[PARAMETERS UPDATE P5.5] AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM VALUATIONS

You can refer to the table below to see how the average valuation for the Scorecard Method and maximum valuation for the Checklist Method will change for your country specifically after October 10th, 2022.

We base our new country estimates on real transactions by country since November 1st, 2017. Whenever we were not able to find a large enough sample of pre-money valuations in a given country, we broadened our perspective the closest larger geographic entity (namely, region and continent). 

In 2021, American VC-backed startups raised $329.9 billion, a 100% increase over the record-breaking $166.6 billion raised in 2020. Additionally, for the first time, early-stage VC activity exceeded $80 billion, and annual exit values increased to above $774 billion. This enormous inflow of capital led to skyrocketing startup valuations in 2021. On the other hand, as the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be coming to an end, entrepreneurs and investors are unsure about what the future holds. Can these exorbitant valuations last or should we prepare for a crash?
According to CB Insights, in 2022 venture market seed funding levels collapsed. The first quarter saw a 19% drop, which is the largest decline since 2012. At the same time, valuations mostly kept rising, leading some investors to predict a price drop for startups in the second half of this year.

As we can read in this article published last year, startups raised funding in 2021 at historical rates. As shown in the table above, also the first half of 2022 experienced an increase in startup valuation, but at a slower rate. Economists argue that this might be the beginning of a sharp decline in startup valuations.

Let’s now consider the Latin American startup market, which experienced the largest rise. Brazil and Mexico alone accounted for twenty-five unicorns in 2021. More specifically, compared to 2021, Brazilian startups’ valuation increased by 192%. Given the current situation, including the appreciation of the local currency against the U.S. dollar, and tight monetary policies put in place to deal with double-digit inflation, the result is huge. These variables also explain why startup investment has decreased, while valuations have raised.

On the same hand, despite the global political and macroeconomic unsteadiness, the Turkish startup ecosystem performed exceptionally and managed to announce six unicorns. Indeed, Turkey is the country that faced the largest startup increase (241%). In contrast to the global decline trend in seed fundings, Turkey maintained its excellent activity, breaking a record of $1.3bn investment volume in the first quarter of 2022.

Early-stage European valuations, which are today 34.1% higher than in 2021, remained relatively insulated from public market volatility. The total value of European unicorns grew 34.8% mostly due to the strong dealmaking of 2021. However, as the year progresses, the impact of a downturn in the market outlook may lead to a decline in startup prices.

While the U.S. market is becoming more expensive and its valuations less and less, local venture capitalists are actively looking for new growth markets. Many investors are considering the Southeast Asian countries with a focus on Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Three factors can explain why Southeast startups’ valuations are increasing over the past few years: a young and tech-savvy population, an economic boom, and governmental measures incentivizing the development of new tech startups.

As expected, the venture capital deal-making involving Russia has decreased. Not only have international investors stopped investing in any Russian startup but also Russian assets are subject to being frozen or seized. Consequently, these factors lead to a fall in the Russian startup’s valuations.

We conclude by reporting the concerns raised by investors to founders to cut back and assume that raising capital at last year’s inflated valuations is now off the table. From a worldwide perspective, the cooling of the tech market now seems to start trickling down to the privately held and venture capital financing rounds. Many companies expected that 2022 would exceed last year in terms of economic performance and set another record year. However, rising inflation, increasing interest rate, and a precarious geopolitical situation is likely to result in a decline in startup valuations.