Crunchbase, whose platform offers business information on companies from early-stage startups to the Fortune 100, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Alignment Growth. CEO Jager McConnell joined Cheddar News to discuss that new funding — and to offer some advice to entrepreneurs navigating the current economic environment. “There's a lot of doom and gloom. I actually think it's kind of a positive in some ways,” McConnell said. “Market valuations were insane. So as a founder, start thinking about how that valuation should be lower than you probably thought it was. … The goal is not to become a paper unicorn.”

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Crunchbase Lands $50 Million in VC Funding

you've heard of this company. Data company, database crunch base, excuse me raising $50 million in a series D round led by alignment growth Crunch bases platform offers business information on companies from early stage startups to the Fortune 100 and the companies receiving new funding at a time when a lot of other companies aren't as the second quarter of this year saw the biggest drop in global VC funding since the start of the pandemic. Well joining me now is Jager McConnell ceo of crunch base at Jager, thanks so much for coming on, congratulations. I know a lot of people turn to crunch base to learn about startups about your company to tapping the VC market. What are you gonna do with this new funding? A lot of exciting stuff. Obviously we want everyone to know about our new products. That's part of the, that I'll reach with our, with our new lineup here. Um there's always more we want to build in the product so making sure that people are getting awesome by signals. Have people have new prospecting tools, workflow tools available to them so that they can do their job more efficiently and finding the right companies to connect to at the right time. I'm just curious. Um, I know a partner with a lineman grow telling Forbes that this round will be quote the last round that crunch base needs before a major milestone in history. What might that milestone be coming up Jagger? I mean the goal is, has been always, has been uh, let's try to get public, let's become a public company someday. Um there's nothing tell us that we can't do that obviously, other than the markets, so, so that's a goal of ours is when the timing is right. Um let's think about going public, obviously that doesn't, if things turn out, that's not the case, will always find a way that we can survive and grow. Um but yeah, that would be great to be a public company someday. You work with a lot of companies raising money, you've got a lot of great insights jager, what should entrepreneurs prepare themselves for in navigating this current economic environment? Yeah. You know, it's, there's a lot of doom and gloom. I actually think it's kind of a positive in some ways. Um market valuations were insane. So as a founder start thinking about having that valuation be lower than you probably thought it was, but the goal is not to become a paper unicorn. Um that's what we've been sort of programmed to try to get to that billion dollar mark. Um and so you get these 10 million revenue companies raising a billion dollars, it just wasn't sustainable, and and so I'm kind of glad that things are resetting to more reasonable terms. Um so it's getting that mind frame that look, build an efficient growth business that's sustainable ad funding when you need it to go a little faster, but always be thinking that this may be your last round of funding for years and years and that sort of mind frame gets you thinking the right way when you start engaging with with new vcs, you know, I remember just a year ago we were doing our daily raising the bar segment, jagger talking about companies raising 50 million, 100 million, 200 million. 300 million in a given day. Um and love today we saw companies raising, let's say on average $10 million. So smaller dollars actually right to go around from the VC standpoint, are they seeing this as an opportunity? Kind of like we see in the stock market, right? Not every day that such a dramatic drop in valuations actually comes along. Do you think VC investors see this as an opportunity or is there some trepidation in putting money to work for younger companies in this environment? Yeah, I actually think on the, on the younger companies, they're the most insulated because you always are betting on a dream. Um, so you'll see a lot of these VCS right now raising their funds so that they can go and invest in these early stage companies because they do see these things in a discount. Um, so this is a good time to be a VC. It's just as you get later staged, it becomes much more around what are your metrics? How sustainable are you? How long can you survive in a recession? Um those sorts of questions become more important the later stage you go, okay, so let's talk to you about some of the new innovations and that might be coming to your own company. I know you just raised money yourself so congratulations. We talked about how you're gonna put that to use milestones that might be on the docket here for consumers, users of your own product, what innovations can they expect? Yeah. So so we have this account based selling approach this, how do, how do I go and find the right company the right time. There's a lot of components that first do we have all the companies that you might want to sort of prospect into? Um those are things that we're investing in. Do we know the right signals? Like right now we have for instance, like a layoff signal that may not be the right time for you to go and engage with them forever sort of prospect you need, you might have, there's more of those sorts of buy signals and growth signals that we're thinking about adding. And finally there's a lot of tools that people work with. Um so we want to integrate with a ton of different tools, you already integrate with Salesforce and outreach and, and google, but there's more opportunity for us to go and integrate with things like hubspot and other tools that people use to go and do this sort of prospecting um in a company first approach rather than sort of a spammy email first kind of approach, jagger very quickly. What's it gonna take to turn the VC market around to get people spending top dollar again and to get some of these companies back in high growth mode. I honestly don't know if it's ever gonna go back to the craziness I was, I kind of hope it doesn't, I think it's gonna become just more of more due diligence investing in efficient growth companies as more companies prioritize efficient growth rather than fast growth. Um I think the B. C. Market will start turning around but I'm not sure you'll obviously the craziness that we used to see at least I hope. Alright Jager, McConnell ceo of crunch base recently raising money of your own. Jager thanks so much for coming on. It's great to chat.