PitchBook exists to give individuals and organizations insight into capital markets. The company collects and analyzes data across the venture capital, private equity and M&A landscape and sucks in information about public and private companies, investors, funds, investments, exits, and people. PitchBook is an independent subsidiary of Morningstar, after its 2016 acquisition.

But it’s one thing to have a mass of data about organizations, and another to ensure that data is readily consumed. And that’s where some product news from PitchBook comes in. They are rolling out a Google Chrome extension, which will allow users to access PitchBook’s data directly from their browser while visiting a company website, reading the news or doing online research.

Using the extension is as easy and intuitive as you’d expect – by opening the extension while browsing the web or right-clicking on a company in a news article, PitchBook subscribers can view company data including funding history, valuations, investors, contacts and more. In addition, search history and followed companies are automatically synced across PitchBook Mobile, Desktop and Chrome Extension, allowing users to pick up where they left off.

Notes and files makes PitchBook a CRM-lite

Alongside the Chrome extension, PitchBook has also added a Notes and Files feature, which provides users the ability to store and share information and documents within the Platform. For instance, PitchBook users are now able to share emails and meeting notes and attach documents about a company, person or investor of interest, all within a centralized system. The new functionality was designed to optimize customer workflows by enabling easy communication and tracking of business opportunities within one platform.

What it also does, of course, is to give organizations both the data about prospective customers and a central hub where workflows relating to that customer can be stored and processes. If that sounds kind of like a CRM, there’s a good reason for that. This is the first steps in what PitchBook describes as a journey to create a full-blown CRM offering, but one which is centered around corporate data.

MyPOV

These tools are nicely executed, but more importantly than the execution is an analysis as to whether PitchBook really has an opportunity to build this sort of CRM offering. it’s not a task that is for the faint of heart – CRM systems are complex beasts. But bear in mind that PitchBook both has the resourcing of its parent company, Morningstar, as well as the experience in wrangling serious amounts of data Put those two things together and you have an interesting opportunity.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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