Marlize van Romburgh

Van Romburgh studied at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She worked as a reporter and editor-in-chief of the Mustang Daily student newspaper and spent a semester traveling through Latin America aboard the TS Golden Bear through Cal Poly at Sea.⁠[1][2][3]

The Pacific Coast Business Times received a SABEW Best in Business award for her coverage of San Luis Trust Bank’s collapse and sale to First California Financial Group.⁠[3]

She became managing editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times, overseeing editorial production and design for print and the website while continuing to cover banking and commercial property.⁠[3]

Editor & Publisher included her in its 2013 “25 Under 35” list of emerging news-industry leaders. Her newspaper credited her with developing its digital content and online paywall initiatives while continuing to cover banking and commercial property and produce its main news section.⁠[4]

Her March 31 report on Palmer LuckeyPalmer LuckeyPalmer Luckey (born September 19, 1992) is an American inventor and entrepreneur. He founded Oculus VR and developed an Oculus Rift headset prototype in 2012; Facebook acquired the company in 2014. In 2017 he cofounded defense technology company Anduril Industries. He subsequently established retro-gaming hardware company ModRetro and helped found Erebor, a bank serving the technology industry.Open the full entry leaving Facebook identified her as managing editor of the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Before joining CrunchbaseCrunchbaseCrunchbase is a private-company data and intelligence platform headquartered in San Francisco. It launched in 2007 as TechCrunch’s startup database, and its own company profile lists Michael Arrington as founder. It passed to AOL with TechCrunch in 2010 and was spun out of AOL/Verizon in 2015 with backing from Emergence Capital, with Jager McConnell as CEO; it has since raised more than $100 million and launched Pro, Enterprise, API and Crunchbase News products. Since 2025 it has focused on using AI to forecast private companies’ funding, growth and exits, delivering its data through MCP, APIs and third-party AI platforms.Open the full entry, she worked at the San Francisco Business Times and then its Silicon Valley sister publication, covering major technology companies’ effects on local communities and interviewing startup founders.⁠[5][6]

Van Romburgh joined Crunchbase and helped lead its newsroom. She had spent about six years at American City Business Journals publications; her new role concentrated more closely on private companies, startups and venture capital.⁠[2]

As editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News, she set out a shift away from standalone funding announcements toward data analysis, in-depth sourcing and industry trends. She distinguished the database’s broad recording of deals from the newsroom’s analytical role, while emphasizing coverage of underrepresented founders and investors.⁠[7]

She reviewed the year-long Something Ventured project, which followed five early-stage companies and used data to examine disparities in startup funding. She argued that rising dollar totals for a group do not necessarily mean a greater share of overall investment, and highlighted seed funding and diversity among investment decision-makers.⁠[8]

In a public professional post, she described using Crunchbase MCP for preliminary data analysis, testing story ideas and identifying gaps in coverage. She said she validated and refined an initial list of potential IPO candidates generated by the tool before using it in a story, aiming to leave more time for analysis and interviews.⁠[9]

In a signed data analysis, she compared investment dollars with deal counts, showing how megadeals can lift funding totals while seed and early-stage financing activity weakens. She argued that both dollars and deal counts matter when assessing whether a startup recovery is broadening.⁠[10]

In a Coffee with a Journalist interview, she explained that her team finds leads in data and uses it to test market claims gathered through interviews. She values stories that illuminate broader trends and reliable, timely sourcing. She expressed optimism about reader-focused subscriptions and niche publications, while noting unresolved business-model challenges in local news.⁠[6]

Her work appears at https://news.crunchbase.com/author/marlize-van-romburgh/ (opens in a new window) . Her public X account is https://x.com/marlizevr (opens in a new window) and her LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlizevr (opens in a new window) . Her professional profile lists San Francisco, California, United States, as her location.⁠[11][12][1]