A couple of weeks ago I highlighted CrunchBase, and in the continued spirit of looking at upstart databases that appear likely to hurt the expensive subscription services offered from Thompson or Dow Jones, I wanted to take a look at CB Insights or Chubby Brain.  I had never heard of these folks until a data-world colleague brought them up in a discussion of potential partners and then this morning they were casually mentioned in a Chronicle of Higher Education article on tracking federal research investment impacts.  So I have poked around their website and so far I like most of what I see (except all the advertising but I guess when things are mostly free we should expect this).  Most intriguing to me are some of the value propositions they are making to investors, universities, and other important entrepreneurial support organizations about why it makes sense to share microdata with them.  They allow people to track updates on specific companies to if you upload data then you can continue to track any changes CB Insights collects through it's vacuuming.  Nice.  And a Karma Model - love it, but can it is support payroll?   

If any readers out there have experiences they'd like to share, I'd be really curious to hear from you. 

	Anand Sanwal - 6/12/2010 7:14:17 AM
	E.J., Thanks for your thoughtful article mentioning us. I would be happy to tell you more about what we are doing to track data and information about the high value private entrepreneurial economy. Please feel free to ping me at asanwal(at)cbinsights.com so we can begin the conversation. To give you additional context into the data we possess and track, below are some facts/figures: ** Venture capital-backed companies back to 1999 along with status of these companies (IPO, acquired, closed, etc) ** The last 3 years for SBIR grants for NSF, DoD, DoE, EPA ** Angel investment data for 194 angel groups and 600 individual angel and super-angel investors ** 300+ US incubators ** Many university entrepreneurship programs and university level incubators/tech transfer offices ** Numerous state-level grant, investment and loan programs, e.g., Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Jumpstart Ohio, Michigan Pre-Seed Fund, etc. Finally, including a recent analysis we did about whether venture capital Seed investment is replacing Series A which I thought might be of interest. http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/is-seed-the-new-series-a-for-internet-venture-capital-investments Look forward to our conversation. Have a nice weekend. Best, Anand CB Insights asanwal(at)cbinsights.com