Comparison
DealSource Systems vs PitchBook.
DealSource Systems wrote this page and DealSource Systems is one of the firms on it. That belongs in the first line, not in a footnote. This is a category comparison, not a quality one. PitchBook is the reference dataset in private capital markets and nothing below argues otherwise. Every PitchBook claim was read off pitchbook.com on 18 September 2026.
These are not the same purchase
PitchBook answers questions. We open conversations. If the question is what a comparable company traded at, who led the last round, how a fund has performed against its vintage or which investors are active in a niche, PitchBook answers it and we cannot help at all. If the question is who will speak to you next month about selling their company, no dataset answers that, because the answer does not exist until someone has made the approach.
What PitchBook actually does
Their own coverage figures: "12.9M+ Companies", "657K+ Investors", "3.2M+ Deals", "171K+ Funds", "5M+ Professionals", "128K+ Service providers", "66K+ Limited partners", "565K+ Debt financings" and "15K+ Lenders". Behind it: "Our Data Operations Team consists of 1,800+ professionals who vet, categorize, and analyze the information that we publish."
Use cases they list include market intelligence, deal sourcing, deal execution, networking, due diligence, fundraising, benchmarking and portfolio management. Access is not limited to the platform: they offer an API, a data feed, CRM integrations for Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and HubSpot, and connectors that put the data inside enterprise AI tools. No pricing is published.
What we do
DealSource Systems runs origination as a standing function for private equity funds, M&A advisors, boutique investment banks and search funds. AI maps the market against your thesis, scores readiness signals on each company and drafts the approach. Then operators with deal experience review every message before an owner sees it and handle the replies, including the ones that need a real answer about structure or timing.
Pricing is on the site rather than behind a call: from $4,000 a month for a single thesis, $8,000 and above for a dedicated multi-thesis mandate, no success fee, 90-day minimum term. The engagement we publish in full is Merritt Healthcare Advisors, a healthcare investment bank: 14 qualified founder conversations in the first three weeks, 133 inside 90 days. We are part of Danish Lead Co.
| PitchBook | DealSource Systems | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Private capital market data, research and tools | A done-for-you origination team |
| Coverage claimed | "12.9M+ Companies", "3.2M+ Deals", "171K+ Funds", "657K+ Investors" | No dataset. Market maps built per mandate |
| What you get | Answers: comparables, multiples, fund and investor records | Qualified conversations with owners who are not in a process |
| Who does the outreach | Your team | Our operators, under your brand |
| Published pricing | None published | From $4,000 a month |
| Also used for | Diligence, benchmarking, fundraising, LP research, networking | Nothing else. Origination only |
| Fits in your stack | API, data feed, CRM integrations, AI connectors | Reports into your CRM and your team |
| Best when | You need to understand a market | You need to be in conversations in one |
Where PitchBook is stronger than us
Everything that is a question about the market. Comparables, multiples, fund performance, LP commitments, debt terms, who is active where. We publish none of that and never will.
Firm-wide utility. One licence serves origination, diligence, fundraising, benchmarking and IC materials. Our retainer serves one function.
Depth of verification. "1,800+ professionals" maintaining the dataset is an operation at a scale nobody in the done-for-you category approaches.
It goes where your team works. API, data feed, CRM integrations and AI connectors mean the data lands in the tools your analysts already use.
Where we are different
Again, different rather than better. PitchBook will tell you that 340 companies match your thesis. It will not tell you which of their owners will take a call, and it will not make the call. That work is a person writing to an owner, being answered, and handling what comes back.
That is the only thing we do. On our published engagement it produced 14 qualified founder conversations in the first three weeks and 133 within 90 days. A PitchBook licence and an empty calendar produce zero conversations, and a stack of conversations with no market data behind them produces bad decisions. This is why the two coexist.
The honest counterweight: we are the newest firm in this category and we publish one documented engagement. Anyone asking for a decade of closed transactions across hundreds of mandates is asking for something we do not have yet.
The one real overlap
PitchBook lists deal sourcing as a use case, and for intermediated flow that is fair: you can find companies, find the people, and export contacts. The overlap ends at the point where someone has to write a message an owner will answer, follow up for three months, and be ready when the reply says "what did you have in mind?". Buying a sourcing dataset and then not resourcing that step is the most common way funds waste both.
How we checked this
Read on 18 September 2026: pitchbook.com and pitchbook.com/data, which carry the coverage counts, the data operations team size, the integration and connector list and the use case set. PitchBook publishes no pricing, so this page does not state one. Our own numbers come from our published engagement.
Common questions
Is PitchBook an alternative to a deal origination firm?
No. PitchBook answers questions about the market. An origination firm creates conversations in it. The two solve different constraints and most funds that can afford both run both.
Can we source proprietary deals with PitchBook alone?
You can build the list with it. Whether you get proprietary conversations depends entirely on whether someone in your firm has the time to run three months of owner outreach and answer what comes back. The dataset does not do that part.
How much does PitchBook cost?
They publish no pricing and we will not estimate it. Ours is published: from $4,000 a month for a single thesis, $8,000 and above for a dedicated multi-thesis mandate, no success fee.
Which has better data on private companies?
PitchBook, without question. They report "12.9M+ Companies" maintained by "1,800+ professionals". We do not maintain a standing database and do not claim to.
If we only have budget for one, which should it be?
Ask whether your associates would actually use a better dataset this quarter. If they have the hours, buy the data. If they are already at capacity, more information will not become more conversations, and the capacity is the thing to buy.