Most founders think they know what their company is worth. They've seen a headline, "SaaS companies trade at 3–10x revenue", and applied it to themselves with quiet optimism. Almost always, it's the wrong number. Not because founders are bad at math, but because they're using one data point from the wrong context and treating it as a verdict. When a buyer or investor runs their own analysis, and they will, the gap becomes a credibility problem.
There's a better way to calculate company value, and it takes four lenses, not one. The output isn't a figure plucked from an average; it's a range you can defend.
A valuation multiple is your company's value expressed as a number times a metric, for example a revenue multiple, like 5x revenue, or an EBITDA multiple, like 8x EBITDA. Each one packs three things into a single figure: your growth rate, your risk profile and your cash flow. Used well, a multiple is a powerful shorthand for where your business stands.
Think of a doctor making a diagnosis. A single reading, your temperature, tells them something, but no good doctor stops there. They weigh several signs together, because it is how the symptoms fit that reveals the full picture. Valuation multiples work the same way: Each one is a useful signal, and the real insight comes from reading them together rather than leaning on any single number.
Four metrics drive the vast majority of how software and service businesses are valued, and each gives you its own implied multiple. Read together, the way a doctor weighs several signs at once, they turn a rough estimate into a picture you can stand behind. Run all four, the four-lenses valuation method, and you get a defensible range instead of one fragile number.
All figures show median EV/TTM revenue by cohort, from the SEG 2026 Annual SaaS Report (4Q25 medians).
Growth is the single biggest driver of valuation multiples; buyers pay for your future, not your past.
Gross margin is how much of each DKK of sales you keep after direct costs. It tells you how good your revenue is.
EBITDA is a simple measure of cash profitability, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Multiples stay flat up to about 20% margin, then jump: a step function, not a slope.
The Rule of 40 says your growth rate plus your profit margin should clear 40. We use a weighted version that leans toward growth, because that is what the market pays for most.
Take a SaaS company with the profile below, and run all four lenses:
Real value range: DKK 23M – DKK 42.5M, not the DKK 50M a "10x" headline promises.
The spread between the lenses is itself the insight: strong growth and excellent unit economics, with profitability as the drag. Fix the weakest lens and the whole range moves up.
"Quote DKK 50M and you lose credibility immediately. Quote DKK 23–42M, explain the lenses, and you sound like someone who knows exactly what they're talking about."
A range signals you've done the work, and it gives you room to negotiate, you can move within it with reasons, rather than defending one fragile figure under pressure. That's why, when founders ask whether to give investors a single number or a range, the answer is almost always a range.
Enter your company's metrics to see the implied enterprise value range, built from the EV/Revenue multiples in the SEG 2026 Annual SaaS Report.
Crispa gives founders the financial clarity to make bold decisions and optimize their valuation.
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