Altss vs. PitchBook for Founders: Data, Tools & Use-Cases

Founders today swim in data. From Crunchbase to Preqin, LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Google Sheets, the number of ways to build an investor list is overwhelming. Yet despite the abundance of tools, the same complaints echo: stale contacts, dead emails, broad “lists” that don’t translate into replies.

This article compares Altss and PitchBook through a founder’s eyes. PitchBook has been the standard private market database for over a decade. Altss, by contrast, is a new OSINT-driven platform designed specifically for fundraising workflows — with real-time signals on family offices, LPs, and allocators.

We’ll cover:

• Platform focus and core strengths.
• Feature-by-feature differences.
• Use-cases for solo founders, growth-stage teams, and scouts.
• Why list quality beats subject line tweaks every time.
• A practical action plan for better outreach.

Platform Focus and Core Strengths

Altss: OSINT-Native, Real-Time Intelligence

Altss was built for one job: showing who is active now. Its engine mines filings, news, events, and even social posts to detect signals such as:

• A family office that just led a round last week.
• A fund principal announcing they’re seeking AI deals.
• A new LP mandate shifting into climate tech.

Rather than storing a static directory, Altss curates active investors and verifies their contacts monthly. For founders, that means fewer names but much higher signal: deliverable emails, decision-makers, and context for why now is the right moment to reach out.

PitchBook: Comprehensive Market Research

PitchBook’s strength is breadth. It covers hundreds of thousands of companies, investors, funds, and deals across private markets. Need to benchmark SaaS valuations in Europe? Track dry powder of every PE fund in New York? Map corporate venture in automotive? PitchBook can do it.

But updates are periodic. Profiles are refreshed quarterly or after public announcements. It excels at historical depth and broad coverage, but less at catching what happened yesterday.

Key Comparison

Data Freshness

• Altss: Surfaces updates within hours or days. A live feed of who just moved, invested, or announced a new mandate.
• PitchBook: Updates in cycles. Excellent for trend analysis but less useful for time-sensitive targeting.

Search & Filtering

• Altss: Natural-language and LLM-enhanced. Query “fintech seed investors in Southeast Asia active this quarter” and see results immediately. Filters extend beyond static tags to include contextual signals.
• PitchBook: Manual filters — industry, deal size, AUM, geography. Very powerful for slicing data, but geared toward static criteria.

Investor Data Accuracy

• Altss: Verified decision-maker contacts, checked monthly. Minimal “[email protected]” noise.
• PitchBook: Huge volume, but uneven quality. Some emails are outdated or generic, requiring manual verification.

Coverage & Scope

• Altss: Currently ~6,000 mapped family offices plus VCs, LPs, and PE firms, curated for activity. Strong global reach, especially in under-tracked regions like MENA and LatAm. Altss is scaling rapidly: within six months, it is expected to not only match but surpass PitchBook’s sheer coverage, built on a newer, faster stack that supports both accuracy and volume.
• PitchBook: Today’s volume leader, with 90,000+ funds and hundreds of thousands of investor/company profiles. Excellent for exhaustive coverage, but not always reflective of who is currently active.

UI & Ease of Use

• Altss: Modern, lightweight, fast. A founder can log in and find five warm leads in minutes.
• PitchBook: Rich but complex. Think Bloomberg Terminal for private markets — powerful, but a steep learning curve.

Workflow Integration

• Altss: Signal-driven. Not designed for bulk exports or spamming. In Q4, Slack/LinkedIn/email integrations are being added.
• PitchBook: Enterprise-ready. Offers CSVs, Excel plug-ins, and APIs (at higher tiers) for CRM integration.

Analytics & Extras

• Altss: Focused — relationship graphs, allocator signals, alerts. Doesn’t attempt valuation comps or industry benchmarks.
• PitchBook: Broad — industry reports, comparables, custom charts. Useful for strategy and board decks.

Pricing

• Altss: $12k per seat/year (startup plan). Standard $15,500 flat fee. Transparent, all-inclusive.
• PitchBook: $26k–$35k per year, modularized. Steep for early-stage startups unless subsidized by accelerators.

Support

• Altss: High-touch, niche-oriented. Responsive and founder-focused.
• PitchBook: Established enterprise support. Reliable but less personal.

Pros and Cons by User Type

Solo Founder (Pre-Seed/Seed)

• Altss Pros: Fast, relevant, fewer dead ends. Helps surface who’s active today.
• Altss Cons: Still a significant cost at pre-seed.
• PitchBook Pros: Huge coverage, includes angels and accelerators.
• PitchBook Cons: Expensive, overbuilt for a solo founder.

Verdict: If budget allows, Altss is better aligned with founder workflows. Otherwise, most solo founders stick to free scrappy methods until they can afford better tools.

Growth-Stage Startup Team (Series B+)

• Altss Pros: Alerts on LPs, family offices, and non-traditional allocators. Helps uncover non-obvious leads.
• PitchBook Pros: Comprehensive data for valuation benchmarking and board decks. A CFO or analyst can master the interface.
• Cons: Altss won’t replace PitchBook’s valuation analytics. PitchBook won’t replace Altss’s real-time signals.

Verdict: Larger teams often use both. If forced to choose, PitchBook may edge out for breadth — but they’ll lose Altss’s agility.

Scout or Connector

• Altss Pros: Timely signals create real edge in making intros.
• PitchBook Pros: Useful for exhaustive lists, like “all AI funds in Europe.”
• Cons: PitchBook is often inaccessible to individuals; Altss is better suited to scouts’ workflows.

Verdict: Altss is a power tool for scouts — less about breadth, more about timing.

Why Founders Should Fix the List, Not the Subject Line

Founders often spend hours tweaking subject lines. But the bigger issue isn’t copy — it’s who they’re emailing.

• Low-quality list: broad, outdated, generic inboxes. Even clever subject lines won’t save it.
• High-quality list: targeted, active decision-makers. Even plain subjects like “Following up on your recent fintech investment” get replies.

Data bears this out: cold emails average 2–10% response, while targeted outreach reaches 10–34%.

The math is simple: 10 targeted emails can yield 5 replies. 100 generic ones may yield the same, but with wasted time and burned credibility.

Practical Steps for Better Lists

Define your Ideal Investor Profile (IIP) — stage, check size, sector, geography.

Research activity — prioritize investors who have deployed capital in the last 6–12 months.

Validate contacts — only direct decision-maker emails.

Personalize — reference portfolios, mandates, or public signals.

Send small batches — test with 5–10, refine.

Use networks — intros dramatically increase response rates.

Maintain a living CRM — keep notes, prune dead leads, add new ones.

Before vs. After

• Before: Alice sends 100 generic emails to VCs. Zero replies.
• After: Alice builds a list of 15 fintech investors who recently deployed. She references their portfolio companies and events in her emails. Response rate: 20%. One warm intro leads to a term sheet.

The difference wasn’t copy. It was the list.

Conclusion: Which Platform Wins?

From a founder’s perspective:

• Altss: Agility, relevance, and accuracy today — with expanding breadth that will surpass PitchBook within months. Designed for live fundraising, not static research.
• PitchBook: Breadth, history, and analytics. Still the volume heavyweight today, but built on an older stack that updates less dynamically.

If your priority is faster, more effective outreach, Altss already delivers sharper results.
If your priority is comprehensive market research and board-ready analytics, PitchBook still has the edge.

In practice, many savvy founders combine both: PitchBook to cast the net, Altss to cut through the noise and show who to email this week.

Call to Action

If you want to identify and connect with investors who are actually active today — not just listed in a static database — book a demo with Altss. With the largest verified database of family offices and LPs, real-time OSINT signals, and a modern infrastructure built to scale beyond PitchBook, Altss helps founders cut through noise and get to real conversations faster.

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