What private SaaS companies are worth at 2.5 times revenue
Recent software takeovers show buyers paying for revenue. We ask what private SaaS companies are worth at 2.5 times revenue.
Schneider Electric agreed in October to buy PTC for $22.6 billion. Salesforce bought Fin, formerly Intercom, for about $3.6 billion, and Lattice Semiconductor agreed to pay $1.65 billion for AMI. 2.5 times is close to what public markets pay: listed B2B software companies traded at a median 2.4 times trailing revenue in September 2026. The charts below value private SaaS companies last priced in 2021 and 2022 at 2.5 times current revenue, show how growth changes the result, and show where the gap is widest.
Recorded value against 2.5 times revenue
Illustrative scenario, not a valuation: each company at 2.5 times its latest recorded revenue. Revenue can be reported revenue, annual recurring revenue or a Dealroom estimate.
The same comparison for established venture-backed unicorns: founded by 2017, valued at $1B or more and not listed or acquired. The lines mark 2.5×, 5× and 10× revenue.
Unicorns: valuation against revenue
Recorded revenue may include estimates or annual recurring revenue · valuation is the latest round or estimate
Growth changes the comparison. The curve below allows three years of growth, values that future revenue at 2.5× and discounts the result by 10% a year. A company above the curve would be worth less under that scenario.
What changes when we allow for growth?
Illustrative 3-year scenario · 2.5× terminal revenue · 10% annual discount rate
Unicorn value by when it was last priced
Recorded values · multiples use the latest recorded revenue for 2024 or later · hover a bar for the largest companies
What this means
A company above the curve would have a lower value under the growth scenario. Faster growth reduces the modeled cut; declining revenue increases it. Revenue quality, profitability, cash, debt and share preferences can materially change the result.
Sources, scope and assumptions
The SaaS companies come from Dealroom’s list of private unicorns and thoroughbreds as of 14 September 2026. The screen includes operating companies tagged SaaS with positive revenue dated 2023 or later and no recorded primary venture funding after 2022. A newer secondary transaction can still qualify. It is a selection, not an estimate of the whole private software market.
Geography follows the pipeline’s company country. USA means the United States. Europe excludes Russia and Israel; Israel and all other countries remain in Global. The first chart shows the 12 largest dollar reductions in the selected region. The CSV contains every included company in the region.
The first chart values each company at exactly 2.5 × recorded revenue. The year after each recorded value (“in ’21”) is the latest round or secondary trade priced at that value; “estimate” means no transaction matches it, so the mark is a Dealroom estimate. Values can rise for companies already recorded below 2.5×. Revenue may be estimates, forecasts or annual recurring revenue. The source series do not identify all changes in revenue definition. The multiple is recorded company value divided by revenue; it is not a cash-and-debt-adjusted enterprise-value multiple.
Growth is the percentage change between the latest available consecutive completed years, ending in 2024 or 2025. Repeated trailing observations are treated as possible forward fills and rolled back to their first occurrence. Missing, stale or non-consecutive pairs are left blank, not treated as zero growth. Changes above +100% or below −50% trigger a comparability review and are left out of the CSV growth scenario until verified. Raw pairs and review notes remain in the data and CSV. Other plotted changes are still recorded revenue growth, not independently verified like-for-like growth.
The growth curve is 2.5 × ((1 + annual growth) / 1.10)³. It assumes growth persists for three years, a terminal multiple of 2.5× and a 10% annual discount rate. At 0%, 10% and 30% growth it gives approximately 1.9×, 2.5× and 4.1×. These are chosen sensitivity assumptions, not a fitted market pricing model or forecasts. Growth scenario values in the CSV are uncapped, so they can imply a value above the recorded mark.
The unicorn charts use a separate cohort: companies founded between 1990 and 2017, operational, not listed or acquired, with a latest valuation of $1B or more and venture capital among their investors (Dealroom.co, as of 22 October 2026). Russia is excluded. USA and Europe mean headquartered in the region, as in the SaaS charts, so no company counts in both; Global is every country. Companies that are not venture-style are left out even when venture capital is on the cap table: those Dealroom tags as outside tech, those with no recorded funding, and a named list of corporate subsidiaries, an exchange, a market maker, an insurer and an energy supplier (65 companies in all; the largest are Waymo (subsidiary of Alphabet), Reliance Retail (tagged outside tech by Dealroom), Citadel Securities (market maker), JD Digits (subsidiary of JD.com), IVC Evidensia (tagged outside tech by Dealroom)). The full list is in the analysis data. Companies without revenue dated 2024 or later are not plotted. Valuation is the latest recorded round or estimate; revenue is the latest recorded figure and can be an estimate or annual recurring revenue. Younger companies are left out: the screen is for established unicorns, not for how new companies are priced. The median multiple is latest valuation divided by latest revenue across the plotted companies. A company is red when 10× its revenue on the valuation chart, or the growth-curve multiple on the growth chart, gives a value below its total recorded funding, and it has had no primary venture round in the 24 months before capture. A recent round is a fresh market price, so it is not flagged; secondary trades do not count. It is a screen on recorded figures, not a valuation of any company.
The waterfall adds up the recorded value of every unicorn in the cohort, including those without recent revenue. Last priced is the latest primary venture round or secondary trade. Companies last priced 24 or more months ago are split by latest valuation divided by latest revenue for 2024 or later; those without such revenue sit in their own bar.
Unicorn growth uses the latest consecutive completed-year pair, as above. A pair is left out when the base year repeats the year before (a possible forward fill), when the base is under a third of the year before, or when the change falls outside −75% to +5,000%.