Over the weekend we relaunched CrunchBase, our online database of startup, investor and entrepreneur information. We first launched the site last year as a simple place to dump all the structured data about startups that we get our hands on. Our interns work to add all the data that flows into our inboxes every day to keep it updated, and the site now tracks 1,515 companies, 4,499 people and 762 financial investors.
The new version of CrunchBase has a new design, but that is the least of the changes. The old PHP code has been thrown out, version 2 is a Ruby on Rails application. And while there are a ton of new features, the main change is that any reader can now edit any part of the site, or add new companies, people or investors entirely. We’ve also added RSS feeds for all new stuff, like recently funded, recently launched, etc. Those feeds can be found on the home page (we’ve switching them to Feedburner shortly, so you’ll be able to get these by email as well.
It’s not a wiki yet (that will be added next March), but it shares some wiki-like features like public editing. Our goal is to create a fully wiki based on structured data - something PoliticalBase has done in the political space (The PoliticalBase CrunchBase entry is here). For now, all changes are moderated, but we’ll be adding features that build authority to allow for real time, unmoderated editing of CrunchBase.
This is a work in progress, and we’ll be defining more about it in the near future. For example, there is currently no copyright policy, although we’ll be making this freely usable by others (like Wikipedia) when the Wiki launches. We’ll also be working to get our data into Freebase and other appropriate web services.
We’ve created a simple widget to pull key data about the companies, people and investors in CrunchBase into any other website (example below). If you add the widget to your site a link is automatically created back to your site on the relevant CrunchBase pages.
As we’ve said in the past, there are a number of for-pay services out there that track this exact data and try to charge thousands of dollars per month for access. We can’t see any reason why this data should not be free. So we’re helping to make it that way.
The new site was created by Henry Work and Mark McGranaghan, who’ve been working with us full time for a couple of months to build this. The overall project is being led by our Mark Hendrickson.
If we’ve missed your startup, or something in CrunchBase is wrong, please correct it by clicking “edit” on the appropriate page.
orli yakuel is going to be pissed!
Mike, do you include here companies that you did not cover in TechCrunch?
Is this an attempt to create the largest database about web startups?
If this works, KillerStartups will be really mad about your initiative
but they charge a friggin’ lot of money for the info they gathered, so I’m glad you guys put CrunchBase together.
yeah, a lot of time we don’t cover a story, but put the data into CB.
Just to clarify myself: TC filters the pitches it gets every day, and covers just several of the pitched startups, if any, in a given day. So, my question is: if I use the Add Company function in Crunch Base - will my info get filtered in the same way, or will it just get added and kept there while CB is alive?
if it’s a real company/service, it will stay in.
Ok now, what if it was a real company (the definition of “real company” would be welcome) or a real service, but it went to deadpool - will you keep it there? Will it get marked as dead (This company lived from XX till YY)?
MikeT - deadpooled companies look like this…
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tvlinks
Notice the box at the top - “TV Links entered The Deadpool on October 1, 2007″
Thanks Peter. All’s clear now.
Would be really helpful if the companies were categorized somehow, but that’s very labor-intensive because many of them would belong to more categories or would create a category of their own, or simply because they evolve and shift from one to another (FB is a good example) and keeping the categories up-to-date would be nightmarish…
Cheers.
Mike: we’ve got tagging and some loose categorization (web services, software, hardware).
Henry, did you migrate previous “submissions” which have not yet been processed to the new version or should one re-submit?
Henry: I saw them, and sorry for not being more specific: There are social networking sites, news aggregators, etc. - that’s what I meant, but then as I said going into more details would be too much work to just maintain the site updated.
sorry: tagging solves my question.
cheers again
It looks like our screenshot was reverted to an old one but I can’t seem to update it?
Nice database, but better searchability would be nice. The basic search function doesn’t seem to include tags, and I’m finding that it’s very difficult to search for things by location.
Possible bug: On the service providers page, it says ” Showcased Service Providers (5)” and lists Accelcia and Attention PR. When I click on “All” in the visibility section, it changes to saying ” All Service Providers (5)”… but still only shows Accelcia and Attention PR.
Fred (and any previously submitted companies): please resubmit your company. We did have some migration issues.
MikeT: cheers
CJ: we’re currently holding off on regular user image uploads as we work out some kinks. If you send me an email with it, i’ll be able to fix it for you.
Jay: search integration with tags is a great idea. I’ll look into it. As for the service provider issue, it’s actually correct — we only have 5 total, across the board, service providers currently. This is a new data type for v. 2.0 and we’re hoping to build it up a lot
The most important - CrunchBase work to add all the data that flows into our inboxes every day to keep it updated.
awesome work!!! have you considered talking to linksv.com about some kind of data partnership>? they have so much great information, including very detailed company change data (eg exec tracking)
btw, would you consider giving back to the ruby community by releasing the core of crunchbase as an open project for others to learn from and repurpose (as a general directory application) - it’s very well done, very simple, very powerful, very fast - kudos to your devs…
Henry: just tried to, now it tells me the company already exists, BUT i cannot find us via the search or company listings …
dave — thanks a lot. Once we get the real, proper, structured wiki going and a lot of things ironed out, we’ll definitely talk about open-sourcing it.
Fred — sorry about this. We’re going to try to figure out what’s up. Please email me (henry @ tc ) and i’ll try to get things going for you.
Since companies change their logos, restructure their web sites, do new business - would you at some point allow them to set up a user account on CB so that they keep their profile updated? Or would they have to keep sending you the new info and someone from CB will be updating profiles?
Congrats guys!
Luckily I got to see this launch in real-time
MikeT: the goal is to make it fully, publicly editable. Because all of our data is very structured (instead of a flat wikipedia page), it’s a bit more complicated and has kept us from doing some of the backend wiki stuff as we’re trying to get the site live. So yes, companies will be able to edit all of their own information. So will anyone else.
Thanks Orli!
I think you were as close as possible to this launch without actually being involved
Re: 18, I second that motion. Would love to use it - especially the “politicalbase.com” moderated-wiki functionality.
Or does anyone know of a current open-source project that does the same?
Guys, this is strong stuff! The must-go place for many - VCs and other types of investors, entrepreneurs, technology analysts, media, etc.
Web2.0pedia…
Congrats on version 2! Looks a lot better than before.
You fools, Rails will never scale, this is an end of CrunchBase, it’s over man, it’s over!
…
Anyway, I like the new look. Also, the new widget is bangin’ — looks clean and easier to integrate into many different website styles now.
dammit, i’m tired all the images linking to crunchbase!!!
(hey, i amuse myself, ok?)
Thanks MikeT
AW -
that exact topic is the subject of an office pool here at TechCrunch.
Very nicely done. I wish the logos are a bit more flashy and bigger.
So yes, companies will be able to edit all of their own information.
Nice, clean and functional. Not to mention useful.
Kudos for the new version.
Would be interesting to have a category breakdown in countries / regions, instead of having to search specific countries. Other than that, there’s value in both the actual database and the extra pageviews and search engine juice, so congrats!
ditching php for RoR?? have you gone mad?
@Robin - this is something we’re very eager to implement so look for it in the coming weeks
It’s definitely heading towards a lucrative direction. Why would bloggers be interested in using your widgets though?
Crunchbase Widget: Bloggers Advertise For Free?
Thanks for the public edits. I’ve emailed quite a few times about a change in my start-ups founders and also about removing my phone number off the site. I was receiving lots of phone calls from people trying to sell me Content Delivery Networks.
The site seems to be a great tool for companies looking to reach entrepreneurs.
@38:
Because it is incredibly useful? Other people would use it because they want to add value to their content. =D
Should have done it in php… lol
So in regards to editing, I would assume that only the owners of each company are given authority and you guys will work to approve the who?
Well thanks for creating this (helps w/traffic) and working towards making it even better!
Nice work TC crew.
VentureDeal.com offers a full featured online relational database with thousands of companies, transactions, people and venture capital firms, for only $25 per month…not thousands…
@#31 - i should have read comments before commenting.. i didnt realize the php/RoR discussion was hot in your guys’ office…
a lot of us (readers) are web developers, we’d love the juicy scoop on who’s saying what around the office…
(then of course we will tell those we disagree with that they are wrong… it’s a programmer thing 
lol.. j/k about the “Wrong” part… )
who’s leaning toward the camp of “why didn’t we do this in php?” … curious…
Congrats to everyone involved, the new version is a lot better. It’s really fast to search. The only bad point is that we’re not in there.
Have your heard of the german de.startupwiki.org - projekt? The english version will be coming soon
Nice to note that you’re adding good stuffs there!
Why did you choose RoR instated of PHP?
I find CrunchBase, specifically when tacked onto the end of a TC post to be extremely aggravating, annoying, and useless. Surely it isn’t just me that feels this way, is it??
I’d love to offer a way to make it better (other than adding a “never show this shit again” button), but seriously it offers no value to me.
Thankfully it’s easy enough to block.
Nice crunchbase updates. Another review here: http://tinyurl.com/3yzdxo