The working is always shown.
The evidence is earned.
We publish what the model is: the equation, what it reads, what it refuses, and the mark every number carries. The working is shown where it belongs, in your own Room, with your own numbers in every formula. What we keep is what a client pays for: the calibration, and the record of what was predicted beside what landed.
The equation
Revenue times margin is EBITDA, so the multiple is an EBITDA multiple and the equation is arithmetic, not metaphor. The model's whole job is to compute the margin and the multiple from observable structure, and to refuse to move for anything else.
What a multiple should be
The multiple in that equation is the one the market pays. A second multiple is the one a business can justify from its own economics, and it comes from published finance:
Growth raises the multiple only when the return on capital exceeds its cost. Below that line, faster growth makes a company worth less while every chart in the board pack points upwards.
The identity is published. The calibration is kept.
Source: Koller, Goedhart and Wessels, Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, McKinsey & Company, 7th edition 2020, Appendix A.
The fourteen dimensions, three models
Fourteen dimensions are scored from 1 to 5, in three models read in order: WHY, the business model; HOW, the operating model; WHAT, the technology model. The order is the model’s spine: execution cannot outrun strategy. A platform resting on an undesigned business model is capped, and the Read says so out loud.
What is published, and to whom
The identity is public: the equation and the formula above, and the three models in their order. The kernel that turns answers into a number is issued with every Certificate, inside its verifier, so that whoever holds one can recompute it without asking us. The free diagnostic gives three readings and the weakest layer, on your device.
The rest is shown to clients, in their own Room: the number with its working, how each gap is priced, how the moves are ordered, and how the anchors are refitted as results come in. Nothing there is computed that the client cannot check by hand.
Terms of use. What is published here may be read, checked and quoted with its source. It may not be reused to sell a competing reading.
The multiple, by sector
The band is where the market clears, sector by sector. A company’s place within the band is set by revenue quality, the variable the new business moves.
| Business model | EV / EBITDA | What moves you up the band |
|---|---|---|
| Project-based services, non-recurring | ~5 to 6× | Nothing structural. This is the floor. |
| Testing & assurance (TIC) | ~11 to 14× | Growth and recurring contracts |
| Fintech (blended) | ~8 to 12× | Infrastructure and recurring over one-off |
| Cybersecurity & RegTech | ~12 to 18× | Recurring revenue, mission-critical retention |
| SaaS / software, high recurring | ~14 to 20×+ | Net revenue retention and Rule-of-40 growth |
Third-party comparables, 2025 to 2026, cited as published (Aventis Advisors, DealMatrix, Windsor Drake, market M&A references). The bands are context, marked ASSUMPTION, never an appraisal of your company.
How the moves are ordered
Pricing a gap is half the work. The other half is saying which move to run first. The order is computed, never asserted: every move carries its euros, its months, its evidence and its cost, and the Room shows the working behind its place in the queue. When a target cannot be reached with the moves available, the Room says so and names the shortfall.
Provenance: five marks, no exceptions
Every figure the machine prints carries one of five marks: LAW LAW+ MARKET ASSUMPTION SIMULATION. Law is cited to the rule and dated. Market is benchmarked to third-party data. An assumption says so, and moves the moment you supply the real number. A simulation is a what-if on your own declared scores, computed by the same model, and never becomes a headline.
The calibration protocol
The anchors change only through a dated ledger. Each engagement records the model’s prediction at entry, before any outcome is known, and closes once, with realised numbers and evidence. An anchor never moves without its entry.
Every frozen scenario in a client engagement is a prediction, dated before the outcome was known. This wall will publish the aggregate each quarter, anonymised. It opens with the first reconciled mandate: the first predictions are signed and dated, and the earliest lands at its first quarterly close.
What we do not do
- No fabricated case numbers, ever. Our proof line stays empty until a mandate reconciles.
- No revenue forecasting: the model moves structure, not sales.
- No score inference from documents: scores are declared and dated, by named seats, and disagreement between seats is reported as a finding, not averaged away silently.
- No macro assumptions: no interest rates, no market sizing, no narrative multiples.
The anonymous benchmark opens at twenty companies: sector and size band only, nothing else stored. Add yours from the diagnostic.
The identity is published. Your readings are one step away.
Read your company, free →Fourteen questions, then your three readings and your weakest layer. The number is computed in the Read, with a partner →