š„ How Much Is Your Startup Worth These Days? Here's the State of the Market in September 2025
Data from Sana, Antrophic, Databricks, Revolut & co
š Hi, Iām Andre and welcome to my newsletter Data Driven VC which is all about becoming a better investor with Data & AI. ICYMI, check out some of our most read episodes:
Welcome to another edition of our Sunday āResourcesā stream where we share our most valuable data & resources across four rotating formats:
30 Hottest Startups of the Month (Septemberās list here)
Top Downloaded Resources from The Lab #1 (How to prompt - the definitive guide for investors, founders & operators here)
State of the Market (this is today!)
Top Downloaded Resources from The Lab #1 (see āhow to turn Google Sheets into your competitor radarā here)
For 1. and 3., we collaborate with best-in-class partners to ensure you get the highest quality data.
For 2. and 4., we leverage our ever-growing product portfolio and share selective snapshots of the most sought-after resources from VCSTACK.COM
State of the Market - September 2025
Most data for todayās episode was provided by our partner Multiples.vc, your go-to source for verified M&A valuation multiples and public comps based on analyst estimates, at a fraction of the price of legacy data providers.
With this monthly format, we aim to unify market & valuation data into a single episode, so you donāt need to check various sources for a complete picture. Hereās what weāll cover today:
#1 Markets
Top 10 private market companies + Antrophic, Databricks, Revolut
State of IPOs: Top 50 candidates + Klarna
State of M&A: Number of transactions, deal volume + Sana & Workday
#2 Multiples
Top 10 vs Top 50 EV/NTM Revenue
EV/NTM Revenue over time and by sector
Efficiency Benchmarks incl. revenue per FTE, Rule of 40 & more
Spoiler: The ābest-in-classā cohort is gradually shifting from hypergrowth toward more sustainable, though slightly slower, expansion.
We have a lot on the agenda, so letās jump inš
1. Markets
Top 10 Private Market Companies
Lots of movement in the top 10 most valuable private market companies within the last month. Antrophic announced their $13bn Series F raise on $183bn valuation, moving to spot #5. Databricks raises at $100bn valuation, up from $62bn and jumping to #7. Revolut is in the process of a secondary tender offer for their employees and early shareholders, increasing its valuation to $75bn.
These datapoints strengthen the trend of companies staying private for longer and allowing private market investors capture an increasing chunk of the value created by the fastest growing companies. Good times for the asset class.
Top 50 IPO Candidates
Talking about the private market asset class, one bottleneck remains liquidity. So letās look at the first of two channels: IPOs.
Subsequent to the Figma filing on July 1st, we just saw Klarna complete their IPO on September 10th, raising about $1.37 billion at roughly $15 billion valuation. Thatās a significant drop from its earlier $45 billion private peak. Shares opened strong at $52 and closed the first day at $45.82, about 15% above IPO price.
3/4 into the year, we have about 80% of our 2025 IPO candidate list left. Many of whom are cueing up and hoping for the window to widen and remain open.
State of M&A
At least as interesting as public markets these days is M&A activity, the second path for liquidity in the private market asset class.
Despite the summer break, weāve seen continuous M&A activity. In the chart above, we only include M&A transactions with confirmed EVs available at Multiples.vc, thus structurally exclude the long tail noise of smaller EV transactions.
While weāre at 62% in number of transactions relative to the FY2024 (2294 deals YTD vs 3708 deals in FY 2024), the deal volume is at 84% - a clear indication towards fewer but significantly bigger transactions as confirmed by a 40% increase in deal size YoY.
Looking at the largest transactions of the last 30 days, we see the acquisition of EchoStar by SpaceX for $17bn, among others. The median deal size was $153m with a 1.6x EV/revenue multiple.
In terms of highest EV/Revenue transaction, Swedish scale-up Sana leads the way with their sale to Workday at $ 1.1bn and an implied multiple of 110x. Thatās about fifteen times as high as the top 10 median multiples of 7.3x.
2. Multiples
Compared to last month, multiples are (again) up.
EV / NTM Revenue Multiples
Letās start with a snapshot of top companies based on EV / NTM Revenue multiples. For all analysis below, we exclude companies with market caps below $1B and non-meaningful multiples above 100x.
In line with the top 10 private market companies, we see lots of movement in the top 10 public companies by valuation multiples too.
Movements August to September 2025
Dropped out: Wisetech Global, Synopsys.
New entrants: TechnologyOne, VeriSign.
Valuation Multiples (EV / NTM Revenue)
Average: rose slightly from 28.1x ā 28.4x.
Median: rose from 21.5x ā 22.6x.
Palantir dipped from 84.3x ā 79.5x, but still the outlier.
Applovin climbed from 22.8x ā 31.2x.
Cloudflare rose from 27.5x ā 30.8x.
Growth & Profitability
Median revenue growth dropped from 25% ā 23%.
Gross margins improved slightly from 74% ā 76% average.
EBITDA margins also improved (median 36% ā 37%).
SoundHound improved EBITDA (-10% ā -8%), but still negative.
Market Caps
Median fell: $100B ā $88.7B.
Average dipped slightly: $121.7B ā $120.0B.
Notable moves:
Applovin jumped valuation: $146.6B ā $210.2B.
Figma dropped: $37.2B ā $28.6B.
Palantir fell slightly: $429B ā $420B.
CrowdStrike rose: $105.9B ā $126.1B.
After a brief compression in the gap between top 10 Median and Overall Median EV/NTM revenue trendlines in August, the last 30 days have shown a rebound and continued widening of the gap. Said differently, top 10 Median grew stronger than the Overall Median, meaning that top companies continue to attract more capital than the median.
In line with the top 10 average increase from 28.1x to 28.4x, the top 50 average made a big jump from previously 12.5x to 13.7x., indicating that the top 50 have started to catch up with the top 10, closing the gap in valuation multiples.
Below table shows the average and median EV / NTM revenue multiples by sector.