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CB Insights Zapier integrationAutomate CB Insights with Zapier.

The CB Insights Zapier integration gives you 3 triggers, 0 actions and 2 searches. It reads market data out of CB Insights (new deals, new companies, new business ties) and hands it to the rest of your tools. It never writes anything back.

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Overview

What the CB Insights Zapier integration actually does

Connecting CB Insights to Zapier means turning what the platform tracks (venture deals, startups, investors, partnerships) into events that start an automation. CB Insights is the source here: it spots something new, Zapier picks it up and passes it to a spreadsheet, a chat channel or your CRM, without anyone copying it over by hand.

Three results come up again and again. First, a deal feed: Get Deals notices fresh investments, acquisitions or divestitures that match a search you saved, so an analyst sees them in the team tool instead of hunting for them. Second, a company watchlist: Get Organizations brings in newly logged companies or investors that fit your criteria, which suits a scouting team sorting new prospects. Third, a relationship log for one account: Get Business Relationships tells you when a vendor, client or partner gets attached to a given organization.

The two searches fill gaps in the middle of a Zap. Search for an Organization finds a company from its name or its website, and Search for Deals pulls the deals tied to an organization ID.

Now the part the app page skips. Zapier offers no action at all for CB Insights: no way to create a record, tag a company or update a list from a Zap. Everything flows one way, out of CB Insights. And all three triggers work by polling, so nothing lands the second it happens (more on that in the cost block).

If you are still weighing tools, the n8n vs Zapier comparison lays out the criteria side by side.

Vocabulary

Zapier vocabulary in one minute

Seven words come back on every line of this page. Here they are in plain English.

Zap
The automation you build on Zapier: one starting event, then one or more steps that run every single time that event shows up.
Trigger
The event in an app that kicks off the Zap. Once the Zap is switched on, Zapier sits and waits for that event to happen.
Action
What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes, sends or moves something for you. CB Insights has none of its own on Zapier.
Task
The unit Zapier bills. One task equals one action that finishes successfully, and your plan quota is simply a count of those.
Polling vs instant
A polling trigger is checked on a timer, and Zapier keeps only what it has not seen yet. An instant trigger is pushed by the app the moment it happens.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap carry on only when the incoming data meets a condition you set, and quietly stops it the rest of the time.
Search step
A step that looks up something already stored in an app, so the steps after it can reuse what it found along the way.
Cost

What a CB Insights Zap really costs

The good news first: CB Insights is not a premium app, so it works on the free plan.

  • Premium appNo, available on the free plan
  • Free plan100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only
  • BilledEach successful action, never the trigger
  • Triggers3, all polling

A trigger never costs a task, and neither does the check itself, however often Zapier looks. Only a completed action in another app is billed, and a failed one is not counted. The free plan gives 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps, but only two-step Zaps: one trigger, one action. Add a search or a filter and the Zap turns multi-step, which needs a paid plan. Each polling check follows the grid below.

Connect

Connect your CB Insights account to Zapier

  1. 01

    Open the Apps page

    In your Zapier account, go to Apps and click + Add connection. A connection is your CB Insights account linked once, then reused by every step that touches the app.

  2. 02

    Pick CB Insights

    Type the app name in the dialog, select it, then click Add connection. A new browser tab opens on the CB Insights side, where you finish the sign-in.

  3. 03

    Sign in and grant access

    Log in to CB Insights in that tab and allow Zapier to read the account. You must already have a CB Insights account, plus access to any data you do not own yourself.

First Zap

Your first Zap: new deals, enriched with the company

GoalEach new deal matching your search lands in a spreadsheet, along with the organization it belongs to.

  1. 01

    Build: set the trigger

    Create a Zap, choose CB Insights as the starting app and Get Deals as the event. Pick your connection, then define the deal search you want to watch.

  2. 02

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent deals from your account, so you map fields on a real record instead of guessing.

  3. 03

    Add the search

    Click the plus icon, pick CB Insights again and choose Search for an Organization. Feed it the company name or URL carried by the deal.

  4. 04

    Add the destination

    Add your spreadsheet app as the last step and map the deal fields plus what the search found. This three-step Zap needs a paid plan.

  5. 05

    Test, then publish

    Test each step once and read what comes back. When the row in your sheet looks right, click Publish to switch the Zap on and let it run.

Triggers

The 3 CB Insights triggers

3 events start a Zap when something happens in CB Insights. Zapier checks for them at the interval your plan allows.

1

Get Business Relationships

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when CB Insights logs a new vendor, client, or partner for a given organization.”

Keeps an eye on a single organization and starts your Zap each time CB Insights records a new vendor, client or partner attached to it. You get the new relationship as data you can pass along.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one
When to use it
an account manager who wants a heads-up in the team channel whenever a key customer signs with a new supplier.
Watch out
the trigger follows one organization ID per Zap, so tracking five accounts means five Zaps, or five setups to keep in sync.
2

Get Deals

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when CB Insights logs one or multiple new investments, acquisitions, or divestitures fitting your search.”

Fires on fresh investments, acquisitions or divestitures that fit the search you define, whether one deal shows up or several at once. This is the trigger a deal-sourcing team will reach for first.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one
When to use it
a venture analyst who wants every new round in a target sector dropped into a shared tracking sheet.
Watch out
a broad search can return a large batch in one go, and each row you write somewhere else counts as a task.
3

Get Organizations

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when CB Insights logs one or multiple new companies or investors fitting your search criteria.”

Brings newly logged companies or investors into your Zap when they match your search criteria. Zapier highlights this one on the app page, and it is the natural start for any watchlist.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one
When to use it
a corporate innovation team that screens new startups in its space and wants each one turned into a card on its review board.
Watch out
only companies logged after the Zap goes live come through, so the existing list has to be exported separately.
Searches

The 2 CB Insights searches

2 search steps look for data that already exists in CB Insights, so a later step can use it.

Searches live at the bottom of the action-event list, under the SEARCH heading. Any Zap that uses one becomes multi-step, so plan for a paid account. Three settings decide what happens when the result is not a clean single match.

1

Search for Deals

Search

In Zapier“Search for deals by organization id.”

Fetches the deals linked to one organization ID, so a later step can show the funding history next to a name that arrived from somewhere else.

When to use it
a lead lands in your CRM and you want its past rounds attached before sales calls them.
Watch out
the organization ID is required, so an earlier step has to supply it.
2

Search for an Organization

Search

In Zapier“Search for an organization by name or URL.”

Looks up a company from its name or its web address and hands what it found to the steps that follow, so they can use a company no earlier step carried.

When to use it
a form gives you only a company website, and you want the matching profile before anything else runs.
Watch out
how strictly a name must match is decided by CB Insights, not by Zapier.

The three settings every search exposes

  1. Successful if no search results are found?
    Left on its default, an empty search halts the Zap and skips the steps that relied on it. Switched on, the Zap keeps going with nothing in hand.
  2. Create X if it doesn't exist yet?
    This box turns a search into a find-or-create. CB Insights offers no such variant on Zapier, so you will not see it on these two searches.
  3. If multiple search results are found?
    Three ways out: keep the first match (the default), stop the Zap, or pass every match along together.
When it breaks

When a CB Insights Zap breaks

Zapier links no help article to CB Insights, so the failures below are the ones every polling app runs into.

None of them is specific to CB Insights, and all of them can be planned for before you publish. If a Zap still misbehaves after these checks, the Zapier troubleshooting guide walks through the editor step by step.

  • No backfill of older records

    A Zap reacts only to what CB Insights logs after you publish it. Companies and deals already in the platform never come through, so moving that backlog is a separate job.

  • A broad search floods the Zap

    When a saved search suddenly returns a huge batch, Zapier's flood protection can hold the items back. Narrow the criteria before you publish.

  • Duplicates are filtered out

    Zapier remembers what it has already seen on each polling trigger, so the same deal never starts the Zap a second time. Expect one run per new item.

  • Search finds nothing

    With the default setting, an empty Search for Deals or Search for an Organization stops the Zap at that step, and later steps are skipped without warning.
Need help

Need help automating CB Insights with Zapier?

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FAQ

CB Insights Zapier integration: frequent questions

01Is the CB Insights Zapier integration free?
Yes, as long as your Zap stays at two steps. CB Insights is not a premium app, so the free plan accepts it. That plan gives 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps, but each Zap can hold only one trigger and one action. A Zap that adds a search, a filter or a second action becomes multi-step and requires a paid plan. You also need your own CB Insights account, since Zapier only connects to an existing one.
02How many tasks does a CB Insights Zap use?
The CB Insights trigger itself uses zero tasks. Zapier can check for new deals or companies as often as your plan allows, and those checks are free. What you pay for is each action that succeeds in another app after the trigger. So a Zap that writes one spreadsheet row per new deal uses one task per deal. A Zap with three actions uses three tasks per deal, and an action that fails is not counted.
03Do CB Insights triggers run in real time?
No. All three CB Insights triggers are polling triggers, which means Zapier asks CB Insights for new items on a timer rather than being told instantly. On the free plan the check happens every 15 minutes. On Professional it drops to 2 minutes, and on Team and Enterprise to 1 minute. The trigger type comes from the app itself and cannot be changed from the editor, so there is no instant option to switch on.
04What does it take to connect CB Insights to Zapier?
An active CB Insights account and access to the data you want the Zap to read. The connection starts from the Apps page of your Zapier account, where you add a new connection, pick CB Insights and sign in on the tab that opens. Once it is saved, every step using CB Insights reuses that same connection. Keep an organization ID handy, because two operations refuse to run without one.
05Why can't Zapier add a company to a CB Insights list?
Because the integration has no action. Zapier exposes three triggers and two searches for CB Insights, and every one of them reads data. Nothing in the editor writes into the platform, so creating a record, tagging a company or editing a watchlist stays a manual job inside CB Insights, done by someone on the team. Data flows outward only: from CB Insights into your sheet, your chat or your CRM, and never the other way around.
06What if the CB Insights operation you need is missing?
Then Zapier cannot do it with this app today, and the editor will not show it. The visible list is fixed at three triggers and two searches. A practical workaround is to let a CB Insights trigger start the Zap and handle the rest in the destination app, where the writing actually happens, in a tool you already use. Another option is to compare what other automation platforms expose for the same app before committing.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for CB Insights?
It depends on your criteria rather than on a winner. Coverage first: on Zapier, CB Insights offers three triggers and two searches, all read-only, so check what each tool exposes for the operations you plan to use. Speed next: every trigger here polls, every 15 minutes on Zapier's free plan. Cost last: Zapier bills successful actions, never the checks, and runs two-step Zaps for free. Weigh those against who will maintain the setup.
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