The hidden multiplier: How invisible assets drive valuation at every stage

Valuation is consistently top of mind for Intanify users, especially the many who are fundraising or in M&A. The question we hear most often: What's the £/$/€ value, and crucially, how do we increase it?

Valuation is something Intanify's AI is particularly good at, and I personally know fairly well having spent most of my career around it, so we thought we'd make it the topic of September's Intanify Insight.

Many pages have been filled on the topic of valuation, so this article will focus on two interconnected topics: how your business stage determines valuation approach, and how your intangible assets drive value at each stage. Understanding this relationship is crucial because the assets you build today become the foundation for higher valuations tomorrow.

Stage: pre-revenue to post to exit

The way you're valued follows a journey, just as your business does. Each stage employs different methodologies and approaches to thinking about it.

Pre-revenue: team and potential

At this stage, broadly speaking, your business is either an idea or you're deep tech. The valuation methodology differs significantly between these two paths.

For idea-stage businesses, value is judged primarily on the team, with idea/market potential size coming second. There's typically a range, around $3–6M in the US and £1.5–3M in the UK, for example (though this becomes irrelevant for stellar founders who can command $BNs). Financial models and forecasts are pretty much meaningless at this stage.

Deep tech businesses operate differently. They're valued on their own merits by domain-expert investors who understand the technology's potential. Here, your IP and technical assets become central to the valuation conversation – they’re the main thing you’ve got.

Multiple stage: differentiation and moats

Once you have revenue, valuation shifts to multiples—the general market multiple for your business type, adjusted for growth and differentiation. But investors are also evaluating something deeper: your moat, or more likely, your potential moat (read more Intanify on moats here).

The critical question becomes: will the revenue you grow be defensible, or will the mythical Microsoft each it for lunch one day (perhaps OpenAI)? Can you sustain growth rates, or will competitors quickly erode your position? Differentiation gets you a higher multiple initially, but investors are really paying for defensibility—the confidence that your competitive advantage can protect those revenue streams over time.

This is where the conversation moves beyond simple metrics. Investors want to understand not just what makes you different today, but what prevents others from easily copying your success tomorrow. The businesses that can articulate this clearly command premium valuations because they're seen as building sustainable competitive advantages, not just good products.

Exit: the buyer's lens

At exit, everything changes. Valuation becomes about what your business looks like through a buyer's eyes – seeing how your product could run through their larger distribution system, or your technology integrated into their wider platform, for example. That value is the buyer’s – the part that is in excess of your company standalone value, because only they can extract it with their larger scale (e.g. distribution system or platform).

Competitive tension drives value here. How many buyers want what you've got? The scarcity value of your assets - your team, technology, and data - will determine how aggressively buyers compete for you. The more the tension, the more of their value/synergies they’ll be willing to pay up to secure your company.

How your assets interact and increase valuation

First, let's be clear: the only thing that really matters for valuation is cash flow and risk. The value of your assets will always be a percentage of your company value, much like steel is for an oil company that will use it to pump oil for 20 years.

However, your assets are what generate that cash flow and determine both the defensibility and risk profile of those cash flows.

Pre-revenue: assets as foundation

If you're deep tech, your assets are the main thing you have - revenue may be far off and/or secondary for some time. You'll need to tell this story as extensively as possible, demonstrating the technical moat and market potential your IP creates.

If you're not deep tech, the assets you have represent your ability to capture the opportunity you've identified. This includes primarily your team and skills, but may also any data you've collected and your v1 technology that proves the concept is possible.

Multiple stage: assets as differentiators

At this stage, having unique IP usually commands a premium for your revenue multiple - from 6x for a general B2B business to 8x or higher because you're genuinely different for example. But only if you can credibly articulate what makes you differen.

This is key: "credibly articulate" means more than just claiming you have proprietary technology. Investors and acquirers have heard every variation of "our AI is unique" or "our technology advantage" countless times. What they want to see is the specific connection between what you own and your business performance.

When it comes to defensibility, your IP often is your moat. Brand, distribution networks, proprietary data, unique algorithms. Having an extensive and well-articulated register of these assets enables you to:

• Credibly explain what your competitive advantage is

• Demonstrate why it's not easily replicated

• Map specific assets to revenue streams

• Show how your moat protects your income

This isn't about having patents or the fanciest technology. It's about clearly connecting your intangible assets to your business performance and future potential.

Exit: assets as competitive advantage

The scarcity value of your assets—team, technology, data, customer relationships—drives competitive tension in your sale process, fundamentally changing the economics of your exit.

In a typical M&A scenario, buyers capture most of the synergy value for themselves, paying you based on your standalone worth plus a modest premium. But when your assets are genuinely scarce and multiple buyers compete for them, the dynamic flips. Buyers are forced to bid up and share far more of their synergy value with you to win the deal.

This is where asset scarcity becomes your greatest negotiating leverage. If only you have the specific technology that accelerates their AI roadmap by 18 months, or the unique technology that unlocks a new market for them, they'll pay far beyond standard multiples to secure those capabilities before competitors do.

But scarcity alone isn't enough. How comprehensively you can articulate these assets determines how well buyers can envision integrating them into their business. This visualisation gap often separates good exits from great ones.

Instead of seeing a simple $200-per-user value, buyers might recognise how your IP could accelerate their growth by $10M annually. When buyers can more easily see exactly how your assets create unique value within their ecosystem—and when those assets can't be easily replicated or acquired elsewhere—valuations soar well beyond simple revenue multiples.

Conclusion: mapping assets to value

The relationship between your stage and your assets isn't just theoretical - it's the practical foundation of how value is created and recognised in modern businesses.

At Intanify, our core capability is rapidly identifying invisible assets, mapping them to revenues and moats, and putting a value on them. We help companies at every stage understand not just what they're worth today, but how to build the asset foundation for higher valuations tomorrow.

Whether you're pre-revenue and building your first moat, scaling with defensive advantages, or preparing for exit, the assets you can identify and articulate today become the value drivers that determine your success. The companies that understand this connection - and can communicate it clearly - consistently achieve the valuations that reflect their true potential.

To start understanding what assets drive your valuation, see Intanify’s prediction of your top 5 assets here.