cloudedjudgement.substack.com · 2020-10-02 · 2071d

Clouded Judgement

This SaaS market update analyzes valuation multiples, operating metrics, and growth trends across public SaaS companies as of October 2020, highlighting the IAM market's TAM expansion driven by cloud adoption and providing benchmarking data on revenue multiples, profitability, and unit economics. The article presents Morgan Stanley's bullish $33.9B TAM thesis for identity and access management, contrasting with IDC's more conservative $7.9B estimate, and tracks top-performing stocks and their valuation metrics relative to growth rates.

13 metrics· Cited 0× in the knowledge base ·Open source ↗

Metrics in this report

High-Growth SaaS (>30%) EV/NTM Revenue Multiple

31.6x

median

SaaS companies with >30% projected NTM growth

IAM Cloud Penetration

25.3percent

median

2019 cloud spend as percent of total IAM spend; projected to reach 39.8% by 2024

IAM Market Existing TAM

7.9billion dollars

median

IDC estimate for 2019 IAM market TAM

IAM Market Potential TAM (Morgan Stanley)

33.9billion dollars

target

Morgan Stanley's bullish IAM TAM forecast including cloud expansion and new use cases

Low-Growth SaaS (<15%) EV/NTM Revenue Multiple

8.8x

median

SaaS companies with <15% projected NTM growth

Mid-Growth SaaS (15-30%) EV/NTM Revenue Multiple

16.8x

median

SaaS companies with 15-30% projected NTM growth

SaaS CAC Payback Period

32months

median

Tracked SaaS companies

SaaS EV/NTM Revenue Multiple

37.9x

median

Top 10 highest-valued SaaS companies, October 2020

SaaS FCF Margin

9percent

median

Top 10 highest-valued SaaS companies

SaaS Gross Margin

73percent

median

Top 10 highest-valued SaaS companies

SaaS NTM Revenue Growth

32percent

median

Top 10 highest-valued SaaS companies

SaaS Net Retention Rate

116percent

median

Tracked SaaS companies, October 2020

SaaS Operating Margin

-15percent

median

Top 10 highest-valued SaaS companies