Market capitalization of the CEE SaaS companies reached €1.75B in 2023 — Vestbee

Vestbee, in cooperation with Warsaw Equity Group, has updated its CEE SaaS Index for 2023. The index includes companies from the CEE region which generate at least 50% of their total revenue from sales of SaaS products. AIN.Capital shares the key findings.

• The median CEE revenue multiple at the end of 2023 amounted to 3,30x annualized revenue (which is down 40% from an all-time high 5,51x in December 2021), and down 27% from this year’s record of 4,55x in September.
• Market capitalization of the CEE companies remained stable at €1.75 billion. The numbers are staying at this level since Q2 of this year.
• The most active period of 2023 was during the summer, as investors, both in the CEE and the US were mostly optimistic during this time.
  • The US revenue multiple was the highest in July (7,83x), while the CEE SaaS Index reached 4,55x in August.
  • The lowest multiples in the CEE and the US were in November (3,05x) and April (5,63x) respectively.

• For most of the year revenue multiples in the CEE were about 40% lower than in the US, but in the last two months of 2023 the gap increased to 50%.

Why is this important?

According to Crunchbase, global VC funding in 2023 reached $285 billion, the lowest level since 2017. All the while, European Ecosystem accounted for less than 20% of global VC funding in the past year ($52 billion). The data in Vestbee’s CEE SaaS Index only confirms the global tendencies where the market continues to slow down, following the activity boom during the last couple of years.