Various · Standard
Comparables (market multiples)
Founder takeaway
Founder reading: this is the method you use to defend your number to the VC. Pull 5-7 recent comps (Crunchbase + PitchBook) in your sector, stage and geography. Then split them by AI and non-AI before you take any median, because at Series A the last published AI and non-AI medians sat nearly 2x apart and a blended average will be quietly wrong in whichever direction your sample leaned. The VC will know.
Best for
Sanity check against comparable transactions.
Formula
Pre-money = Revenue × Industry multiple OR Median (comparable round pre-moneys)Inputs
- 5-15 comparable transactions
- Sector/stage/geography adjustments
- Revenue multiple or pre-money median
Caveats
- True comparables are rare
- Recent rounds may reflect distressed pricing
- A comp set that mixes AI and non-AI deals measures your sampling, not the market: the last published Series A pair, at 30 June 2026, was $83.0M pre-money for AI companies and $44.0M for everyone else (PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2026)
Source
↗ https://www.equidam.com/startup-valuation-methods-to-use-and-avoid/Verified 2026-09-29.
Other methods