How to research investors without paying Crunchbase $50K a year

A founder I was working with last quarter spent an entire weekend on Crunchbase before her first partner call. She did not have a paid seat, so she was burning through the free tier limits, hitting paywalls every five minutes, and ending up with shallow data anyway.

The information she needed was all available for free. She just did not know where to look.

This piece is the free investor research stack. Five sources, in the order I use them, that produce more useful intel than a Crunchbase Pro account for less than the price of a coffee.

What you actually need to know about a fund

Before the tools, the questions. When researching a fund, you need:

Investment focus. What stages do they actually write checks at? What sectors? What geographies?
Recent activity. Have they written a check in the last 90 days? What were their last 5 deals?
Check size. What is the typical first check, and how do they think about follow-on?
Decision-maker. Which partner would lead a deal in your area, and how do they think?
Portfolio. Who else have they backed in your space, and is there a competitive conflict?
Reputation. Are founders happy with them post-investment, and what do their portfolio companies say?

Crunchbase Pro answers some of these. None of them require Crunchbase Pro.

Source 1: the firm's own website (10 min per firm)

Almost every fund publishes more on their site than founders read. Specifically, look for:

Portfolio page. Every active investment with logos and links. Click through to the portfolio companies you do not recognize. The portfolio is the strongest signal of "what this firm actually invests in" because it is observed behavior, not stated intent.
Thesis page. Often called "What we look for" or "Our focus" or just embedded in the About page. The stated thesis is useful even when it is generic, because it is the language partners use when they pitch their own LPs.
Team page. Each partner's bio. Look for partners who have public writing or who came from operator backgrounds in your space.
News or insights blog. Many firms publish content. The voice of recent posts tells you which partners are active and what they are thinking about.

What you cannot get from the website: actual check sizes, recent deal terms, or the partner's deal-by-deal track record.

Source 2: SEC EDGAR (5 min per firm)

This is the biggest underused source for US-based funds.

EDGAR (sec.gov/edgar) is the public filings database. Fund LPs (the investors in the fund) are required to file Form D when a fund closes a new vintage. The Form D includes:

The fund name and vintage
The total raised
The size of the fund

If a firm closed a $200M fund 18 months ago, Form D will tell you. If they closed a $400M fund last week, Form D will tell you. The implication for you: a fund that just closed is hungry. A fund that closed 4 years ago and has not deployed much is probably retiring partners or returning capital.

Search EDGAR for the fund management company name (e.g., "First Round Capital Management LLC"). The Form D filings for each vintage will surface.

Free, official, and almost no founder uses it.

Source 3: SignalFire, Pitchbook free tiers, and Coresignal (10 min per firm)

Each of these has a free tier that is enough for basic dealflow research. Use:

SignalFire: their dealflow database has historical investments and partner attributions. Free tier covers most active firms.
Pitchbook free tier: limited but usually enough for the top 5 deals at a given firm.
Coresignal: aggregates LinkedIn data on partners and investments. Free tier is light but useful for confirming who at the firm has been most active.

You will not get full deal terms from any of these on a free tier, but you will get enough to populate the "Recent activity" section of your prep.

Source 4: the partners' own writing and podcasts (15 min per partner)

This is where most founder research stops too early.

Almost every partner who is active in dealflow has either a Substack, a personal blog, a podcast, or a regular Twitter/X presence. Their public writing is the highest-signal source on:

What they actually believe (versus the firm's marketing copy)
What they are excited about right now
What they are skeptical about
The mental models they use to evaluate deals

Searching "{partner name}" site:substack.com or "{partner name}" podcast usually surfaces their public footprint. Reading two of their recent essays before a partner meeting is worth more than two hours on Crunchbase.

For specific funds I work with regularly, the partners' Twitter feeds are the single best research source. Lenny Rachitsky's writing, Jason Lemkin's blog, Sahil Bloom's newsletter, Tomasz Tunguz's posts. Each is publicly available, free, and far more useful than a Crunchbase deal record.

Source 5: founder back-channel (15 min)

The single highest-signal source on a fund's quality is what their existing portfolio founders say about them. Crunchbase will never tell you this. Founder back-channel will.

How to do back-channel ethically:

Identify 2-3 portfolio companies the partner has invested in.
Find the founder on LinkedIn. Connect with a short, honest note: "Considering raising from {Firm Name} and would love your honest take on working with {Partner}. 10 minutes on a call would be useful."
About 30-50% reply. Of those, most will give you 10 minutes and an honest read.

Questions to ask:

"How did the partner act in the diligence process? Fast? Slow? Demanding?"
"How do they show up post-investment? Helpful, hands-off, micromanage-y?"
"Have they pushed back on you in a way that helped, or in a way that hurt?"
"Would you take their money again if you were starting over?"

This is the data Crunchbase will never provide. It is also the most important data, because it is the only signal on whether the partner will be good to work with for the next 5-7 years of your company.

A practical research routine for one fund (1 hour total)

Here is the actual sequence I recommend founders follow before any partner meeting:

0-10 min: Read the firm's portfolio + thesis page. Note the closest comparable to your business.
10-15 min: SEC EDGAR for fund vintage + size.
15-25 min: SignalFire / Pitchbook free for recent deal activity.
25-40 min: Read 2 recent essays or watch one podcast appearance from the partner you are meeting.
40-55 min: LinkedIn outreach to 2-3 portfolio founders. Get 1 back-channel call scheduled.
55-60 min: Compile a 1-page brief with the 5 things you now know (focus, recent activity, check size estimate, decision-maker style, founder rep).

One hour produces a research depth that beats any free Crunchbase session and matches a paid session for the questions that actually matter.

When you do need Crunchbase Pro

The honest answer: if you are a fund analyst running 50-firm scans per week, Crunchbase Pro is worth it. The aggregated dealflow data and exportable lists save hours.

If you are a founder researching the 30-50 firms relevant to your raise, you do not need it. The free stack above is enough.

The exception: if you are mapping all active investors in a specific niche (say, "every climate seed fund in the EU"), the comprehensive search is genuinely useful. For that one task, a one-month Crunchbase Pro trial is worth the $50.

For everything else, the free stack wins.

What to do tomorrow

Pick the top 10 firms on your investor list. Spend an hour each on the 5-source routine above. Compile a 1-page brief per firm.

After 10 hours of research, you will have an investor list with more relevant intel than 90% of founders have. That is the difference between walking into a partner meeting prepared and walking in cold.

If you want a tool that does the firm-level research automatically and surfaces the partner-specific connection points to your deck, claudefundraiser.com runs it free for the first 10 matches. The depth of the manual research above is what we automate.

About Claude Fundraiser

Claude Fundraiser scores pitch decks on the 8 dimensions VCs actually evaluate (problem, market, team, traction, etc.), matches founders against 8,665 enriched investors ranked by fit, and drafts personalized cold emails grounded in the founder's own deck and each investor's thesis, in the founder's voice. Free to score and see top 10 matches. Plans at $297/$697/$1,497 for 50/200/500 drafts, or à la carte at $49/$149/$299.