Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Who needs Venture Valuation’s services?
Anyone who wants an independent assessment and valuation of a high growth company, be it the management of the company, existing or potential investors. To-date around half of our clients are the entrepreneurs running the business, the other half being investors having already invested or wanting to invest in a high growth company.

What are Venture Valuation’s greatest advantages?
Venture Valuation is solely focused on the assessment, valuation and monitoring of start-up companies. This differentiates us from our competitors, who do not concentrate on this service. Additionally, Venture Valuation has already developed strong internal know-how with over 60 company valuations, which can be levered to provide even better services for its future clients. Finally, we are constantly in contact with entrepreneurs and investors, which gives us a great overview of the development of the industry.

What does assessment, valuation and monitoring of a high-growth company mean?
Assessment is the process of understanding the business model and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the market, the management and the science&technology. Based on this information a risk analysis of the company is established.
Valuation is the calculation with financial models (Discounted Cash Flows, Market Comparables, Comparable Transactions, Venture Capital Method, Real Options) of a value range for the company. This is based on the assessment and risk analysis.
Monitoring means the follow-up of the company over time with regard to milestones set. It is an exernal reporting tool for funds, corporate investors, but also the companies themselves to have valuation tracking. For the monitoring we use a balanced score card approach with the five dimensions: Vision&Strategy, Company Development, Customers, Market and Finance.

On which industries does Venture Valuation focus?
Venture Valuation offers its services to high growth companies in any industry. However, the strongest focus to-date has been on life sciences, with close to fifty percent of the companies valued coming from the biotechnology and medical devices fields. Other assessments and valuations have been done in IT, high-tech, media, telecom and wireless/mobile.

Why should you go to Venture Valuation to get an independent valuation?
First, Venture Valuation has very few competitors focusing on the assessment and valuation of high growth companies. Most do many other things and only address this segment as a secondary service. This gives Venture Valuation the obvious advantage to be able to really concentrate on its core competency: the assessment, valuation and monitoring of high growth firms. Second, Venture Valuation has already developed a long track record and keeps on analyzing past valuations and compare them to new ones. Third, we are dedicated to high quality services and offer our clients a unique personalized and well structured report.

How is Venture Valuation getting paid?
Venture Valuation has chosen to be a completely independent services company. Therefore we do not accept shares or a percentage of future revenues from the companies we value. Our business model is based on affordable flat fees for all services. We are dedicated to transparence and always offer our clients an amount including all expenses. This way you will know exactly how much our services will cost you.

What is Venture Valuation success rate?
Our relationship to our clients is very important and we always ask for a feedback from the involved people after valuing a company. This way we try to constantly increase the quality of our services. In addition, our strongest asset is our reputation and it is not in our interest to spoil it through favoring either entrepreneurs or investors in the reports we deliver.

What is the benefit to the customer of the Valuation Report?
An independent Valuation Report provides the company or the investor with an basis for negotiation and the decision to make an investment. Since we are independent, we show the real future potential of a company, but also the risk factors involved and thus provide an objective view. Moreover it helps underline the strengths, weaknesses and value drivers.

How long does it take to make a Valuation?
To complete the whole process of a Valuation Report, it takes about 4 weeks. For that we normally spend about 1/2 to 2 days with the management of the company on-site in a workshop. In this workshop we can already provide the management with suggestion how to increase the long-term value of the company (value based management).

Does Venture Valuation provide financing?
Venture Valuation is not a venture capitalist. However, due to our close relation with customers in the VC sector, we can help companies to find the right investor and do a first introduction after we have worked with the company. Since Venture Valuation has established itself in the market as an independent valuation company, some investors use our reports as a first information source to decide whether to continue the investment process with a specific company.