If you’re looking for a startup search engine, CB Insights crushes Google

If you work in corporate strategy, innovation scouting, M&A, investment banking or venture capital, chances are you (or your well-paid Harvard/Stanford analysts and associates) have spent time trying to identify startup companies using Google.

And while Google is amazing for many things, searching for startups is one area where it fails to deliver.

And so we developed a startup search engine purpose-built to solve this problem. One that will identify startups focused on particular technology categories more quickly and with more precision. This saves you from immense amounts of data janitor work involved with using Google where you have to wade through random Wikipedia articles to find companies of interest.

But, talk is cheap. Today, we’re going head-to-head versus Google to see how we both stack up. The premise is simple. We’ll test various searches ranging from CRISPR startups to blockchain banking startups both Google and CB Insights and then compare the top 3 results. Most relevant search results overall wins. Let’s go. Here are the searches we’ll conduct:

• Blockchain startups focused on banking
• Flying car startups
• CRISPR startups
• Genomics startups
• Drones and delivery
• Industrial Internet of Things
• Quantum Computing startups
• Cybersecurity Enterpise startups
• Big data insurance startups
• Insurance and artificial intelligence
• Artificial intelligence and sales
• kids programming startups

Round one: Blockchain and banking

Here’s an example. You’re reading about the decline in funding to bitcoin & blockchain startups and are part of a big bank and specifically want to find blockchain startups focused on banking. Here is the search you’d run in Google and here is the search on CBI.

The side by side results look like this:

Google provides topical info about the rising trend of blockchain startups. This is not helpful if you are trying to find actual blockchain banking companies in a hurry.

Meanwhile, CBI search is up to the task of surfacing results that pertain to both search terms. Thanks to the magic of Boolean operators, CBI lets you combine the 2 search terms, resulting in more accurate results. To get even more out of the search, clicking into the Trends tab and adding another search term will allow you to compare “blockchain and banking” to (for example) “blockchain and payments” – giving you an even clearer view of trends related to blockchain over time:

The winner? CBI.

Score: CBI  1 ; Google 0.

Round two: Flying car startups

Moving on. So you saw that Uber is launching a flying car and want to see if any other flying car companies are out there. You run a Google search:

Then a CBI search using the same terms.

Here are the side by side results:

While Google’s top result is indeed a flying car company, it takes multiple clicks to parse the company’s details, such as investors. Even after clicking into the website, you have limited information about only one company.

Meanwhile, CBI’s top results include three actual flying car companies, with an extremely handy summary of their funding and momentum.

So far, this isn’t even really a contest.

Score: CBI 2; Google 0.

Round three search term: “CRISPR startups”

You’re reading about disruptive synthetic biology technology and curious about startups in this space that use CRISPR technology.  Here’s your Google search:

Here is the same search in CBI

And the side-by-side results:

Google’s top three results include

• A link to Quora, your leading source for quasi authoritative information.

• Not one but two trend pieces about the rise of CRISPR technology.

Of course, you’re already aware of the trend, so Google isn’t giving you much new information.

Meanwhile, CBI surfaces three highly relevant results: companies that actually use CRISPR technology.

Plus, if you were to click to the Trends tab of CBI Results, you’d get a glimpse of the rise in mentions of CRISPR technology and be able to view news mentions at any given point in time over the last 5 years. Just saying.

Score: CBI 3 ; Google 0.

Round four search term “Genomics”

Next up! So you tuned in to our genomics webinar and are wondering about genomics startups.

A Google search of that term yields the following results:

You run the same search in CBI, which surfaces the following:

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

Google’s results lead with AngelList biotech startups – we’ll give them a point for that.

But after that initial result, things get weird: their second result is for a digital agency called Genome, which is not helpful at all. The third result is also of lower quality than CBI’s results, which offer detailed company information about three genomics companies.

Score: CBI 4; Google 1

Round five search term “Drones and delivery”

Another example: you read about the likelihood of soon seeing adoption for commercial use cases for drones. You look for companies using drones for deliveries, running this search in Google and CBI.

Two of three Google results concern Flirtey, which is indeed a drone startup. But, CBI wins for most relevant results overall, thanks to those handy Boolean joiners. Here they are in action:

Score CBI 5; Google 0

Round six Industrial Internet of Things

So all this talk of drones inspires you to look for other IIOT companies. You run a search on Google…

And then you run the same search on CBI. Here’s what the side-by-side results look like:

Even though CBI search provides 3 highly relevant results, we’ll make this round a tie because we’re such a fan of those top three results.

Score: CBI 5; Google 1

Round seven “quantum computing startups”

In light of the announcement that Intel is going all in on quantum computing investments, you want to find quantum computing companies. So you run a search. Here’s what you’d get:

While we’d like to give Google credit for again surfacing more CB Insights research in the top results, the weakness of their other results is indisputable: a list from Wikipedia, aka Quora’s smart friend, as well as a listicle from Nanalyze.

Score: CBI 6; Google 1

Round eight “cybersecurity enterprise startups”

So, you’re reading about the record high of investments in cybersecurity. You then run a search to see what’s up with cybersecurity enterprise startups. Here’s the side by side results:

Google’s top two results feature year-old news about cybersecurity startups, and neither specifically relates to the “enterprise” term.

This is another prime example of CBI’s sweet Boolean logic coming through to deliver the accurate results. Check it out:

Score: CBI 7; Google 1

Round nine “big data insurance startups”

Upon learning about the quiet revolution of insurance companies relying more on data, you start looking for companies related to big data and insurance. You run the search on CBI and Google. Here are the side-by-side results:

Unfortunately for Google, its top result does not reflect both of the search terms. Its second and third results do acknowledge the trend of insurers looking to big data, but that’s what you already knew.

Meanwhile, CBI search joins the two terms and provides three high quality results.

A peek over to the Trends tab also nicely illustrates the momentum of the trend and related news mentions:

CBI is the winner.

Score: CBI 8; Google 1

Round ten “insurance and Artificial Intelligence”

Since deals to AI startups reached a record high in 2016, you decide to look into AI companies related to the insurance industry. You run a Google search and then the same search on CBI.

Google’s top results (although they include more CBI research!) cannot compete with the results CBI search surfaces, all of which are companies that specialize in AI and healthcare:

Score: CBI 9; Google 1

Round eleven “Artificial Intelligence sales startups”

Okay one last round.

Sticking with the AI theme, you search AI sales startups and then run the same search on CBI using CBI’s joiners.

Google fails to surface results relevant to both search terms. None of the top three results hone in on Artificial Intelligence and sales.

Meanwhile, CBI’s joiners accurately capture the exact info being searched, surfacing three sales-related AI companies:

Not to mention there is a ton more pertinent info under the patents tab of CBI search, but that’s a story for another day.

Yet again, point goes to CBI.

Round twelve “kids programming startups”

Update: We found another example too good not to include.

Let’s say you run a Google search for programming startups for kids, and the same search in CB Insights.

Google’s top result is about a kids programming startup, but the article it links to is almost 2 years old. Top Google results also include a link to a long archive of Crunchbase pieces that have been tagged with the word “coding”, which is not very helpful at all.

Meanwhile, CB Insights (again due to the power of Boolean operators)  surfaces 3 real startups focused on teaching programming to kids.

Final Score: CBI 11, Google 1

Based on the data: For startup scouting and sourcing efforts, CB Insights is superior to Google.

Now, put our search engine through the paces.  Sign up for free below. Enjoy.

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