Self-Paced Online Course

Valuation

How to put a defensible number on a company, a patent, or a pre-revenue startup — using the same valuation techniques relied on across Silicon Valley and the wider technology sector.

  • Self-Paced
  • 26 Study Hours
  • 15 Sections
  • Certificate of Completion
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Course Introduction

About This Course

Put a defensible number on any company or asset

This course explains the valuation techniques commonly used in Silicon Valley and the technology sector. It works through discounted cash flow and other income-based methods alongside cost-based and comparable approaches, and shows how the market forces of supply and demand, revenue multiples, earnings multiples, return on investment, the liquidity discount, and pre- and post-investment valuations all shape the number you arrive at.

Those techniques are then applied where they matter most for a startup: appraising patents, software, and trademarks, and valuing ventures across the seed, early, expansion, and mezzanine stages of development — when there may be little or no revenue or profit to anchor a traditional model.

A certificate of completion is awarded when you successfully complete the course.

Learning Objectives & Outcomes

What you'll be able to do

  • ✓Apply various valuation techniques to the valuation of startups, established businesses and patent assets.
  • ✓Distinguish between the income, cost and comparables approaches to valuation.
  • ✓Place a valuation on an early-stage startup venture — before the business has significant sales revenues or profits.
  • ✓Place a value on intangible assets including patents, trademarks, copyrights and software.
  • ✓Build discounted cash flow and other income-based models to value a company or asset from its projected earnings.
  • ✓Use revenue multiples and earnings multiples to value a company against comparable companies and transactions.
  • ✓Explain how the market forces of supply and demand drive valuations in private financings and public markets alike.
  • ✓Calculate return on investment, and distinguish pre-money from post-money valuations in a venture financing round.
  • ✓Apply a liquidity discount to reflect the reduced value of shares that cannot be readily sold.
  • ✓Tailor your valuation approach to a startup's stage of development — seed, early, expansion, or mezzanine.
  • ✓Value a business in a merger or acquisition, and follow how Wall Street and public-market investors arrive at a company's share price.
  • ✓Appraise individual assets on their own merits — product lines, software code, and internet domain names.

Course Sections

Fifteen sections, from concept to asset

  1. 01The Concept of Value
  2. 02Comparables Approaches to Valuation
  3. 03Cost Approaches to Valuation
  4. 04Income Approaches to Valuation
  5. 05Economic Forces of Supply & Demand
  6. 06Valuation of Established Businesses
  7. 07Share Price & Company Valuation by Wall Street & Public Market Investors
  8. 08Valuation of Businesses in Merger & Acquisition Transactions
  9. 09Valuation of Startup Businesses in Venture Capital & Other Financings
  10. 10Product Lines
  11. 11Software Code
  12. 12Patents
  13. 13Businesses with Patents & IP Assets
  14. 14Trademarks
  15. 15Internet Domain Names

Goes Well With

Where valuation does its real work

Valuation underpins fundraising, exits, and IP strategy. These SVBS courses put it to work where the numbers carry the most weight:

Sherpa, the SVBS AI startup guide — a husky wearing glasses

Sherpa · Your AI Startup Guide

Take the journey for real, with Sherpa

Knowing what your company is worth shapes every funding round, every negotiation, and every exit on the startup journey. Sherpa turns what you learn here into your route. As your AI guide, Sherpa helps you target your destination, plot your milestones, and track your momentum stage by stage, drawing on the same "Zero to IPO" methodology to keep you climbing toward your summit.

Sherpa is included with the Entrepreneur subscription ($50/month), which adds startup guidance and the Milestone Progress tracker on top of the full course library.

Get Sherpa →

Ready When You Are

Start the Valuation course today

Self-paced, 26 study hours, included with your SVBS subscription alongside the full course library and Prof, your AI course tutor — and you earn a certificate of completion when you finish.

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