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Subscription software built at Lot Fourteen, Tonsley and Mawson Lakes, and managed IT providers on multi-year contracts across the metropolitan area: valued on the cash the customer base will actually produce.
An Adelaide SaaS business is normally valued with a discounted cash flow, because subscription revenue can be projected from how customer cohorts behave and growth is rarely steady enough for one capitalised year to capture it. Retention, churn and net revenue retention drive the risk premium in the discount rate, and multiples from private software deals are used only to test the answer.
Founders at Lot Fourteen, in the Tonsley innovation district, at Mawson Lakes and in the East End come to us ahead of a capital raise or a secondary sale, for an employee share scheme valuation under Division 83A, when co-founders part ways, for a property settlement in the Adelaide registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court, and for the market value the ATO expects behind a restructure or an early stage innovation company self-assessment.
An unsolicited approach is the other usual trigger. Interstate and overseas trade buyers and private capital funds both watch South Australian software and cyber businesses, and the first figure a founder hears is often a revenue multiple with no working behind it. A certified valuation gives you a reasoned number to hold against it before you answer.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. Subscription revenue can be projected from the way existing cohorts have behaved, and the growth curve is usually still moving, which a discounted cash flow handles much better than one capitalised year of earnings.
The forecast is built from the customer base: new accounts, revenue retained and grown inside existing customers, and revenue lost to churn. Each year's cash flow is discounted to present value and a terminal value added. Applying a flat growth rate to last year's figure is faster, but it is the first assumption an opposing expert pulls apart.
Once growth has flattened and the business is mature, capitalising future maintainable earnings is simpler and suits it better. A managed IT provider in Mile End or Modbury with three-year support agreements across local small and mid-sized businesses usually sits here rather than in a cohort model.
The discount rate is assembled, not picked: a risk-free rate taken from long-dated Australian Government bond yields (Source: RBA, Statistical Tables F2 Capital Market Yields), plus an equity risk premium, a size premium, an industry premium and a company-specific premium for customer concentration, churn, reliance on a founder or lead engineer, and how far the revenue data can be trusted.
Private sales of software and IT businesses with comparable size, growth and retention, expressed as a multiple of annual recurring revenue or of earnings. Listed company multiples serve only as a ceiling and a reasonableness test, since a listed business is larger, liquid and diversified, and those gaps matter more than a shared subscription model.
Seldom anything beyond a floor. Capitalised development spend on the balance sheet tells you about accounting policy, not about what the product is worth, and the valuation does not use it as a measure of value.
Software valuations diverge at normalisation more than at any other step, so every adjustment is explained in the main body of the report rather than tucked into an appendix. For Adelaide software and IT services businesses the regular ones are:
Adelaide's technology businesses cluster in a few precincts. Lot Fourteen, on the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site at the eastern end of North Terrace, hosts space, cyber, artificial intelligence and creative technology companies alongside start-ups. Tonsley, the former car plant site in the south, and the technology park at Mawson Lakes in the north house software, defence electronics and advanced manufacturing firms. Health and research software grows out of the BioMed City precinct around the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park. Managed IT providers are spread more widely, through Mile End, Kent Town, Modbury, Salisbury and Mount Barker, supporting businesses across the metropolitan area and the regions.
Who the customers are shapes the risk. A large share of Adelaide software is sold to defence primes and their supply chains around Osborne and Edinburgh, to state government agencies, and to health, wine and agribusiness customers, which tends to mean long contracts with a small number of buyers. The adjustment that most often moves the numbers is still founder pay, reset to what it would cost to hire an equivalent engineering or commercial lead in Adelaide today; in a small team that single change can shift maintainable earnings more than any debate about the multiple. Federal settings apply as everywhere: the R&D tax incentive is removed as a one-off, and an early stage innovation company self-assessment is a tax position, not a valuation conclusion, though it often needs one behind it.
South Australia had 174,310 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2026, a net gain of 5,613 or 3.3 per cent over the year, and nationally professional, scientific and technical services businesses, the ABS division that includes computer system design and related services, grew 3.6 per cent (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More firms means a deeper comparable set for the market cross-check and more competition for the same engineers, which is why the salary benchmark in normalisation is tested against current Adelaide hiring rather than last year's payroll.
The report sets out why it was commissioned, the standard of value, the valuation date, the information we relied on and where that information fell short. It works through each approach considered, the method adopted under it and every normalisation adjustment with its reason, and ends by reconciling the results into a range, explaining the weighting in words rather than leaving it to a formula.
An opposing expert reads the reconciliation first. If the report cannot explain why the cohort forecast was preferred to a revenue multiple, or how the company-specific premium was set, the opinion will not hold up in the Supreme Court of South Australia, where the court's expert evidence rules put the expert's duty to the court ahead of the client, or in a review by an investor's adviser. Reports are prepared consistently with APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will stand behind the opinion when it is questioned.
Which input would another expert challenge first, and what is the defence? Without a ready answer, the work is not yet done.
Choose an Indicative valuation if you need a quick read on an unsolicited offer or an internal price ahead of a secondary sale. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. Choose a Summary report for a capital raise, an employee share scheme valuation or a co-founder buy-out. Choose a Detailed report for a family law property settlement, a shareholder dispute in the Supreme Court of South Australia, or a tax position the ATO may review.
Set the depth by the purpose. The more likely it is that a court, a lender, the ATO or another expert will rely on the opinion, the more of the reasoning the report must show.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.