CB Insights

CB Insights is a New York-based market intelligence platform that provides data and predictive analytics on private companies, investors, and technology markets.^[1] The company tracks and compares more than 12 million companies worldwide and sells subscriptions targeted at corporate strategy, corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, and sales teams.^[1][2]

Founded in 2008 by Anand Sanwal and Jonathan Sherry, CB Insights grew out of early work funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and became known for its Mosaic Score of private-company health, its tech market rankings covering more than 1,600 markets, and research programs such as the annual AI 100 ranking.^[2][4] The company reports more than 200 employees, and its customers include ten of the ten largest businesses in the Fortune 500, all of the Big Four accounting firms, and 26 of the 30 largest banks.^[1]

What It Does

CB Insights aggregates data on private companies, funding rounds, investors, patents, hiring, and business relationships, then applies machine learning models to produce predictive signals about which companies are likely to succeed, exit, or decline.^[1][3] The platform is designed to help enterprises find startups to acquire, invest in, partner with, or sell to.^[1]

The company describes its approach as predictive intelligence rather than reactive intelligence, combining a continuously updated database of firmographics and financials with analyst-led research and generative AI tools such as its ChatCBI strategy LLM and a team of AI agents for scouting, due diligence, and market analysis.^[1][3]

Data and Methodology

The platform's best-known metric is the Mosaic Score, a proprietary measure of the overall health and growth potential of private technology companies on a scale of 0 to 1,000, calculated from four weighted factors: momentum (50 percent), money or financial strength (40 percent), market or industry health (5 percent), and management team strength (5 percent).^[3]

CB Insights also publishes an ESP (Execution, Strength, Positioning) ranking that classifies companies within each of more than 1,600 tracked technology markets into Leaders, Highfliers, Outperformers, and Challengers using a quadrant methodology.^[3] Additional datasets cover funding and valuations, private company revenues, customer sentiment, and business relationships among customers, partners, and vendors.^[1]

Most data is updated daily or in real time, and the company states that its records are double-verified.^[1][3]

Products and Research

- Strategy Terminal — a predictive AI web application for company discovery, analysis, and tracking, with mobile apps and a browser extension.^[1]

- ChatCBI — a strategy-focused large language model powered by CB Insights' proprietary data and analysis.^[1]

- Team of Agents — AI agents for company scouting, due diligence, acquisition hunting, and new business acquisition.^[1]

- Markets portal — leaderboards and index views across 1,600+ technology markets with sort and download tools.^[1][3]

- APIs, data feeds, and integrations — distribution through Snowflake, Salesforce, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and MCP/A2A connectors.^[1]

- Research programs — quarterly State Of reports on venture, AI, fintech, and digital health funding; Future Of trend reports; Big Tech strategy reports; market maps; and curated lists such as the AI 100, published annually since 2017.^[1][2][6]

Delivery and Pricing

Access is sold as enterprise subscriptions with free trials available; pricing is not published publicly.^[1] Academic institutions subscribe through library licenses, which Stanford Graduate School of Business describes as comprehensive global database access to private company and investor activity with usage limits such as annual download credits.^[3]

The company holds SOC 2 certification, complies with GDPR, and states that customer data is not used to train its models.^[1]

Buyers and Use Cases

Customers include Microsoft, Wells Fargo, ADP, 3M, Haleon, major cloud providers, global telcos, and top-tier venture firms such as NEA, RRE, and FirstMark, alongside consultants at the Big Four firms.^[1][2]

Typical use cases include building acquisition and investment target lists, monitoring emerging competitors, conducting commercial due diligence, sourcing sales prospects from startup customers of larger vendors, and benchmarking markets; the company claims customers achieve 2.8 times more acquisitions, six times more investments, and 25 percent larger deal sizes than peers.^[1]

Its research is widely cited: the Q2 2026 State of Digital Health report, covered by industry media, found digital health deal volume at a ten-year low of 228 equity deals even as median round sizes rose 54 percent year over year, illustrating the platform's role tracking venture markets.^[6]

History

Anand Sanwal and Jonathan Sherry founded CB Insights in New York in 2008. Before its current form, the effort received US$1.15 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to develop the Mosaic private-company scoring software, and the company later raised a US$10 million Series A in November 2015 led by growth-stage investment firm RSTP.^[2][4]

In July 2020 the company made its first acquisition, purchasing 27 years of VentureSource private-company data assets from Dow Jones to broaden its private-market coverage.^[2][5]

The AI 100 ranking launched in 2017 and became one of the company's most visible research franchises, expanding categories such as cybersecurity in subsequent years.^[2] In January 2024, after fourteen years as chief executive, Sanwal moved to the role of founder and executive chairman to focus on customers, product, content, partnerships, and the company's generative AI agenda.^[7] In 2025 and 2026 the company rebranded its product line around agentic AI, introducing ChatCBI, the Strategy Terminal, and a Team of Agents.^[1]