The 20× Reset: Investment Crowdfunding Valuations in 2025

TLDR:

• Median revenue multiple across all Reg CF & Reg A+ raises (Apr 2024–May 2025):  19.6×.

• Peak is in the rear-view. After topping out at 32.3× in 2021 (up to 44× in Q3 2021), median revenue multiples have drifted to ~20× for two straight years.

• Sector dispersion is huge. Energy & Fin-services deals command 50–70×, while Food & Hospitality often price <10×.

• Public comps are cheaper. Most listed SaaS names trade 6-8× forward revenue—a reminder that liquidity and growth expectations drive crowdfunding premiums.

• Higher rates = lower multiples. With the Fed holding at 4.25-4.50 % in May 2025, easy-money froth has washed out.

From most expensive to least expense, the median multiple data for industries with more than 10 offerings (to weed out noise):

Full industry list provided at the end of this article in the Appendix.

What Jumps Out

• AI-and-energy hype premium. Cleantech and grid-edge plays sit on the macro tailwind of IRA subsidies and surging power demand for AI datacenters.

• Fin-services resilience. Even after the fintech winter, niche B2B lenders and insurtechs still fetch >50× in retail rounds.

• Consumer staples are “on sale.” Food & Beverage (7.7×) and Travel/Hospitality (9.7×) look cheap—but growth is slower and margins thinner.

• Retail Shops & Department Stores outlier. The 365× average is skewed by one loyalty-heavy chain with tiny revenue—proof you must read Form C footnotes before jumping at headline numbers.

For last year’s deep dive, check Highest & Lowest Revenue Multiples by Industry – 2023, and our 2024 follow-up on industry revenue multiple benchmarking.

Revenue Multiple 101

In the context of investment crowdfunding, a revenue multiple is simply:

Valuation ÷ Trailing 12-month Revenue

Example: a company with a $5M valuation, making $200k in annual revenue, would have a $5,000,000/$200,000 = 25× revenue multiple

Why do we reach for it so often in early-stage deals? Most startups burn cash; profits (and hence P/E ratios) don’t exist yet. Revenue acts as a universal yard-stick, especially when you’re comparing everything from hardware to SaaS (though there are also exceptions – as we note later).

Watch-outs

• Gross vs. net revenue (marketplaces often quote GMV—be careful).

• One-off sales vs. recurring ARR—a 5× multiple on guaranteed subscription dollars may be cheaper than 2× on sporadic project work.

• Tiny baselines exaggerate multiples: $1 M valuation on $50 k revenue already equals 20×.

Crowdfunding vs. Public-Market Multiples

Public SaaS comps have settled in a 6–8× forward-revenue range in 2025, down from the 15–20× mania of early 2021.

So why are Reg CF deals clearing ~20×?

1. Growth Delta. A Seed-stage company targeting 200 % YoY can justify a premium to a mature 20 %-grower.

2. Scarcity & Story. Retail investors pay up for first dibs on the “next big thing” that isn’t yet on Nasdaq.

3. Liquidity Discount flips. Ironically, illiquidity sometimes inflates private valuations—founders hold out for larger caps to limit dilution.

The takeaway: use public comps as a floor, then layer on private-market nuance (growth, market size, exit pathways).

Revenue Multiples Over Time: 2019-2025

We can also look at the quarterly median revenue multiple for Reg CF and Reg A+ since 2019 to extract some additional insights:

And the median revenue multiple by year:

Era-by-era narrative

• Pre-COVID (2019-Q1 2020): Stable mid-20× range; Reg CF expansion to $5 M cap just getting traction.

• Stimulus Surge (Q2 2020-Q4 2021): Zero rates + stimmies + meme-stock culture push medians to a record 32× (Q2 2021 peaks at 44×).

• Rate-Hike Hangover (2022-2023): Fed lifts funds rate above 4 %, growth equity dries up, multiples compress to 22× by 2023.

• Stabilization (2024-2025 YTD): Medians hover ~20×—almost back to pre-pandemic norms, suggesting a new valuation floor.

Macro Forces at Work

• Cost of capital. The Fed’s 4.25-4.50 % range makes discounted-cash-flow math unforgiving; investors demand lower entry multiples.

• Exit overhang. IPO markets are still tepid; fewer blockbuster exits → smaller downstream demand for pricey Series B/C paper.

• Sector rotation. Capital chases AI infrastructure, cleantech, and infra-software; consumer discretionary lags.

• Retail risk appetite. Google Trends for “how to value a startup” are off 40 % from 2021 highs—investors are choosier.

What It Means for Investors

1. Benchmark twice, cut once. Compare a deal’s multiple to both its industry median and the cross-market 19.6× baseline.

2. Growth-adjust the multiple. A 30× SaaS raise growing 300 % can still be cheaper than a 10× CPG brand growing 20 %.

3. Mind the sample size. Industries with <10 raises swing wildly—focus on larger buckets for signal.

4. Use Kingscrowd filters. Our platform lets you screen raises by multiple, growth, and valuation cap—build a watch-list that fits your return targets.

5. Diversify vintage. Allocating across years (not just sectors) smooths macro-cycle risk—2021 investors learned this the hard way.

Quick Note for Founders

Planning a Reg CF round this year? Real-world data suggests:

• Launching above 25× revenue in today’s market invites tougher diligence unless you have significant (e.g. >150 %) YoY growth.

• Transparent revenue math (ARR vs. GAAP) boosts trust and widens your backer pool.

• Tie your valuation cap to clear milestones—investors reward progress with follow-on dollars.

Exceptions: When Revenue Multiples Don’t Tell the Whole Story

Most startup financings do revolve around “How many times revenue are we paying?”—but a few corner-cases make that yard-stick almost useless.

Investor takeaway:
If you see eye-popping multiples in these niches, hit pause. Ask why revenue is low or artificially high, then switch to a metric that actually maps to value creation—milestone progress in biotech, ARR in SaaS, or GMV take-rate in marketplaces. Revenue multiples shine for “normal” operating businesses with repeatable sales; everywhere else they’re more like a fun-house mirror.

Founder takeaway:
If you’re in one of these exception buckets, lead with the metric that best matches how your industry prices risk. You’ll save yourself—and your future investors—a lot of spreadsheet gymnastics.

Final Thoughts

Revenue multiples aren’t gospel, but they’re a useful first filter. In 2025 the market has landed at a more rational ~20× median—high enough to reward founders, low enough to offer investors upside. Stick to the data, question the outliers, and you’ll navigate the post-bubble landscape with confidence.

Got questions or want to dig into a specific sector? Connect with us on social – we’re always happy to nerd out on valuations.

Data Appendix – Revenue Multiples by Industry, April 2024 – May 2025

Table with all the raw data, including industries with low offering count:

Data for companies with >$50k annual revenues, Reg CF and Reg A+.

2025 Rev Multiple Snapshot by Industry (Interactive)

Diving deeper into all the data since last year, including industries that only had a few offerings, shows a wide range in offerings

Note: The X-axis below is limited to 100×, though there were a number of raises that were outliers from 100× – 10,000×. Thus, the “calculated” medians in the interactive chart below exclude those outliers, which is why they differ from the actual medians above.