Business Valuation Across the Industry Life Cycle: A Quantitative Study Focusing on Internet-Enabled Businesses

This book examines the valuation of internet-enabled businesses across their industry life cycles, demonstrating the shifts in valuation multiples and drivers over time, providing a comprehensive framework to better understand and optimize business valuations. Internet Evolution as Natural Experiment: The internet’s rise – from innovation to necessity, driven by 5G and AI – offers a unique lens on valuation methodologies across industry life cycles. Methodological Approach: Unprecedented quantitative and qualitative research analyzing 1,767 companies globally across 21 industries and 15 years, covering 120 multiples, 216 drivers, and 100 million data points. Valuation Framework: It proposes a groundbreaking framework linking valuation multiples and drivers to industry life cycles, illustrating the shift from revenue- to profitability-based multiples and from growth-centric to growth-and-profitability drivers as companies mature. Practical Implications: It concludes with recommendations for stakeholders on monitoring valuation multiples and drivers for value-maximizing strategies across virtually all mature and emerging technologies.