Effective Date: November 26th, 2024

At Crunchbase, we know you care about how your Personal Data is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy.

By using or accessing our Service in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and disclose your information in the following ways. If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the United Kingdom (“UK”), please visit our GDPR Privacy Policy to learn how we process your Personal Data, including the rights you have in this context and the lawful bases we rely on.

Remember that your use of the Service is at all times subject to our Terms of Service, which incorporates this Privacy Policy. Any terms we use in this Privacy Policy without defining them have the definitions given to them in the Terms of Service.

Notwithstanding the foregoing or anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service, Crunchbase’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

What does this Privacy Policy Cover?

This Privacy Policy covers how we treat Personal Data that we gather when you access or use our Service. “Personal Data” means any information that identifies or relates to a particular individual and also includes information referred to as “personally identifiable information” or “personal information” under applicable data privacy laws, rules, or regulations. This Privacy Policy does not cover the practices of companies we don’t own or control or people we don’t manage.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Crunchbase may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Laws, regulations, and industry standards evolve, which may make those changes necessary, or we may make changes to our Service or business. We will post the changes to this page and encourage you to review our Privacy Policy to stay informed. If we make changes that materially alter our practices or your privacy rights, we will do our best to alert you to changes by placing a notice on the Crunchbase website, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means. Please note that if you’ve opted not to receive legal notice emails from us (or you haven’t provided us with your email address), those legal notices will still govern your use of the Service, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them.

If you use the Service after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted, that means you agree to all of the changes. Use of information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is collected.

Categories of Personal Data We Collect

The following chart details the categories of Personal Data that we collect and have collected over the past twelve (12) months. Categories and/or specific examples of Personal Data listed below that are considered “sensitive” under the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”) are denoted with an asterisk. Throughout this Privacy Policy, we will refer back to the categories of Personal Data listed in this chart (for example, “Category A. Personal identifiers”).

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The following sections provide additional information about how we collect your Personal Data and the sources of the Personal Data we collect.

Information You Provide to Us: We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us. For example, through the registration process and/or through your account settings, we may collect Personal Data such as your name, email address, phone number, and third-party account credentials (for example, your log-in credentials for LinkedIn, Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook, Google, HubSpot or Outreach). We may also obtain Personal Data when you send it to us in communications over email, interactions with our chatbot, or other channels. If you provide your Third-Party account credentials to us or otherwise sign into the Service through a Third Party site or service (such as LinkedIn, Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook, Google, HubSpot or Outreach), you understand some content and/or information in those accounts (“Third Party Account Information”) may be transmitted into your account with us, and that Third Party Account Information transmitted to our Service is covered by this Privacy Policy. Certain information may be required to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features.

Information We Collect From Third Parties: We receive information from third parties, both when they provide us with Personal Data about you and when we seek out information for Profiles, as discussed below (“Third Parties”). Third Parties that share your Personal Data with us include: 

• Service providers. For example, we may use analytics service providers to analyze how you interact and engage with the Service, or Third Parties may help us provide you with customer support, and in doing so, may provide us with information about you.
• Other networks connected to the Service. If you provide any Third-Party account credentials to us or otherwise sign in to the Service through a Third-Party site or service (for example, using LinkedIn, Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook, Google, HubSpot or Outreach), you understand some content and/or information in those accounts may be transmitted into your account with us.
• Advertising partners. We receive information about you from some of our service providers who assist us with marketing or promotional services related to how you interact with our Service, advertisements, or communications.

Crunchbase also creates profiles of people and companies, which we call “Profiles,” based on information gathered from different sources. Once we have collected information (primarily business-related information) about a person or company, we combine multiple mentions of the same person or company into a Profile. Profiles are then made available to users of the Service, and our customers and strategic partners.

When we create or enhance Profiles about individuals, we may collect this information from multiple sources, including:

• Publicly-available web sources that we scan using technology or manual methods
• User contributions about themselves or other people and companies
• Research conducted internally by Crunchbase.
• Other companies and data partners that license information to us.

Information Collected Automatically: Like many other commercial websites, we may also gather information in connection with your use of the website or Service through the use of cookies and other similar technologies such as server logs, pixel tags, web beacons, and JavaScript (collectively, “Cookies”) to enable us to recognize your web browser or device and tell us how and when you visit and use our Service, to analyze trends, to learn about our user base, and to operate and improve our Service. Cookies are small pieces of data—usually text files—placed on your computer, tablet, phone, or similar device when you use that device to visit our Service. We may also supplement the information we collect from you with information received from third parties, including third parties that have placed their own Cookies on your device(s).

Your browser settings may allow you to transmit a “do not track” signal, “opt-out preference” signal, or other mechanism for exercising your choice regarding the collection of your information when you visit various websites using Cookies. We will honor valid requests that we receive through such channels where required by law.

For more information on how we use Cookies, see the section titled, “How We Use Cookies.”

How We Use Cookies

The Service may use both cookies that we implement, and cookies implemented by our suppliers and other Third Parties. “First-party” cookies allow your browser to engage with the actual website that you are visiting, whereas “third-party” cookies allow your browser to engage with third-party websites, such as the source of an ad that appears on the website you are visiting or a third-party analytics provider.

We use the following types of Cookies:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies. These Cookies are necessary for the Service to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these Cookies, but some parts of the Service will not then work.
• Functional Cookies. These Cookies enable the Service to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our Service. If you do not allow these Cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
• Performance Cookies. These Cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our Service. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the
• Service. The information these Cookies collect is aggregated and does not directly identify you. If you do not allow these Cookies we will not know when you have visited our Service, and will not be able to monitor its performance. For example, Google, Inc. (“Google”) uses cookies in connection with its Google Analytics services. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to the Service is subject to the Google Analytics Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. You have the option to opt-out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads or the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
• Targeting Cookies. These Cookies may be set through our Service by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these Cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
• Social Media. These Cookies may be set through our Service by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these Cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising. Our website includes social media features, such as LinkedIn “Share” and “Follow” buttons. These features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Service (in which case you can manage them as explained below) and enable us or the social network to obtain information about how you interact with our Service or the social network. In addition, where we have a presence on social media platforms, those platforms will set Cookies on your device when you visit our pages on their platforms so that we can obtain statistical information about how you interact with our social media presence. The cookies policy of the social media platform should explain how you can manage the Cookies that they set or you may also be able to manage these Cookies as explained below.

To find out more information about the Cookies we use visit our Knowledge Center articles here and here. To find out more information about Cookies in general, including information about how to manage and delete Cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Information about Interest-Based Advertisements: We may serve advertisements, and also allow third-party ad networks, including third-party ad servers, ad agencies, ad technology vendors and research firms, to serve advertisements through the Service. These advertisements may be targeted to users who fit certain general profile categories or display certain preferences or behaviors (“Interest-Based Ads”). Information for Internet-Based Ads (including Personal Data) may be provided to us by you, or derived from the usage patterns of particular users on the Service and/or services of third-parties. Such information may be gathered through tracking users’ activities across time and unaffiliated properties, including when you leave the Service. To accomplish this, we or our service providers may deliver Cookies, including a file (known as a “web beacon”) from an ad network to you through the Service. Web beacons allow ad networks to provide aggregated auditing, research and reporting for us and for advertisers. Web beacons also enable ad networks to serve targeted advertisements to you when you visit other websites. Web beacons allow ad networks to view, edit or set their own Cookies on your browser, just as if you had requested a web page from their site.

Without limiting the foregoing, we use Google Ads advertising features in the Service, which we use for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy. Through Google Ads, Google uses your Internet searches, Cookies, and similar identifiers (e.g., pixel tags) to collect information about your visits to the Service and your interaction with our products and services to generate targeted advertisements to you on other websites that you visit across the Internet. To opt out of remarketing advertising provided through Google, to customize your ad preferences, or to limit Google’s collection or use this information, visit Google’s Safety Center and Google’s Ad Settings and follow Google’s personalized ad opt-out instructions.

Several media and marketing associations have developed an industry self-regulatory program to give consumers a better understanding of, and greater control over, ads that are customized based on a consumer’s online behavior across different websites and properties. To make choices about Interest-Based Ads from participating third parties, including to opt-out of receiving behaviorally targeted advertisements from participating organizations, please visit the Digital Advertising Alliance or Network Advertising Initiative consumer opt-out pages, which are located at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or http://www.aboutads.info/choices. Users in the European Union should visit the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s user information website https://www.youronlinechoices.eu/.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We process Personal Data to operate, improve, understand and personalize our Service. We use Personal Data for the following business or commercial purposes:

• To meet or fulfill the reason you provided the information to us.
• To communicate with you about the Service, including Service announcements, updates or offers.
• To provide support and assistance for the Service.
• To create and manage your account or other user Profiles.
• To personalize your experience, website content and communications based on your preferences, including targeted offers and ads served through the Service.
• To process orders or other transactions.
• To respond to user inquiries and fulfill user requests, including inquiries submitted through our AI-powered products which may surface information from user Profiles.
• To market, improve, and develop the Service, including testing, research, analysis, and product development (including creation, enhancement, and distribution of Profiles).
• To protect against or deter fraudulent, illegal or harmful actions and maintain the safety, security and integrity of our Service.
• To comply with our legal or contractual obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our Terms of Service.
• To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
• For any other business purpose stated when collecting your Personal Data or as otherwise set forth in applicable data privacy laws, such as the CCPA.

We will not collect additional categories of Personal Data or use the Personal Data we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice. We only use and disclose “sensitive” Personal Data of California residents for the purposes specified in the CCPA. The criteria we use to determine how long to retain your Personal Data is described in the section below, titled “Data Security and Retention.”

As noted in the list above, we may communicate with you if you’ve provided us the means to do so. For example, if you’ve given us your e-mail address, we may send you promotional email offers on behalf of other businesses or email you about your use of the Service.  Also, we may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us, which helps us improve our Service. If you do not want to receive communications from us, you may opt out of e-mail alerts for saved lists/searches in your account settings and may unsubscribe from marketing e-mails by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the e-mail in question. Alternatively, you are welcome to contact us at privacy@crunchbase.com and we will be happy to assist you.

How We Disclose Your Personal Data

Disclosures of Personal Data for a Business Purpose

We disclose your Personal Data to service providers and other parties for the following business or commercial purposes:

• Performing services on our behalf, including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, providing advertising or marketing services, providing analytic services, or providing similar services on behalf of the business or service provider.
• Auditing related to a current interaction and concurrent transactions, including, but not limited to, counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and
• quality of ad impressions, and auditing compliance with this specification and other standards.
• Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity.
• Debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Short-term, transient use of Personal Data that is not used by another party to build a consumer profile or otherwise alter your consumer experience outside the current interaction.
• Undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration.
• Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that we own, manufacture, was manufactured for us, or we control.

We disclose your Personal Data to the following categories of service providers and other parties:

• Service providers, including:
  • Subscription management providers and payment processors
  • Security and fraud prevention consultants
  • Hosting and other technology and communications providers
  • Analytics providers
  • Customer relationship management and customer support providers (including chatbot providers)
    
• Ad networks
• Parties who acquire your Personal Data if we undergo a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or other transaction in which that third party assumes control of our business (in whole or in part), including a sale of a portion or all of our assets.
• Other parties at your direction or authorized by you.
• Other users (where you post information publicly or as otherwise necessary to effect a transaction initiated or authorized by you through the Service)
• Social media services (if you intentionally interact with them through your use of the Service)
• Third-party business partners who you access through the Service
• In some cases, we may disclose information about your use of the Service to your employer or other users within your organization

If you are a California resident, the following chart details the categories of Personal Data that we disclose and have disclosed about you for a business purpose in the preceding 12 months, by reference to the categories listed in table under the section above titled, “Categories of Personal Data We Collect.” Categories of Personal Data listed below that are considered “sensitive” under CCPA are denoted with an asterisk.

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Sales of Personal Data and Sharing of Personal Data with Certain Advertisers

At Crunchbase, we collect information from a variety of sources (including information contributed directly by you and/or our user community) in order to compile Profiles about entities and individuals. Please refer to the chart in the section above titled “Categories of Personal Data We Collect” for a better understanding of the Personal Data we collect that constitutes Profile data.

In this section, we use the terms ‘sell’ and ‘share’ as those terms are defined in the CCPA. We do not have actual knowledge that we sell or share Personal Data of consumers under 16 years of age. However, we do sell, and, in the preceding 12 months, we have sold your Profile data to our customers and data partners (such as resellers and syndication partners) in conjunction with our all-in-one prospecting solutions and private-company data offerings, which help customers and data partners grow their business and teams, subject to your right to opt-out of these sales (see the “California Resident Rights” section below for information about how to opt-out). A full list of the information we sell and have sold in the preceding 12 months is provided below.

We may also share, and, in the preceding 12 months, have shared your information (see the information we share and have shared in the preceding 12 months below) with certain advertisers in order to help provide our ads to you. This type of sharing is also subject to your right to opt out (see the “Your Rights” section below for information about how to opt-out).

Over the past twelve months, we have sold and/or shared the following categories of your Personal Data to the following categories of third parties:

• A. Personal identifiers – Customers, data partners
• C. Protected classification characteristics under state or federal law – Customers, data partners
• F. Professional or employment-related information – Customers, data partners

Data Security and Retention

We seek to protect your Personal Data from unauthorized access, use and disclosure using appropriate physical, technical, organizational and administrative security measures based on the type of Personal Data and how we are processing that data.

You should also help protect your data by appropriately selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism; limiting access to your computer or device and browser; and signing off after you have finished accessing your account. Although we work to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Data that we hold in our records, no security system is impenetrable, and unanticipated system failures or the efforts of malicious actors are an unfortunate reality on the Internet. Therefore, Crunchbase cannot guarantee that Personal Data during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care will be absolutely safe from intrusion by others. 

We retain Personal Data about you for as long as you have an open account with us or as otherwise necessary to provide the Service. In some cases we retain Personal Data for longer, if doing so is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes or collect fees owed, or is otherwise permitted or required by applicable law, rule or regulation.

Personal Data of Children

As noted in the Terms of Service, we do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Data from children under 16. If you are a child under 16, please do not attempt to register for or otherwise use the Service or send us any Personal Data. If we learn we have collected Personal Data from a child under 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 16 may have provided us Personal Data, please contact us at privacy@crunchbase.com.

California Resident Rights

If you are a California resident, you have the rights outlined in this section. Please see the “Exercising Your Rights” section below for instructions regarding how to exercise these rights. If there are any conflicts between this section and any other provision of this Privacy Policy and you are a California resident, the portion that is more protective of Personal Data shall control to the extent of such conflict. If you have any questions about this section or whether any of the following applies to you, please contact us at privacy@crunchbase.com.

Access

You have a right to request the following information about our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Data by emailing privacy@crunchbase.com or submitting a request using our Privacy Request Form:

• categories of Personal Data we have collected, disclosed for a business purpose, sold, or shared;
• categories of sources from which we collected Personal Data;
• the business or commercial purposes for collecting, selling, and/or sharing Personal Data;
• categories of third parties to whom the Personal Data was disclosed for a business purpose, sold, or shared; and
• specific pieces of Personal Data we have collected.

Deletion

You have the right to request that we delete the Personal Data that we have collected from you. Under the CCPA, this right is subject to certain exceptions: for example, we may need to retain your Personal Data to provide you with the Service or complete a transaction or other action you have requested. If your deletion request is subject to one of these exceptions, we may deny your deletion request.

Correction

You have a right to request that we correct inaccurate Personal Data we maintain about you.

Personal Data Sales/Sharing Opt-Out and Opt-In

You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing (as both terms are defined under the CCPA) of your Personal Data. To do so, click the following link: Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

For information on how we process opt-out preference signals, see the section above, titled “Information Collected Automatically.”

Once you have submitted an opt-out request, we will not ask you to reauthorize the sale of your Personal Data for at least 12 months. However, you may change your mind and opt back in to Personal Data sales at any time by creating a new public profile for yourself, or opt back in to Personal Data sharing by adjusting your Cookies preferences.

Exercising Your Rights

You may exercise any of these rights by sending us a request that (1) provides sufficient information to allow us to verify that you are the person about whom we have collected Personal Data (such as your email address, first and last name, and/or government issued ID), and (2) describes your request in sufficient detail to allow us to understand, evaluate, and respond to it. Each request that meets both of these criteria will be considered a “Valid Request.” We may not respond to requests that do not meet these criteria. We will only use

Personal Data provided in a Valid Request to verify you and complete your request. You do not need an account to submit a Valid Request.

You may designate, in writing or through a power of attorney document, an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf to exercise your rights. Before accepting such a request from an agent, we may require that the agent provide proof you have authorized them to act on your behalf, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us.

We will work to respond to your Valid Request within 45 days of receipt. We will not charge you a fee for making a Valid Request unless your Valid Request(s) is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that your Valid Request warrants a fee, we will notify you of the fee and explain that decision before completing your request.

You may submit a Valid Request using the following methods:

• Emailing us at: privacy@crunchbase.com 
• Submitting a request at: https://preferences.crunchbase.com/privacy

We Will Not Discriminate Against You for Exercising Your Rights Under the CCPA

We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights under the CCPA. We will not deny you our goods or services, charge you different prices or rates, or provide you a lower quality of goods and services if you exercise your rights under the CCPA. However, we may have different tiers of services as allowed by applicable data protection laws (including the CCPA) with varying prices, rates, or levels of quality of the goods or services you receive related to the value of Personal Data that we receive from you.

CCPA requests received by Crunchbase in 2024:

‍*Includes requests from all jurisdictions, not CA-specific

Crunchbase’s average time to close a request in 2024 was 43 days. If you have any questions about our privacy rights process, please contact support@crunchbase.com.

Nevada Resident Rights

If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of certain Personal Data to third parties who intend to license or sell that Personal Data. You can exercise this right by contacting us at privacy@crunchbase.com with the subject line “Nevada Do Not Sell Request” and providing us with your name and the email address associated with your account, or click the following link:

Do Not Sell

Information for Individuals Located in the EEA and the UK

If you are located in the EEA or UK, please read our GDPR Privacy Policy to learn more about how we process your Personal Data and the rights you have in this context.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, the ways in which we collect and use your Personal Data, your choices and rights regarding such use, please do not hesitate to contact your Crunchbase representative or email us at privacy@crunchbase.com.

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