PitchBook vs CB Insights

What is PitchBook?

PitchBook is the institutional gold standard for private-markets data, serving LPs, GPs, investment banks, and analysts with deep coverage of fund performance, secondaries, M&A, and the wider private capital landscape. Its data model is curated and post-event, assembled by a large analyst organisation into benchmarks, rankings, and reference datasets that the industry treats as authoritative. The platform is best understood as an analytical and benchmarking layer rather than a sourcing tool: it tells you what has happened across funds and companies, with the depth and reliability that institutions require for underwriting, LP reporting, and thesis work. Its limitations follow directly from that design. It is enterprise-priced at about twenty thousand dollars a year and up, which puts it out of reach for solo investors and angels, and it offers no free tier. It lags by design, recording events after they occur rather than predicting them. Its interface and workflow are built for analysts, not operators, so it sits naturally at the research end of the stack rather than the discovery end. Its buyers are institutions with analysts on staff, and it is the reference layer against which other private-markets data is judged. It is a reference system, not an early-signal engine, and it is almost always deployed alongside sourcing tools rather than as a substitute for them.

Best for: Best for institutional LPs, GPs, and bankers who need gold-standard fund performance, M&A, and private-markets benchmarks.

What is CB Insights?

CB Insights is a market-intelligence platform whose centrepiece is the Mosaic Score, a proprietary model that estimates a private company's health and growth trajectory by combining multiple data inputs. Around that score it layers deep industry analytics, market-sizing reports, and curated research briefs on emerging technology categories, which makes it a strong tool for strategic research, trend identification, and understanding where a whole sector is heading. Its coverage spans the full private market across all sectors. The trade-offs are significant for a sourcing-focused buyer. Pricing is enterprise-only at about thirty-five thousand dollars a year and up, which excludes solo angels and smaller funds, and there is no free tier. The Mosaic Score itself is opaque, so users must trust the model without being able to inspect its logic. The product is broad market intelligence rather than deal-flow-specific sourcing, with no engineering-momentum or code-level signals. Its lead time is mixed, combining some leading indicators with substantial lagging data drawn from post-event records. Its research briefs on emerging categories are genuinely useful for thematic investing and for boards preparing market context. For an institution doing research and market mapping it is powerful; for early-stage discovery it is a supporting layer rather than a primary engine.

Best for: Best for institutions doing strategic research and market mapping with Mosaic scoring and deep industry analytics.

PitchBook

Institutional-grade private-markets data platform.

Strengths

• Gold-standard institutional data for LPs, GPs, and bankers
• Deep fund-performance, secondaries, and M&A coverage
• Industry-standard benchmarks and rankings

Weaknesses

• Enterprise-only pricing, impossible for solo investors or angels
• Lagging by design, curated post-event data, not leading signals
• Interface and workflow built for analysts, not operators

CB Insights

Market intelligence platform with Mosaic scoring and industry analytics.

Strengths

• Mosaic Score predicts company health and growth trajectory
• Deep industry analytics and market-sizing reports
• Strong for strategic research and identifying market trends
• Tracks emerging tech categories with curated research briefs

Weaknesses

• Enterprise pricing ($35k+/yr) excludes solo angels and small funds
• Mosaic Score is proprietary and opaque (you trust the model)
• Broad market intelligence, not deal-flow-specific sourcing
• No engineering-momentum or code-level signals