Top 5 CB Insights Alternatives & Competitors (2024)
If you’re a corporate strategist, venture capital investor, IT leader, or entrepreneur CB Insights could be a good choice for you.
You’ll be able to use the platform to:
- Discover new tech trends that can lead to business opportunities
- Track industry trends that you want to keep an eye on
- Look for new startup investment opportunities
- Learn more about companies you have an opportunity to invest in or partner with
- Conduct market research
- Find out where competitors are getting their funding
- Create industry-specific feeds to quickly review new trending topics
- Download prepared slide decks to share with your team or critical decision makers
For a subscription to CB Insights to be worth it, though, you’ll want to be focused on one of these industries:
- Consumer
- Tech
- Insurance
- Healthcare
- Industrial
- Financial services
If you need to track trends in other industries, or your work has a focus other than M&A and investment, you’ll probably want to check out a different trend spotting tool.
In this guide, we’ll cover five business data and trend discovery tools that are great alternatives to CB Insights based on cost, industry coverage, and feature sets.
1. Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics is a trend spotting and forecasting tool that lets you find hot companies and topics across 30 different industries (not just tech and finance). And we’re continuing to expand.
You can use Exploding Topics to:
- Identify new industries and companies with investment potential
- Find up-and-coming brands to build partnerships with
- Conduct market and audience research
- Keep an eye on trending chatter in a variety of industries
- Develop ideas for solving consumer problems with new products
- Improve your startup marketing with forward-looking SEO keyword research
- Find out if competitors are trending in online chatter about your industry
What Industries Does Exploding Topics cover?
Exploding Topics lets you explore trending and historical data points in these industries:
Because we rely on Google search data, our data goes back 15 years—and with a combination of AI and expert human data analysis, we’re uniquely positioned to identify the trends that are about to explode.
How Much Does Exploding Topics Cost?
It’s free to use Exploding Topics. You can begin accessing our trend data right away, too. All it takes is a visit to the homepage, where you can review data by industry or keyword.
If you’d like to get even more insight into the trending topics, you can sign up for Exploding Topics Pro—it’s just $1 for your first two weeks. After that, Pro plans range from $39 to $249 per month (billed annually) depending on the features you need.
As a Pro user, you’ll get:
- Access to our full trends database
- Ability to find fast-growing startups
- Additional trend research and analysis tools
- Instant Trend Alerts
- API access
Our Pro users also get trend and industry data up to a year before anyone else. Whether you’re an investor, business owner, or marketer, this is the data that can give you a unique competitive edge.
Exploding Topics vs. CB Insights: At a Glance
| Exploding Topics | CB Insights | |
| Free plan? | Yes | No |
| Paid plans start at | $39/mo | Custom quotes only |
| Covered industries | 30+ | 6 |
| Data is suitable for | Investing, acquisition, business development, marketing, and more | Investing, acquisition, and business development |
| Unique features | Predictive analytics, expert-written trend reports | Pre-designed pitch books and data-rich slide decks |
2. Crunchbase
Crunchbase is a platform that provides data about business acquisitions and investments. Its database of information also includes trend insights and data that can be useful for developing a sales pipeline.
If you’re an investor, business owner, or sales leader, you may use Crunchbase for use cases like:
- Connecting with investors—or find growing companies to invest in
- Seeing who’s investing in your competitors
- Identifying the decision makers at prospective client companies
- Tracking trends around fast-growing startups and emerging brands in your industry
- Receiving alerts about mergers, acquisitions, and investments
The tool is very much geared toward active business leaders, sales representatives, and investors who are looking for specific opportunities in any of Crunchbase’s covered industries.
If you’re interested in doing broader research to figure out what kinds of industries you might want to begin doing business in, though, it’s probably best to start with another tool on this list.
What Industries Does Crunchbase Cover?
You can use Crunchbase to explore business data and trends in these industries:
How Much Does Crunchbase Cost?
Basic Crunchbase access is free. Without a subscription, you can see:
- Company names, industries, and locations
- Key company highlights
- Basic company profiles
To dig deeper into Crunchbase’s data, you’ll need to opt for a paid plan:
- Starter: $29 per month, billed annually per user
- Pro: $49 per month, billed annually per user
- Enterprise: custom pricing
Premium Crunchbase features include greater access to company data, Salesforce integrations, CSV export, and API access, among others.
Crunchbase vs. CB Insights: At a Glance
| Crunchbase | CB Insights | |
| Free plan? | Yes | No |
| Paid plans start at | $29/mo | Custom quotes only |
| Covered industries | 46 | 6 |
| Data is suitable for | Investing, acquisition, business development, and sales | Investing, acquisition, and business development |
| Unique features | Data about key decision makers at tracked companies | Pre-designed pitch books and data-rich slide decks |
3. S&P Global Market Intelligence
S&P Global Market Intelligence is a financial and tech trend platform that’s very focused on acquisition and investment.
Tailored to the needs of private equity firms, venture capital firms, and private lenders, its data distribution tool lets users see:
- Financial data for over 150,000 public and 10 million private companies
- Details about company ownership and transactions
- Credit risk rating details
- Lending, borrowing, and short sale information
The S&P Global Market Intelligence platform also includes resources for:
- Business formation
- Risk and compliance management
- Corporate sustainability
- Leveraged loans
- Supply chain management
If you need to track changes and trends with business acquisition or investment in mind, then S&P’s service could be a good one to consider.
However, if you’re more focused on understanding what audiences are talking about, you’ll want to try another trend spotting website on the market.
What Industries Does S&P Global Market Intelligence Cover?
S&P Global Market Intelligence has a narrower industry focus than some of the other CB Insights competitors on this list. You can use S&P's tool if you need data about:
- Academia
- Commercial banking
- Corporations
- Government & regulatory agencies
- Insurance
- Investment & global banking
- Investment management
- Private equity
- Professional services
How Much Does S&P Global Market Intelligence Cost?
Like CB Insights, S&P Global Market Intelligence pricing is custom-quoted based on your company’s needs and usage. To find out how much it will cost to use S&P’s service, you’ll need to contact them to set up a call with a sales representative.
S&P Global Market Intelligence vs. CB Insights
| S&P | CB Insights | |
| Free plan? | No | No |
| Paid plans start at | Custom quotes only | Custom quotes only |
| Covered industries | 9 | 6 |
| Data is suitable for | Investing, lending, acquisition, mergers, supply chains, and business development | Investing, acquisition, and business development |
| Unique features | Data about lending and investment risk | Pre-designed pitch books and data-rich slide decks |
4. Tracxn
Tracxn is a trend-and-data tracking tool focused on private companies.
It’s often used for:
- Identifying investment opportunities
- Tracking trending companies
- Reading up on recent mergers and acquisitions
- Conducting research for educational or governmental institutions
- Managing business investment portfolios and deals
When browsing Tracxn's database, you can see details about more than 3 million private companies, including those that are still in need of funding.
Tracxn also freely provides data and content for journalists writing about startups. This is a pretty unique feature that sets it apart from the CB Insights competitors on this list. News outlets get access to premium-tier data sets and can work with Tracxn to develop assets such as:
- Infographics with data related to companies listed in Tracxn
- Written snapshots of startup funding round activity
- Stories on innovative startups
What Industries Does Tracxn Cover?
In addition to the features listed above, the Tracxn platform tracks over 1,800 trending topics that may be of interest to its users. These topics include:
How Much Does Tracxn Cost?
Tracxn does not offer a free plan. Its subscription options start with a minimum of three user seats, so it’s definitely a better choice for teams vs. solo investors or entrepreneurs.
Tracxn doesn't have tiers or plans. Instead, you're billed based on the number of seats that you sign up for (with a minimum of 3 seats). A 3 seat paid plan costs $13,200 per year.
Tracxn vs. CB Insights: At a Glance
| Tracxn | CB Insights | |
| Free plan? | No | No |
| Paid plans start at | $13,200/year | Custom quotes only |
| Covered industries | 1800+ | 6 |
| Data is suitable for | Investing, lending, acquisition, education, and government compliance | Investing, acquisition, and business development |
| Unique features | Free data access and content creation support for business journalists | Pre-designed pitch books and data-rich slide decks |
5. Owler
Owler is a business intelligence and trends platform built with sales and market analysis in mind.
Its features include tools that business leaders, investors, sales representatives, and marketers all may find useful.
When using Owler, you can:
- Keep track of company acquisitions
- See data about funding and investments
- Track trending industry topics that might influence stock markets and investments
- Map out your direct competitors
- Track changes in company leadership and headcount
- Keep an eye on press releases from competitors and industry players
- Identify possible prospects for sales, investment, and acquisition
It’s important to note that Owler is less focused on broad trend discovery than some other CB Insights alternatives on this list. Like S&P Global Market Intelligence, Owler is likely to be most useful if you already know which markets you want to investigate and track.
If you’re interested in exploring new markets, or getting a better picture of what your competitors’ customers are talking about online, Owler may not be the best choice. (For that, you'll want to pick a tool with broader trend tracking capabilities, like Exploding Topics.)
What Industries Does Owler Cover?
Owler’s database includes 15 million companies and is more focused on market share and organizational structure than industry. You can use Owler to explore:
- Private companies
- Public entities
- International companies
- Software companies
- Retail brands
How Much Does Owler Cost?
You can access Owler’s standard search features, follow five companies, and track your top three competitors for free.
If you’d like to track an unlimited number of companies, connect your CRM, and create a wider map of your direct and indirect competitors, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan:
- Owler Pro is $39 per month, billed annually per user
- Owler Enterprise: Custom pricing
Owler vs. CB Insights: At a Glance
| Owler | CB Insights | |
| Free plan? | Yes | No |
| Paid plans start at | $39/mo | Custom quotes only |
| Covered industries | 5 | 6 |
| Data is suitable for | Investing, business development, sales, and market research | Investing, acquisition, and business development |
| Unique features | Tools to map out direct and indirect competitors | Pre-designed pitch books and data-rich slide decks |
Try the #1 CB Insights Alternative
Tracking trends in your industry doesn’t need to be difficult or hard to do. If you want to jump right into the data and begin uncovering business opportunities, you can start right now with Exploding Topics—no sales call required. You can immediately:
- Search our trend database
- Review trending startups in nearly any industry
- Read about trends and tools you’ll want to watch this year
To get even more out of Exploding Topics, give Pro a try for just $1—you’ll get access to all our reports, exclusive trends, and advance insights delivered right to your email.
