Using Crunchbase API: A Guide on Everything You Need to Know

Given Crunchbase's plethora of company information, it would be a waste not to make the most of it. Thankfully, Crunchbase has its own API that allows you to access and integrate the website's data into your applications; everything from company profiles, funding histories, market trends, and competitive landscapes.

But how do you access it? What does it cost? Is it worth it?

Welcome to the only Crunchbase API guide you will ever need. In this article, I will explore all Crunchbase API packages, discuss their features, show you a demo on how to access those APIs, and the costs associated with each. We'll end on a high note, by comparing Crunchbase API with an alternative solution, Proxycurl, a paid API, that enriches B2B data from trusted sources like LinkedIn and Crunchbase.

Sounds fair? Let's begin.

Crunchbase API Packages

Crunchbase offers tailored API packages; four tiers of data access in exact. You have the freedom to choose between these packages depending on your application or use case.

Tier 1: Firmographics

Firmographic data outlines business characteristics, similar to how demographics outline the characteristics of individuals. The contents include industry type, company size, revenue, location, organizational structure and more. The purpose is to give you a full picture of a company’s role and position in the market.

Key Features

• Company name, type, and legal status.
• Industry classification and organizational structure.
• Revenue and employee size.
• Geographic location and operational reach.

Ideal For

• Sales Teams: Discover qualified leads based on industry, size, and geography to streamline outreach.
• Market Analysts: Enrich market research with detailed company profiles for competitive analysis.
• Risk Management Team: Mitigate partnership risks by verifying business legitimacy and foundational data.
• Business Developers: Evaluate competitors or partners with comprehensive organizational insights.

Tier 2: Basic Financials

Peek into company with the Basic Financials Package. A brief overview of financial metrics that look into a company's financial health and assist you in making informed investment decisions.

Features

• Basic financial metrics overview.
• Investment insights, including funding rounds and investor profiles.

Perfect For

• Financial Analysts: Develop in-depth reports and accurate financial forecasts.
• Investors: Screen and evaluate potential investment opportunities with comprehensive data on funding trends.

Tier 3: Advanced Financials

Perfect for those needing a granular analysis of detailed funding histories and complex financial health indicators. With details on funding histories, complex financial trends, and key financial metrics, it supports strategic decisions at the highest levels.

Features

• Exhaustive financial metrics, including funding histories and long-term trends.
• Advanced investment analysis tools for in-depth forecasting.

Perfect For

• Market Analysts: Conduct market and competitor evaluation for strategic planning or mergers, acquisitions and major investments.

Tier 4: Predictions and Insights

Complete Crunchbase unlocked! The Predictions and Insights package is a game-changer for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve. You get real-time signals on critical events like layoffs, executive changes, or growth trends, for accurate decision-making.

Features

• Advanced insights and real-time signals, including funding predictions and news analytics.
• Predictive analytics for employee changes, product launches, and company performance.

Use Cases

• Investors: Venture capitalists and private equity firms use predictive data to identify promising startups and emerging companies.
• Sales Teams: Optimize outreach by targeting high-potential leads and businesses poised for growth.
• Recruiters: Spot scaling companies that are expanding and likely to hire executive talent.

How to Access Crunchbase APIs

The** Basic API** will give you access to firmographic data points like organization description, address, etc. You get access as soon as you register an account with Crunchbase through account settings.

Unregistered users can sign up for Crunchbase basic access. You get immediate access to an API key and can get started with exploring Crunchbase's Basic data as soon as the API key is activated, which typically takes 15 minutes to an hour.

Crunchbase also has a robust API documentation at Crunchbase Basic docs if you need assistance. In case you are still not sure on the data fields you can access with the Basic Plan, check out Organization Attributes for Basic API for further clarification.

The Crunchbase Full API (currently v4.0) provides exclusive Crunchbase data, such as advanced firmographics, advanced financials, company insights, and more. For full API access, you will have to contact Crunchbase's sales team.

Demo Using Entity Lookup API

The Crunchbase API uses token-based authentication, which means that developers must pass their individual API Key parameter with every request.

The Entity Lookup API endpoints are provided so you can retrieve data - data fields and relationships from a specific entity. Crunchbase provides Entity Lookup endpoints for organizations, people, funding rounds, and acquisitions.

To make a request using the Entity Lookup APIs, you must provide the following:

• a user key
• an {entity_id} - which can either be the UUID or the permalink (e.g., "tesla-motors") of the entity

You can also ask for additional data fields and relationships in the response by adding the field_ids and/or card_ids parameters to the request. Here is an example below:

GET https://api.crunchbase.com/v4/data/entities/organizations/tesla-motors?
card_ids=founders, raised_funding_rounds&field_ids=categories, short_description, rank_org_company, founded
_on,website, facebook, created_at&user_key=INSERT_KEY_HERE

Example Entity Lookup Request

Entity Lookup API is one of the APIs Crunchbase provides where you can pull up information from a specific entity.

Here's an example request using Entity Lookup API. Let's try and pull company information of Tesla Motors.

GET https://api.crunchbase.com/v4/data/entities/organizations/tesla-motors?card_ids=founders,raised_funding_rounds&field_ids=categories,short_description,rank_org_company,founded_on,website,facebook,created_at&user_key=INSERT_KEY_HERE

And here's the response it generates:

{
    "properties": {
        "identifier": {
            "uuid": "a367b036-5952-5435-7541-ad7ee8869e24",
            "value": "Tesla",
            "image_id": "dj8rndg9wkqkpgvplvzi",
            "permalink": "tesla-motors",
            "entity_def_id": "organization"
        },
        "short_description": "Tesla Motors is an electric vehicle and clean energy company that provides electric cars, solar, and renewable energy solutions.",
        "facebook": {
            "value": "https://www.facebook.com/TeslaMotorsCorp"
        },
        "created_at": "2007-12-24T13:25:13Z",
        "rank_org_company": 2978
    }
}

Crunchbase documentation is pretty solid. If you find yourself in a tight corners, you can check out Crunchbase documentation at Using the API tab for your assistance.

Full Crunchbase Plans and API Options

Crunchbase has several subscription and API access plans, so it can get a bit confusing. Let me break it down in the simplest way possible.

Subscription Plans:

The overall access tiers for using Crunchbase’s services. This is what you'll find on their pricing page. Each tier unlocks different levels of data and features:

• Pro Plan: Leverage private company data and go places.
• Business Plan: For the team; enable scalable integrations and exports for your team.
• API Plan: Designed for larger teams or companies with the most comprehensive access to data, bulk exports, and API integration. Within the API plan, Crunchbase offers specific data packages that cater to different needs (what I talked about earlier):

• Firmographics: Company data including size, location, and industry.
• Basic Financials: Surficial financial data like funding rounds.
• Advanced Financials: Detailed financial data, including revenue estimates and valuation.
• Predictions and Insights: The most comprehensive package, with advanced insights and real-time signals on companies.

API Access:

API access tiers allows you to integrate Crunchbase data into your systems based on your requirements. There are two main API packages:

1. Basic API: Limited access to datasets and usage quotas.
2. Full API: Full access to Crunchbase's datasets, granular information and higher usage limits. See What is the difference between the Crunchbase Basic API vs Full API?

Your Subscription Plan (Pro, Business or API) determines your level of access to Crunchbase’s data. You can select between the Basic or Full API to further enhance that access depending on your use case. Furthermore, you can focus on specific types of data under the API Plan through the Firmographics, Basic Financials, Advanced Financials, or Predictions and Insights data packages.

Crunchbase Pricing

Here's an overview of the plans and pricing Crunchbase offers, with their subsequent features.

Crunchbase API Limitations

Crunchbase API is not without its flaws. Keep in mind their product limitations are your usage limitations so, think of this like a heads up.

1. Rate Limits: Crunchbase has a rate limit of 200 calls per minute for their API endpoints. They claim it as a wall to protect the platform and ensure consistent reliability and performance. It could be limiting for corporations that work with bulk data.
2. Export Limits: If you're subscribed to Crunchbase Pro, you can see full search results, but cannot export them. Crunchbase Business subscribers are also limited to 5K rows of exports per month.
3. Inaccurate Information: Crunchbase relies on self-reported information from various sources, which may not always be accurate or up-to-date. Additionally, information is volatile in the business world, making it difficult for any database to maintain a completely accurate record.
4. Costly at Scale: While basic access is free, higher usage or premium features come with significant costs, making it hard for startups and small businesses to consider Crunchbase API as an option.
5. Attribution Requirements: Usually, people pay premium money to get rid of an annoying watermark. However, with Crunchbase, the licensees must attribute content sourced when made available or visible to any third party. Attribution must state “Powered by Crunchbase” and be accompanied by a hyperlink to Crunchbase.

If your business depends on accurate and reliable data, you should not pull any stops while choosing your provider. With so many limitations, it really makes you reconsider your standing on Crunchbase API. But you're not out of options just yet.

Enter Proxycurl

Proxycurl is a paid API that just works! We provide enriched people and company data for professional insights. Real-time scraping to historical data, we've got them all. But the biggest reason you'd want to use Proxycurl is because it's an incredibly versatile API that's designed to be built into your existing systems and workflow.

I do admit that Proxycurl is a platform designed for developers. But you don't need rocket science or expert technical proficiency to figure out how it works. In fact, let me show you how easy it is to pull a freshly scraped and accurate company data using Company Profile Endpoint.

Demo Using Proxycurl Company Profile Endpoint

Start off by creating a free account with Proxycurl. You get free credits upon signup so don't worry about paying right away. Head on to your dashboard and get a unique API key. You need this key for authentication.

Using the Company Profile Endpoint, let’s try and pull up information about Tesla Motors like we did with Crunchbase API.

The Proxycurl Company Profile API endpoint is:

https://api.proxycurl.com/v2/company/profile

Your API should be included as a header:
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

To search for Tesla Motors, the parameter url can be used to pass Tesla's LinkedIn URL:

{
  "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/tesla-motors/"
}

Example Request and Response

Here's what your full request looks like in Python.

import requests

# API Key and Endpoint
API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
URL = "https://api.proxycurl.com/v2/company"

# Request payload
payload = {
    "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/tesla-motors/"
}

headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"
}

# Making the API call
response = requests.get(URL, headers=headers, params=payload)

# Handling the response
if response.status_code == 200:
    data = response.json()
    print("Company Name:", data.get("name"))
    print("Website:", data.get("website"))
    print("Headquarters:", data.get("headquarters_location"))
    print("Industry:", data.get("industry"))
    print("Employee Count:", data.get("employee_count"))
else:
    print("Error:", response.status_code, response.text)

What you get is a response in JSON with Tesla’s details.

{
  "name": "Tesla Motors",
  "website": "https://www.tesla.com",
  "industry": "Automotive",
  "headquarters_location": "Palo Alto, California, United States",
  "employee_count": 10000,
  "founded_year": 2003,
  "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/tesla-motors/",
  "description": "Tesla, Inc. is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company ..."
}

Depending on what data fields you need, you can add or remove them. It’s that easy.

Crunchbase API vs Proxycurl

It's time to bring these two giants head-to-head. Let's see how well they bode when compared under some important metrics.

Now, let's look at each of these metrics up close.

Data Collection

Proxycurl: Proxycurl's scrapes publicly available data in real-time from trusted sources such like LinkedIn and Crunchbase. What you get is accurate, up-to-date information.

Crunchbase: Crunchbase collects data from various sources, including:

• User-Generated Content: Content and submissions from the community, basically like Wikipedia.
• Partnerships with Data Providers: Crunchbase partners with reputable data providers to augment its database. These partnerships help to increase the accuracy and depth of the data.
• Web Crawling and Automated Data Collection: Crunchbase uses web crawling and automated data collection methods to gather information from public sources.

Pricing

Proxycurl: You get free credits up front when you sign up. If you want to pursue further, you have the option to choose from one of our five subscription plans or get on our pay-as-you-go API approach. Check out our Pricing Plans to get a better idea.

Crunchbase: Crunchbase offers a freemium model with three tiers: Basic, Pro, and Enterprise. The Basic plan is free, providing limited access to company profiles, funding information, and news. 

The Pro plan unlocks additional features, such as access to investor profiles and funding rounds data. 

Enterprise plans are custom-priced for teams and organizations, offering advanced features, support, and data access.

Data Freshness

Proxycurl: Proxycurl provides real-time scraping, with a freshness guarantee to assure you. But here's the kicker, you have control over how fresh you want your data to be. You have the option to extract freshly-scraped data, data 29 days old or younger or historical data that is older than 29 days.

Crunchbase: Crunchbase regularly updates their datasets every two weeks.

Rate Limits

Proxycurl: A generous rate limit of 432,000 calls per day. Perfect for high-volume users.

Crunchbase API: Restricted to 200 API requests per minute. Rate limits are based on subscription tiers. Lower tiers have strict API call restrictions.

Customization

Proxycurl: With Proxycurl, you get granular control over API requests; you can tailor data fields according to your needs.

Crunchbase API: Offers predefined data packages that limit customization to the provided dataset categories. You have to work within these constraints.

Best For

Proxycurl: If there's one thing Proxycurl does best, its enriching people and company data. It's ideal for recruitment, lead generation, and CRM enhancements. The developer-friendly environment allows creating tailored solutions like applicant tracking systems and market intelligence dashboards, offering real-time, LinkedIn-based insights to optimize business processes.

Crunchbase API: Crunchbase is more geared towards research than anything else. It empowers venture capitalists, sales teams, and analysts with detailed insights into company financials, funding histories, and market trends, streamlining lead generation, risk management, and talent acquisition.

Legal Compliance

Proxycurl: Proxycurl is legally compliant with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018) , the industry standard privacy regulations.

Crunchbase: Matching Proxycurl's stride, Crunchbase is also GDPR and CCPA compliant.

The Bottomline

Crunchbase API is certainly a viable option if you're looking harvest the platform's data. But just so you know, there is a better, more affordable option out there.

Proxycurl starts where Crunchbase API ends. With our multiple endpoints, filter and pick only the data fields you want. Enjoy accurate data without falling for common data pitfalls.

Say yes to fresher, more accurate data. Say yes to Proxycurl. Sign up today!