AlphaSense is a market intelligence platform used by companies and financial institutions. Since 2011, their AI-based technology has helped professionals make business decisions by delivering insights from public and private content—including company filings, event transcripts, news, trade journals, and equity research. The platform boasts users among 4,000 enterprise customers. Headquartered in New York City, AlphaSense employs over 1,000 people across offices in the U.S., U.K., Finland, and…
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FactSet Workstation
Score 8.5 out of 10
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The FactSet Workstation is a dynamic platform designed to empower financial professionals with seamless data access, advanced analytics, and technology. Integrating over 800 data sources across asset classes and markets, it consolidates crucial insights and elevates decision-making. Its AI-powered tools include smart search and chat features. The workstation simplifies complex workflows, enabling users to uncover insights quickly and improve collaboration. From research and portfolio…
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PitchBook
Score 8.7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
PitchBook is a resource for data, research, and insights spanning the global capital markets. Founded in 2007 and acquired by Morningstar in 2016, PitchBook's data on the private and public markets helps business professionals discover and execute opportunities.
AlphaSense is my go to for market intelligence. Capital IQ is my go to for financial data - mainly because I am use to it. PitchBook is my go to for private investment round / private company data
All of them are better than AlphaSense. However, Bloomberg is over twice as expensive, and people are just paying a premium for Chat (which I don't want). I have not used FactSet for over three years. When I last used it, I would say that it was slightly better than AlphaSense …
AlphaSense is largely complementary to CapIQ or Eikon. CapIQ and Eikon do offer research capabliities for an additional fee, though it's currently more cost effective to use AlphaSense. PitchBook is still a must have if you need to evaluate start-ups/private companies
Search and analysis of public market data - analyst feedback and management commentary: I would prefer AlphaSense over other Quant analysis of market data / charting: I would prefer S&P for Excel Plugins PitchBook: Proprietary private market and VC data
I inherited AlphaSense access by joining my current role. AlphaSense's financial and deal information can not match pitchbooks. It does have better summarization for financial than PitchBook though.
Compared to FactSet and PitchBook, AlphaSense is a good tool to fill my suite of financial analysis. PitchBook is superior for private company and transaction data, as well as screening for similar companies (the sourcing feature of the job). FactSet is superior for financial …
PitchBook has much better private company data. FactSet i find has more financial insights. Gartner has more reliable market research and studies. I would say AlphaSense i more well rounded and excels in research reports and current events
Alphasense has a much broader coverage breadth, as it includes financial data, market data, private research, and expert interviews, while the others are more limited.
They all provide different solutions that cater for specific needs. Crayon is the general purpose software - better at general CI than AlphaSense. WideNarrow is another version, and provides a glossy output, now backed by Infodesk.
AlphaSense has better document search but is otherwise vastly inferior in every other way. If doc search isn't important to you, I wouldn't bother with AlphaSense.
AlphaSense is one tool I have in my analyst toolbox that helps me dive deep into the research process. It isn't the first place I go when I begin the research process, but it's one area where I spend more time the deeper I get into the process.
Nothing else had the platform capabilities nor the level of access to information that AlphaSense does. Everything else I tried had one area or type of information it aggregated, but none of them were able to integrate information the way AlphaSense does, and most of them …
PitchBook is better for private company data and getting contacts. It is also more useful for capital raises and data AlphaSense is great for more targeted searches which FactSet is very bad at. FactSet often makes it hard to do searches and then once you get to a specific …
Pitchbook has the most exhaustive coverage of private market data, and that makes it uniquely differentiated against any other data sources mentioned above. As for public data, I dont think it is any unique compared to AlphaSense or CapIQ
Compared the FactSet: PitchBook is far superior in providing private company data. On the excel tool front, we use Factset far more often due to the formulas and public company data availability AlphaSense: we use PitchBook as our first source when looking for private company …
Products mentioned have similar but different use cases. First off, PB has better private company data than both of these (for now). I use CapIQ for public company data which PB lacks in many regards. I could see Alpha Sense taking priority over PB as the data offered on that …
PitchBook has a different value proposition in that it offers the Morningstar equity research, which we regard highly. It is also easier to use and navigate than the other terminals. Bloomberg and FactSet have a slightly different use case in that they provide real time market …
PitchBook is the most polished and the most comprehensive tool of everything that I have tries in this space. Unparalleled coverage and structure. And to top it all of, the customer service is top notch. I have analyst hours each month to get any customized projects done by …
PitchBook excels at private company data and has significantly improved its coverage of investors and funds. It is generally more easy to navigate and information is updated frequently. It is not nearly as strong with public, credit or market data including access to news and …
The strength of Pitchbook is its consistency. While many of the competitors do one aspect better than Pitchbook, Pitchbook does each aspect I am looking for well. In other words, while Pitchbook might not be the #1 in a specific category, they are always at least #2 so that …
PitchBook has the most accurate and complete data. CB Insights platform loads slightly more quickly and is a little more intuitive, but lacks data integrity. Tracxn is not easy to use, but offers some data on a lot of international and small, non-VC or PE-backed companies. …
Managing Director, Strategic Initiatives + Corporate Venture Capital
Chose PitchBook
PitchBook is truly a best in class financial research and diligence hub that provides accurate and relevant background research needed prior to performance any venture capital, private equity and M&A transactions. It is a thorough database that stands out among its peers, with …
AlphaSense is very well suited to investing teams that need a research management system that has a robust database behind and rich content management features for note-taking. AlphaSense may not be well-suited to individual investors who want data access but don't need to be sharing notes to a wider team. The sharing features are what make AlphaSense most useful.
FactSet works for all my IR needs. I do not see a function for which I use it for that it would be less appropriate. I believe that the tool's efforts towards becoming more integrated with AI are strong and that in time the Mercury offering will be just as competitive as some of the other AI offerings out there today such as AlphaSense
Appropriate: We will use Pitchbook, for example, when we need to screen for companies in a certain sector or when a keyword gets a priced funding round (Seed, Series A, B, C). Screening of deal as a way to benchmark prices of potential investments Screening of potential LPs based on past investments Challenging: Quickly pull analyst commentary on certian companies/events. consensus sales or prices Analyse non venture deals. for example in biotech, licensing deals are key ways to create value and always analysed in detailed. We will probabaly use dealbook or Cortellis for this
I believe the AI agent could be improved to answer more detailed questions and provide better data.
Access to real time financial data in a similar vein to Koyfin.
The ability to easily search across all company decks to be able to quickly gather all relevant slides for a specific topic, similar to what Quartr offers.
The user interface on stock monitor needs work - sometimes I wish to clone the same fields to another tab/watchlist and it appears the best way to do so is recreate it form scratch
transcript to be more timely and more accurate
on the consensus financial forecast tab, have more segment breakouts like Visible Alpha
The price is insane. Most of their competitors are free, and those that aren't are less than 5% the price of PitchBook.
The excel plugin is incredibly complicated and the formula builder function is awful. You cannot search easily to find formulas for things you don't already know (unless you ask support)
The UI is old, and they are slow to innovate. They need to add in a new incredible feature in the next year or two or my firm might move on, as it's getting harder to justify the price when competitors get better every year (signalnfx!) and PitchBook doesn't.
AlphaSense is a very useful tool and is reasonably priced for our organization. While I may not be a hyper-active user, it's a great resource when I need to quickly do a competitive landscape survey, review publicly available documents (transcripts, etc.), or review Wall Street research
We need the FactSet data and capabilities to complete 75% of the financial analyses that we complete for both internal and external purposes. It is invaluable and I am not aware of any other provider that would be able to fill this gap that FactSet does
AlphaSense has a very intuitive user interface, and I can tell they have been focused on expanding their product breadth and continuing to innovate on current products. Some basic features are missing or I can't find (I can't just sort expert calls by only the ones that are applicable to that ticker, most relevant is the one that works best, but I want just the ticker)
It does everything I need. It is pretty user friendly and easy to work with whatever technology interface I am using (desk top, notebook, tablet, or mobile phone). I am able to get work done whether I am in the office, at home, or traveling. The user up time is very good. They are rarely doing maintenance when I need to use the platform
I rely on PitchBook when researching potential investments, particularly in the tech and AI space. It’s an excellent tool for early-stage market analysis and becomes especially valuable when evaluating private or emerging startups. PitchBook provides all the essential company details—financials, funding history, valuations—which are critical for my work as an investment professional. The three points I took out is for the lack of market analysis framework and the lack of P&L data.
The availability of Alphasense is great. I have used the software for multiple years and cannot remember ever having an outage issue. This is surprising actually, as I use other software applications that do not have regular outages, but still have outages periodically. Alphasense, on the other hand, never seems to have any outages. Good sign if I can't remember the software not working :).
Loading or performing searches on AlphaSense platform is reasonably fast for most of the time. However, it is sometimes unacceptably long for me to load PDF files (earnings presentation, supplementary financial report) on AlphaSense. Certain features might also take very long time, such as loading for "similar tables" across EDGAR filings, or downloading tables from EDGAR filings
Customer support is very prompt. I get personalized support for search recommendations and content that I could not find in my own search. Support checks in with me on a bi-monthly basis to keep me informed of the many different feature additions, I cannot find a more kind, understanding, and supportive team.
The overall support for PitchBook is about average. It is not excellent for two primary reasons. First, PitchBook can run slow from time to time, and I cannot copy and paste from the Chrome extension. I have found neither of those issues to be a function of the computer I am using. However, the PitchBook support team has proved helpful on several occasions.
The person was prepared, attentive, understood the nature of my questions, was willing to work through any difficulties or misunderstandings, was patient, and super pleasant to work with. Great customer service.
Our online training was led by a AlphaSense representative. The training is always good. The bigger issue is our time availability to remember the training and utilize it. The trainers will show us examples and then ask us for real industries or companies of interest to use so that the training is most relevant.
Special features of AlphaSense that made us decide on this CI platform: - US-based market and competitive intelligence platform with various premium content (broker information, expert calls, earning transcripts, original company documents etc.) - AlphaSense is a trusted CI platform by world’s leading corporations and financial institutions - AlphaSense’s proprietary AI stack has been meticulously engineered over a decade so that their AI accelerates speed-to-insight so clients can act with confidence when making critical decisions - Private and public companies, therapeutic areas and products can be monitored - Datalog is available up to 15 years, and advanced search is supported for them - Curated newsfeed is available from more than 3,500 top news publications, client requests and hand-picked vendors for premium subscription - Very advanced company profiles are available by default with newsfeed, original company documents, expert calls and reports - Newsfeed and alerts can be also set by admins and individual users
Product is magnitudes more affordable and provides 80% of the functionality that Bloomberg has and is working to build out the remaining. The workstation is more user friendly than bloomberg but still not perfect. Not as robust as a Bloomberg Terminal and doesn't have the chat/trading features.
Really well - though I think Beauhurst has the edge on UK specific investments, and Bloomberg has the edge on immediate updates. I think PitchBook is better than fDi Markets though, I would definitely recommend purchasing a PitchBook license over fDi Markets - but in a policy area that isn’t considering international investment, I might go with Beauhurst.
It has been very simple. Contract terms are standard for an online portal. Of course, I would like unit pricing to be lower so I could get more users on the license or to rotate seats to get more value out of each license. Billing frequency has been standard as well. This could be more significant for a larger customer.
The sharing features provides by AlphaSense mean that it can be readily scaled for teams within an organization and, subject to compliance requirements, with client organizations. The ability to share annotations of transcripts and investor releases is valuable, and facilitates collaboration between analysts.
AlphaSense has allowed us to generate deeper competitive insights. For example, we conducted an in depth analysis of the aerial data analytics (drone) industry, and AlphSense helped us narrow in on the market leaders and their various strengths / weaknesses.
AlphaSense has improved our team's overall efficiency. With Stream in particular, we are able to pinpoint insights in a matter of minutes through the transcript feature as opposed to having to conduct a series of calls ourselves. This is a significant time saver.
AlphaSense has allowed us to make more informed decisions on our public holdings by providing us with unfettered access to equity research analyst reports.