PitchBook Opens Its Platform to Startups for Free and Launches PitchBook Origin to Help Investors Find Opportunities Earlier

Releases extend PitchBook intelligence to the companies that will define private markets’ future, and put the investors who back them in position to find them first

LISBON, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PitchBook, a leading private capital market intelligence provider, today announced two new offerings at Web Summit 2026: PitchBook for Startups, which provides free access to PitchBook for companies that are seeking to raise their first institutional financing, and PitchBook Origin, a standalone, AI-native offering purpose-built for early-stage venture deal sourcing covering roughly 25 million companies and 250 million people profiles at launch.

The releases mark a shift in how PitchBook delivers its data: free access for companies at the earliest stage of their lifecycle, and a standalone workflow product that helps investors discover those companies sooner. The two offerings are mutually reinforcing. Startups that join PitchBook for Startups share high-value business information that, in turn, strengthens the data inside PitchBook Origin. As a result, startups gain visibility and support at a critical stage, and investors receive stronger signals for deal discovery.

“PitchBook was built on the belief that private markets work better when the right people and opportunities can find each other, and these launches put that belief into practice at scale,” said Peter Escher, Chief Data Operations Officer at PitchBook. “We know this from experience. PitchBook was once a startup itself, working to get in front of the right backers, and for nearly two decades we’ve supported the entrepreneurs and investors who drive this market. Few organizations have the infrastructure, data and relationships across private capital markets that we do, which puts us in a unique position to help this industry discover and fund what comes next.”

Why Now

Company formation is accelerating, and the tools built to find the most promising early-stage companies haven’t kept pace. According to the Q3 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, an estimated 8,625 first-time financing deals closed through Q3, already surpassing the full-year 2021 record of 8,507 with a quarter still to be counted. Those deals represent $34.3 billion deployed, putting annualized first-time financing value on pace to top 2021’s high of $40.7 billion.

AI is lowering barriers to entry and driving new company formation, creating a larger pool of early-stage companies and more competition for funding. At the same time, AI-accelerated investor workflows are compressing diligence and execution from weeks to days, raising the premium on speed and on grounded, validated data. Sourcing remains the gap, especially for signals that aren’t publicly disclosed. Addressing this gap requires comprehensive, differentiated data and AI capabilities that surface high-potential companies and the earliest signals of their formation.

PitchBook for Startups: Support Business Development and Discover Early-Stage Investors

PitchBook for Startups gives eligible companies free access to the PitchBook platform. The program is open globally to startups that are currently self-funded through sources such as bootstrapping, friends and family, angel investment, grants or accelerators and who are seeking their first institutional financing. Applicants are verified through a work email, website or LinkedIn profile and access to a working demo, prototype or product mockup. In exchange for access, participating startups share information about their business, including financials, leadership and team composition, and product details. Select portions of this intelligence support PitchBook Origin, strengthening the data and insights available to investors seeking early-stage opportunities and allowing startups the opportunity to share key data with the right investors.

PitchBook for Startups helps founders:

• Discover investors: Identify and research investors actively writing checks in their sector, geography and stage
• Benchmark against peers: Compare valuation, growth and fundraising metrics against similar companies raising capital today
• Access market intelligence: Research market maps, sector trends and comparable financings to sharpen their growth strategies

From startups who have grown and scaled leveraging PitchBook:

“As a founder, it’s my responsibility to set the strategy of the company for the next 12 months and beyond. PitchBook gives me a very good glimpse into the future, as well as insight into existing challenges, to develop my long-term strategy. It’s been an amazing tool for us. It’s really helped us reduce costs, reduce time, reduce noise, and make our pitch a lot better—and not only target what we want and who we want to reach out to, but how we want to reach out to them.” - Founder and CEO of fintech startup

“PitchBook has been instrumental in identifying and prioritizing investors that are a strategic fit for us, especially those with a strong track record in being active in med tech growth equity. We’ve used the platform to build targeted investor lists, conduct diligence on potential backers, and better understand the investment patterns of comparable private companies. This data has importantly helped us streamline our outreach strategy and how we benchmark against peers.” - CFO of medical tech startup

Eligible startups can apply here.

PitchBook Origin: Deal Sourcing Built for the Earliest Stage

PitchBook Origin helps investors discover, prioritize and act on early-stage opportunities before traditional signals appear. Available as a standalone product or an add-on to PitchBook, it combines behavioral signals, enriched founder intelligence and PitchBook's private market data in one sourcing product. At launch, Origin covers roughly 25 million companies, including stealth, pre-funding and bootstrapped companies, of which 15 million are new to PitchBook. It also includes 250 million people profiles. Coverage draws on third-party data enrichment, proprietary machine learning models, and founder-verified data from PitchBook for Startups, a data layer PitchBook has not previously had at scale.

PitchBook Origin helps investors:

• Discover earlier: Access to a universe of 25 million companies, including 15 million new to PitchBook companies as well as 250 million new people profiles. Automated surfacing of new company formations with enriched firmographic and alternative data means investors see opportunities months before competitors.
• Prioritize with signal: Balance scale and signal through intelligent scoring, investor-tuned relevance filters, and insight-driven profiles with quick tags.
• Stay ahead automatically: Real-time alerts, saved searches, and CRM integrations eliminate manual monitoring and administrative overhead so teams can focus on relationship-building and deal structuring.

“Early-stage companies and the investors who back them have been central to PitchBook’s coverage for years, and we’ve built the data and tools they rely on at every stage of a company’s growth,” said Paul Santarelli, Chief Solutions Officer at PitchBook. “What’s been missing is visibility into the stage before a company raises, when the most important signals are the hardest to see. PitchBook Origin pairs behavioral signals and founder intelligence with the private market data our clients already trust, so investors can move from scanning for noise to acting on the companies that matter. And because founders in PitchBook for Startups contribute verified information directly, that picture gets sharper with every company that joins.”

For more information on PitchBook Origin, click here.

Grounded Data Reaching Further Than Ever Before

Together, the two launches extend PitchBook’s grounded data to the earliest stage of the private market lifecycle. As more early-stage companies gain access to PitchBook, the stronger the signal becomes in PitchBook Origin, empowering investors to discover the companies worth backing earlier. This creates a flywheel that benefits both sides of the market: startups gain visibility and support at a critical stage, and investors gain earlier, more reliable sourcing intelligence. Following this year's AI-powered platform releases, PitchBook is matching the speed AI has brought to private markets with the grounded intelligence needed to act on it across every stage of the investment lifecycle.

Review PitchBook’s 2026 innovations here.

About PitchBook, a Morningstar company

As the pulse of private capital markets, PitchBook delivers trusted, real-time data, research, and technology to help investors, dealmakers, and innovators make decisions with confidence. Its products provide comprehensive information on companies, investors, funds, deals, and people, along with tools that help professionals analyze market activity and make informed decisions. Founded in 2007, PitchBook today serves more than 100,000 clients worldwide and is recognized as the leading source of private capital market intelligence. PitchBook has grown to over 3,000 employees across offices in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, London, Singapore, Mumbai, and other global locations. Since 2016, PitchBook has operated as a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc.