Not listed |
| Full article body text extraction | Yes | Not listed |
| Scrapes multiple tech news sites | No, focused on TechCrunch only | Yes |
| No API key or login required | Yes | Not listed |
| Configurable max items per run | Yes | Not listed |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a single TechCrunch category URL and set a maximum number of articles to scrape. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
 "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/"
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/",
 "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.003 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.30 |
| 1,000 results | $3.00 |
| 10,000 results | $30.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [TechCrunch Articles Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/techcrunch-articles-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to TechCrunch through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/techcrunch-articles-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**The run finishes but returns no articles.**

Check that the category URL you provided is correct and that the page loads articles in a standard browser. Some category pages may have fewer articles than expected, or the site structure may have changed.

**The scraper is not getting the full article text.**

Ensure you are not blocking JavaScript or necessary resources. The scraper needs to load the full article page to extract the body text. If the issue persists, it may be due to a change in TechCrunch's page layout.

**I'm getting a timeout error.**

This can happen if you set a very high maxItems value or if TechCrunch's servers are slow to respond. Try reducing the maxItems number and increasing the run's timeout setting in the Apify actor options.

**The output dataset is missing some articles I can see on the website.**

The scraper respects the maxItems limit you set. If the number of articles on the page is greater than your maxItems value, only the first N articles will be collected. Increase the maxItems value to capture more.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can I scrape articles from the TechCrunch homepage? | Yes, you can use the main TechCrunch URL as the category URL to scrape the latest articles from the homepage feed. |
| Does this scraper get the full text of each article? | Yes, it navigates to each article's page and extracts the complete body text, not the excerpt shown on the category listing. |
| How many articles can I scrape in one run? | You can set the maximum number of articles using the maxItems input field. The default is 100, but you can increase it to scrape a larger archive. |
| What format is the data exported in? | The scraped data can be exported in several formats including JSON, CSV, Excel, and XML, directly from your Apify dataset. |
| Do I need a TechCrunch account or API key to use this? | No, this scraper reads the publicly available web pages, so no login, account, or API key is required. |
| Can I scrape articles by a specific author? | This Actor is designed to scrape by category URL. To get articles by a specific author, you would need to find the author's archive page URL and use that as the input. |
| Is it possible to scrape only articles from a certain date range? | The Actor scrapes articles in the order they appear on the category page. It does not have a built-in date filter, but you can set a maxItems limit and then filter the resulting dataset by the publication date field. |
| Can I run this scraper on a schedule? | Yes, you can use Apify's scheduling feature to run this Actor automatically at set intervals, such as daily or weekly, to collect new articles as they are published. |
| What is a TechCrunch category URL? | It is the web address for a specific section of the site, like https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/ or https://techcrunch.com/category/startups/. You provide this URL to tell the scraper which set of articles to collect. |

### Related actors

Browse the full [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) for more scrapers.

🆘 **Need help?** Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by TechCrunch, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

## `categoryUrl` (type: `string`):

URL of a TechCrunch category page, e.g., funding

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

Max number of articles to scrape

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/techcrunch-articles-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 = { "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/techcrunch-articles-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 '{
  "categoryUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/category/funding/"
}' |
apify call parseforge/techcrunch-articles-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/techcrunch-articles-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/K3UpKJshVVRtfO2HU/builds/I1CMGNIAwegBhJanU/openapi.json