Most data for today's 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 don't need to check various sources for a complete picture. Here's what we'll cover today:

#1 Markets

#2 Multiples

We have a lot on the agenda, so let's jump in 👇

The macro picture is getting increasingly interesting.

US growth is slowing. The labor market has cooled significantly, with payrolls declining in July and previous months revised lower. At the same time, inflation is moving in the right direction, but at 3.4% it remains well above the Fed’s target. The Fed is holding rates at 3.5% to 3.75% and the debate has shifted from when rates come down to whether they may need to stay higher for longer.

Public markets seem largely unfazed.

The S&P 500 is up around 14% this year and just reached another all time high. The Nasdaq is up around 15%, while the Russell 2000 is up 23%. Earnings remain strong and AI continues to be one of the biggest drivers of corporate investment and market performance.

Private markets are even more extreme.

Venture funding has accelerated dramatically, but the headline numbers hide an unprecedented concentration of capital. AI companies are raising enormous rounds, secondary valuations are reaching levels that would have seemed impossible a few years ago, and the IPO market is reopening for high quality companies. At the same time, fundraising and access to capital remain much harder across large parts of the venture market.

So the market today is not simply risk on or risk off.

Economic growth is slowing. Inflation remains elevated. Public equities are at record highs. AI investment continues at historic levels. And private capital is increasingly concentrating around a relatively small number of companies.

That is the backdrop for this month’s State of the Markets.

Anthropic remains the most valuable private company in the world at an estimated $965B, unchanged from July. OpenAI holds at #2 at $852B. Tether at #3 at $500B. ByteDance at #4 at $330B. xAI at #5 at $230B. All unchanged from the previous month.

Databricks is the only real mover this month, up to $190B from $134B in July, a jump from #8 to #6. Ant Group and Stripe each slipped one rank, from #6 to #7 and #7 to #8, purely because Databricks passed them, not because their own valuations moved. Waymo held #9 at $126B.

Reliance Retail, last month's new entrant at #10, is gone. Revolut enters at #10, $115B.

Here’s our 2026 IPO list based on rumours, plans, and status quo of their operations:

No update this cycle. Per July, the list is unchanged except SpaceX (#46), now public.

YTD deal value reached $2.6T through August, up from $2.2T through July. 2026 is trailing only 2025's full-year $3.2T and 2021's full-year $2.9T, out of the twelve years shown (2015 through 2026).

Average deal size pulls back to $252M from $265M in July, still the highest figure in the dataset going back to 2015.

Fewer, bigger deals is the story, not a broad-based recovery in transaction volume.

The largest deals of the past 30 days confirm the "bigger, not broader" read. Segro's $18,800M acquisition by Prologis (Buildings & Property, 19.6x EV/Revenue, 21.0x EV/EBITDA) tops the list, followed by Delivery Hero's $14,800M sale to Uber and Argan SA's $14,800M deal with Warehouses De Pauw.

The Los Angeles Lakers' $12,500M sale to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger is the largest sports transaction on the table, clearing 22.7x revenue and 73.5x EBITDA, a premium that reflects scarcity value in marquee sports franchises rather than anything replicable in enterprise software.

The Top 10 largest deals carry a median EV of $8,325M, an EV/Revenue multiple of 4.9x and an EV/EBITDA multiple of 20.9x. That's well above the overall last-30-days median of $208M EV, 2.5x revenue and 9.8x EBITDA, underscoring how concentrated deal value is at the very top of the market.

The top 10 by EV/Revenue median is 17.5x, up from 6.7x in July and 21.8x EV/EBITDA up from 18.8x. The AI premium is concentrated at the very top of the table and well above the market clearing price.

AtaiBeckley, acquired by Eli Lilly at 929.1x ($3,800M EV), leads as a biopharma deal, the highest multiple in the dataset

All of the Top 10 M&A deals in August cleared double-digit revenue multiples, with a median of 17.5x across the full list.

The overall last-30-days market median drops slightly to 2.5x revenue.

Compared to July, multiples for the hottest companies are up while overall market is down.

Let's 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.

The Top 10 average moved to 17.4x and the median to 14.5x, up from 16.8x average and 13.1x median in July. The overall market median eased to 2.1x from 2.3x.

Cloudflare took #1, up to 30.6x from 29.7x. Palantir, last month's leader, fell to 29.2x from 32.7x despite growth and EBITDA margin both holding steady. CrowdStrike also pulled back, to 28.0x from 31.2x.

Datadog is a new entrant at 18.8x, 81% gross margin, and 26% EBITDA margin.

Snowflake rose to 15.0x from 13.7x. AppLovin pulled back to 14.1x from 15.3x despite margins barely moving (85% EBITDA, 89% gross margin, both months), pure multiple compression with no fundamentals change behind it.

SoundHound fell to 8.8x from 9.2x as EBITDA margin worsened to -20% from -16%, one of the few moves that tracks a real change in the business.

Below is the EV/NTM Revenue trendline, the top 50 list, the multiples split by sector, and the efficiency benchmarks👇