SaaS
IVSC-compliant valuations for B2B and B2C SaaS — built around ARR, NRR, churn and rule-of-40.
SaaS businesses look nothing like the legacy industrials most valuation textbooks were written for. The unit economics flip the order of operations: customers are acquired up-front at a cost, repaid over a multi-year retention window, and the value of the business compounds with every percentage point of net revenue retention. A standard DCF that ignores these dynamics will underprice a high-growth SaaS by an order of magnitude.
Public-market SaaS comparables (UK-listed and US-listed) trade on EV/Revenue rather than EV/EBITDA while growth is above ~25% per annum. That is because GAAP earnings understate the steady-state economic profit of a subscription business: most operating costs are growth-stage CAC, not run-rate operations. A defensible SaaS valuation has to disclose this explicitly, then bridge to EV/EBITDA at maturity.
HMRC SVM accepts EV/Revenue for high-growth software businesses but expects the analyst to triangulate against DCF and a Rule of 40 sanity check. For EMI s.431 valuations we usually present both AMV and UMV, with the unrestricted value reflecting the absence of the marketability discount that applies to the restricted scenario.
We anchor every SaaS valuation on these inputs, with sensitivities run on the top three.
Based on UK-listed peer evidence, mid-2026. Indicative only — company-specific valuations require a triangulated football-field reconciliation.
EV / Revenue
3.5x – 9.5x
EV / EBITDA
15x – 35x (where EBITDA positive)
High-growth SaaS (above 30% ARR growth) typically values on EV/Revenue; mature SaaS (sub-15% growth) bridges to EV/EBITDA.
We weight EV/Revenue, DCF and Rule-of-40 triangulation differently depending on growth stage. For pre-Series-B founders we lean on forward EV/ARR with a churn-adjusted forecast; for mature SaaS we run the full DCF + comparable companies + precedent transactions football field and reconcile.
Every SaaS valuation we run triangulates DCF, comparable companies and precedent transactions — and adds LBO, asset-based and Monte Carlo where they materially affect the range. The methodology is documented in our methodology disclosure.
Hypothetical examples illustrating the kind of work we do. Identified case studies will replace these as engagements complete.
Anonymised hypothetical — a vertical-SaaS founder used our valuation as the anchor for a strategic-acquirer process. We modelled three exit scenarios with sensitivity around NRR.
Anonymised hypothetical — a 60-employee SaaS prepared an HMRC-compliant EMI s.431 valuation establishing AMV and UMV for an option grant six months ahead of a priced round.
Free download
30-page sector deep-dive: 2026 SaaS comparables, EV/ARR distributions, growth-margin scatter, and benchmark Rule-of-40 by stage.
Sector report
UK-listed peer comparables, multiples distributions, and sector-specific benchmarks. Watermarked for your team.
Try the free calculator for an indicative range, or request a quote for the signed report.