Free Crunchbase API alternative: funding data from SEC filings

Every endpoint on this page was live-probed on 2026-07-28 by the Aidenix Atlas catalog.

What is a Crunchbase alternative?

A Crunchbase alternative is any source that answers the funding question — «who raised, how much, when, from whom» — without the paid API tier. For US private companies the answer already sits in a regulator's database: nearly every private raise is disclosed in a Form D filing, which SEC EDGAR serves through free APIs covering roughly 800,000 filers and every filing since 2001. The difference is provenance. Crunchbase aggregates press releases and editorial submissions; a Form D is filed by the company itself under penalty of law, according to Regulation D of the Securities Act. In our data — the Aidenix Atlas catalog, live-probed on 2026-07-28 — the regulatory route covers:

• The raise itself: amount sold, total offering, date of first sale.
• The company: legal name, address, incorporation state and year, industry group.
• The people: named executive officers and directors on every filing.
• What it misses: valuations, investor lists, and non-US rounds.

Key facts at a glance

A key-facts table is the 60-second version of this page: 143 live filings in one query, 25 years of history, $0 cost — every number below comes from our own probe run of 2026-07-28, according to the Aidenix Atlas catalog logs, and in our data none of them requires a paid tier:

Which free sources replace each Crunchbase function?

A replacement source is a regulator-run API that serves the same field group Crunchbase sells. In our data, 5 sources cover the funding stack with 18,500,000+ records. According to our catalog probes on 2026-07-28, every endpoint below returned HTTP 200. No key, no paid license:

The choice between routes is a one-line decision each:

• If you need US rounds as they happen → Form D full-text query on a daily cron; nothing editorial is faster on quiet raises.
• If you need valuations or the investor graph → that data never touches a filing; budget for an editorial source.
• If you need one company's full history → EDGAR submissions by CIK beats any search interface.

How do you track funding rounds through a free API?

Funding-round tracking is one keyless query repeated on a schedule. EDGAR full-text search accepts forms=D with a date range and returns new filings as JSON — this is the same endpoint our catalog probes daily:

# User-Agent with contact info is mandatory — SEC returns 403 without it
curl -A "research your@email" \
  "https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Limited%20Partnership%22&forms=D&startdt=2026-07-27&enddt=2026-07-28"

We ran that query live on 2026-07-28 and got 143 filings from the 2-day window. Among the first results: Antalya Investment Fund Limited Partnership (CIK 0001893643, filed 2026-07-28) and three related Hines U.S. Property Partners entities filed 2026-07-27 — a real-time picture of money moving that no editorial database had published yet when we checked. From here the workflow is mechanical:

• Filter by industry: Form D carries a fixed industry-group taxonomy (Commercial, Banking, Technology and 12 more), so a sector watchlist is one query parameter.
• Follow the company: the filing's CIK keys into data.sec.gov/submissions/ for the full history — a later S-1 or 10-K on the same CIK is the IPO signal.
• Extend the join: the same name resolves through GLEIF or a state registry to incorporation records and officers.

What exactly is inside a Form D filing?

A Form D is a structured XML document with a fixed schema of 6 field groups — offering size, dates, issuer identity, named people, round mechanics, and the exemption rule — which is precisely what makes it API-friendly, according to the SEC's published EDGAR specifications. In our data, these 6 groups map onto Crunchbase's paid fields like this:

The exemption field is an underrated signal the editorial databases ignore: a 506(c) filing means the company may advertise the raise publicly — often the prelude to a loud growth push.

What can't SEC filings replace?

Exactly 3 things, and each is a conscious trade, according to our field-map comparison of 2026-07-28:

• Valuations: Form D discloses the amount raised, never the post-money — that number comes from journalism and pitch decks, which is exactly what Crunchbase aggregates.
• Investor names: the filing names officers and promoters, not the fund that led the round.
• Global coverage: Regulation D is US law; a Berlin or Bangalore round never touches EDGAR, though Companies House closes part of the UK gap with share-allotment filings.

In our data, the honest verdict is: for US private raises the regulatory route is more complete than any editorial database — companies must file even when they skip the press release — while for valuations, investor graphs, and non-US rounds, editorial data keeps the edge. The strongest setup queries both and trusts the filing when they disagree.

Frequently asked questions

Does every US startup raise appear in Form D? Roughly 40,000-50,000 filings land per year, covering nearly every private placement under Regulation D — the dominant exemption for startup rounds, according to SEC filing statistics. The gaps: raises under other exemptions, and rounds closed entirely with non-US investors under Regulation S. In practice, coverage of venture-backed US rounds is close to complete.

How fast do filings appear after a round closes? The legal deadline is 15 days after first sale; EDGAR indexes a filing the same or next business day. In our probes, fresh filings appeared in full-text search within hours of acceptance — regularly ahead of the press release.

Is scraping EDGAR allowed? You are not scraping — EDGAR offers official JSON APIs, explicitly free for any use as US public domain data. The only rule is fair access: declare a user agent with contact info and stay under 10 requests per second, per SEC guidance.

How we verify these claims

Our verification method is a live probe, not a citation chain — every number on this page comes from requests we sent ourselves on 2026-07-28. What the probe run covers, in our data:

• Endpoint liveness: every URL above answered HTTP 200 on probe day, out of the nearly 4,000 sources the Aidenix Atlas catalog tracks.
• Response shape: JSON schemas checked against the SEC's published specifications.
• Sample honesty: the 143-filing result is unedited API output, not a marketing screenshot.
• Freshness contract: when a source drifts, the probe fleet flags it and this page gets re-verified — the «last probed» date above is that promise.

Source facts from the Aidenix Atlas catalog, probed 2026-07-28. Found an error? The catalog re-probes on every report.