NeuraCap

For owners and management teams

Know what your business is worth, and how to grow it

Most private businesses are valued properly once, during a sale, by the person on the other side of the table. NeuraCap gives you that view first: what the business is worth, how it compares to your industry, and what is holding the number back.

  • Find out what the business is worth
  • See how you compare to your industry
  • Understand what a buyer looks at
  • Plan a raise, a sale or a succession
  • Give the board something solid

The current state

What slows this down today

None of this is about running the business badly. The information needed to value a private company sits outside it, and gathering it has always been expensive.
  • The only number you have came from a conversation

    A rule of thumb from a broker, a multiple a friend in the trade was offered, a figure your accountant produced for tax. None were built to answer your question.

  • You cannot see the business from the outside

    You know your margins are healthy. Healthy compared to what? Without public companies doing roughly what you do, there is no telling whether you are ahead of your industry or behind it.

  • Serious analysis arrives only once you are selling

    Most owners get a proper valuation for the first time during a sale, when the buyer has prepared for months and you have had three weeks. That is the worst possible moment.

  • What moves the number is not obvious from inside

    How concentrated your customers are, how much revenue repeats, how your margins sit against the industry. From inside these are facts. To a buyer they are the price.

The change

How NeuraCap changes the workflow

The same analysis a bank would prepare for a listed company, prepared for yours. How the figures are sourced and checked is written out on the methodology page, in plain language.

What it is worth

A range, and the reasoning behind it

The problem
Owners are given a single number with no explanation, or a range so wide that it settles nothing.
Why it matters
A number you cannot explain is a number you cannot defend, in front of a bank, a board or a buyer.
In NeuraCap
NeuraCap values the business against public companies that do what you do, and against what similar businesses have sold for. Implausible figures are excluded rather than left to distort it.
What you get
A valuation range across several methods, with the companies and transactions behind it listed underneath.
The decision it enables
Whether now is the moment to raise, to sell, to buy someone else, or to revisit it next year.

How to grow it

Where you sit, and what would move you

The problem
Improvement plans are built on internal targets, without knowing how the same measures look elsewhere in the industry.
Why it matters
A buyer prices the gap between your business and the rest of the market. Closing it is often worth more than another year of trading.
In NeuraCap
NeuraCap benchmarks your growth, your margins and the other measures the market watches against the range across your industry.
What you get
A clear read on which measures are ahead of the industry, which are behind, and by how much.
The decision it enables
Which two or three things to work on before the next conversation with an investor or a buyer.

How it works, step by step

  1. Tell us about the business

    Your financials, what you sell and who you sell it to. You decide what you share, and it is labelled as information you provided.

  2. We find companies like yours

    Public companies that genuinely do what you do, chosen on what the business is rather than an industry code. You see why each name is on the list.

  3. We compare you to them

    Growth, margins and the other measures the market watches, shown as a range across the industry so you can see where you sit inside it.

  4. We work out a range

    A valuation range from several methods, including what businesses like yours have been bought for. Implausible figures are excluded, not absorbed.

  5. You get a report you can use

    The analysis, the comparisons and the reasoning, written up for a board, a bank, an adviser or a buyer.

The detail is described in private company evaluation and valuation analysis. Once the report exists you can put questions to it in ordinary English using the Financial Assistant, and how your information is handled is set out separately.

The deliverable

What you end up with

A document written to be read by someone else: a board, a lender, an adviser or a buyer.
  • A valuation range, with the methods behind it set out plainly
  • The public companies you were compared to, and why
  • How your growth and margins sit against that industry range
  • What businesses like yours have recently been bought for
  • What is holding the number down, and what would move it
  • A written report you can share with a board or a bank

If the question is bigger than one report — a sale, a raise, a succession — our advisory team works on it directly, using the same evidence.

Proof

Read our work on your industry first

We publish industry research in full and free, with nothing to fill in first. Find your sector and decide whether we understand the business you are in.
Roughly quarterly, ~20 pages

Industry Sector Outlook

What is happening in an industry, what the companies in it are worth, and who is buying.

Every two weeks, ~7 pages

Industry Events & M&A Update

Who announced what, and which businesses changed hands, in the industries we cover.

Engagement

Advisory

When the decision is close and you want a person working on it with you.

Straight answers

The questions owners ask first

Including what this is not, which matters more here than anywhere else on the site.
Is this a formal valuation I can use for tax or a court?
No. NeuraCap does not produce a formal appraisal or a fairness opinion, and creates no fiduciary relationship. It is analysis that helps you hold a better conversation with the accountant or adviser who does.
Do I have to hand over sensitive financial information?
You choose what you share. More detail improves the analysis, but what you provide stays yours, is treated as confidential, and is identified in the report as information you supplied.
We are small and unusual. Are there really comparable companies?
Almost always, at least approximately. The public companies in your industry are usually larger, and the comparison accounts for that. Where a fair comparison is not available, the report says so.
Are you going to try to sell my company?
No. NeuraCap is not a broker, and nothing it produces is a recommendation to buy or sell, or an offer or solicitation. If you later want help with a transaction, advisory is engaged separately.

Find out what your business is actually worth.

Tell us about the company and what you are deciding. We will tell you what the analysis would cover and what it would involve.