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Valyu
Search and research API from London that gives AI agents web results plus specialist data such as SEC filings, PubMed, arXiv, and clinical trials.
Finance and life sciences AI teams whose agents need filings, papers, and trial data alongside the open web, with citations.
Teams that only need general web search at the lowest price, or buyers who want a large, established vendor.
Verdict
Valyu is a search and data company in London, led by co-founder and chief executive Hirsh Pithadia. AI teams in finance and life sciences use its API to search the web, academic papers, SEC filings, and clinical trial records, and to run multi-step research that returns cited, structured answers. It stands out because it bundles specialist and licensed sources with web search in one call, so a team building a financial or clinical agent does not have to index those sources itself.
Score Breakdown
How Valyu scores in the categories that matter to its buyers.
Pricing
Valyu publishes pay-as-you-go pricing and monthly plans that include credits.
| Plan | Price | What stands out |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | $0 to start | $10 of free credits; web, arXiv, and PubMed search |
| Starter | $29 / month | $50 of credits |
| Pro | $89 / month | $130 of credits; adds SEC filings and clinical trials |
| Scale | $449 / month | $750 of credits |
The Field at a Glance
How Valyu compares with other AI web search APIs vendors we reviewed, by Overall Score and relative typical engagement cost.
Valyu scores 7.2 in AI web search APIs, under Exa (7.7) and Linkup (7.5). Relative cost lands lower for this subcategory.
Use-case matrix
| Use case | Fit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Financial research agents | Strong | o11 uses it for SEC filings, company, and news search. |
| Clinical and medical evaluation | Strong | Storke reports cutting clinical evaluation time by more than half. |
| Academic literature search | Strong | arXiv and PubMed are included from the free tier. |
| General web search on a budget | Mixed | Works, but specialist sources are the main reason to choose it. |
| Testing specialist data for free | Weak | SEC filings and clinical trials start on the $89 plan. |
| Large established vendor | Weak | Valyu is a young company with a short track record. |
Who it’s for
Good fit
- Fintech AI products
- Medtech and clinical research teams
- Research assistants that need papers and filings
Poor fit
- Teams that only need cheap web search
- Buyers who need a long vendor track record
- SEO rank tracking
Review Excerpts
Below are excerpts from public reviews. Our team scoured public reviews, forums, and chat rooms to get a balanced view of customers' experience with this company. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites such as Clutch were excluded.
“We get to parse through accurate data without building out pipelines or spending months indexing raw data ourselves. We just use a prebuilt API, integrate it directly into the AI SDK, and it's seamless - SEC, filings, company, and news search, all there.”
“Valyu was incredibly straightforward to integrate. Their MCP and AI SDK-compatible tooling slotted cleanly into our existing multi-agent architecture. The platform itself is also super useful and easy to use, with effectively no setup needed.”
“The SEC filings and clinical trial data only come with the $89 plan and up, so the free credits weren't enough to test the part we cared about.”
Methodology
This page is an independent evaluation of Valyu for buyers comparing options in ai web search apis. AI Industry Reviews accepts no sponsorships, advertising, or pay-for-placement fees. Valyu did not pay for this review.
What we scored
The headline number is an Overall Score on a 0-10 scale. Eight criteria sit under it in two groups.
- Buyer outcomes (for ai web search apis)
- Specialist data coverage
- Research & citations
- Ease of integration
- Vendor maturity
- Company & commercial
- Innovation & product leadership
- Project management & communication
- Pricing
- Contract fairness
Pricing measures whether the price looks fair for the value delivered, including packaging and renewal friction that show up in real buying cycles.
Score Composition
| Input | Weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 40% | A proprietary read of what practitioners say about likes, complaints, and day-to-day use, including public review sites, forums, and private chat rooms. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites such as Clutch are out of scope. |
| Product | 35% | Hands-on look at screens and workflows. |
| Pricing | 15% | Whether the price looks fair for what you get. |
| Docs & training | 10% | Docs, tutorials, and training material. |
How we balanced the evidence
The Overall Score is the simple average of the eight criteria. Recommendation language follows that score and the fit pattern described above.
Scope
Valyu is graded here as ai web search apis. Criteria scores can move as more review volume and product checks are added.