cloudedjudgement.substack.com · 2020-09-11 · 2092d

Clouded Judgement

Weekly SaaS valuation and earnings update covering five public companies' Q3 results, showing median revenue beats and guidance raises across the cohort. Analysis reveals top 10 SaaS companies trading at 34.4x NTM revenue median with wide variance in profitability metrics, while Rule of 40 framework indicates the cohort is trading on growth premium despite negative operating margins. Key data point: median SaaS multiple expanded from 11.0x (Jan 2020) to 15.5x (Mar 2020) driven by high-growth cohort commanding 31.9x multiples.

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

Metrics in this report

CAC Payback Period

32months

median

SaaS cohort

Free Cash Flow Margin

4%percent

median

SaaS cohort

Gross Margin

73%percent

median

SaaS cohort

LTM Revenue Growth Rate

31%percent

median

SaaS cohort

NTM Revenue Growth Rate

18%percent

median

SaaS cohort

Net Revenue Retention

116%percent

median

SaaS cohort

Operating Margin

-15%percent

median

SaaS cohort

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

14.1xrevenue multiple

median

Overall SaaS cohort as of Sep 2020

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

31.9xrevenue multiple

median

High-growth SaaS (>30% NTM growth) as of Sep 2020

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

15.4xrevenue multiple

median

Mid-growth SaaS (15-30% NTM growth) as of Sep 2020

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

9.0xrevenue multiple

median

Low-growth SaaS (<15% NTM growth) as of Sep 2020

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

13.7xrevenue multiple

average

SaaS 3-month trailing average as of Sep 2020

Revenue Multiple (NTM)

11.0xrevenue multiple

average

SaaS 1-year trailing average as of Sep 2020