Methodology

Comparable-company cohorts

The public-market sections of the dashboard (performance, valuation multiples, growth and margin metrics) are computed over Carlsquare’s curated Legal Tech & Services comparable set — companies sharing a business model and buyer base. Membership is maintained by the Carlsquare team and updated as companies list, delist, or reposition. A company belongs to exactly one cohort, and the color assigned to each is fixed: the same cohort is the same color in every chart on the site, and the order never changes with the data.

Index construction

Each cohort index is an equal-weighted composite of its publicly traded constituents. For each week in the measurement window we compute the simple average of constituents’ weekly share-price returns; index levels are generated by geometrically chaining these average weekly returns, and the series is then rebased to 100 at the start of the selected window. Equal weighting prevents any single large-capitalization constituent from dominating cohort performance, and weekly chaining means constituents entering or exiting the public markets mid-window (via IPO, acquisition, or delisting) affect the index only during the periods in which they actually traded — a constituent contributes a return only in weeks where it printed a close, measured against its own previous close. A cohort’s series begins in the first week any of its members has price data. Benchmark series (S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite) are index closes taken at the same weekly grid and rebased over the same window. Constituents quoted in another currency are converted into USD at the same weekly grid before any return is computed. Index levels reflect price performance only — they exclude dividends, are presented for illustrative purposes, and are not investable benchmarks.

Metric definitions

LTM

Last twelve months — trailing twelve-month financials ended with the most recently reported quarter.

NTM

Next twelve months — forward twelve-month estimates from the measurement date. The dashboard's headline valuation figure is the LTM multiple; the NTM multiple is shown beneath it as a secondary reference.

EV / Revenue

Enterprise value (equity market capitalization plus total debt and minority interest, less cash and short-term investments) divided by revenue for the stated period. Market capitalization reflects the latest available share price against the workbook's share count; where debt, cash, or minority interest is not carried in the workbook it is treated as zero, so enterprise value equals market capitalization for those constituents.

EV / EBITDA

Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the stated period.

Rule of 40

Revenue growth rate (%) plus EBITDA margin (%) — a composite gauge of growth-profitability balance, with 40 the conventional software benchmark. Shown only where both inputs are available. Per company in the comparables table; for a cohort it is that cohort's median growth plus its median margin, so the chart reconciles with the two charts beside it.

Gross / EBITDA margin

Gross profit and EBITDA respectively, as a percentage of revenue for the stated period; EBITDA is typically presented on an adjusted basis as reported.

Medians

All aggregate multiples and operating metrics shown on the dashboard are medians across the constituent set — never means — to limit outlier distortion. Constituents with no meaningful value for a metric are excluded from that metric's median rather than counted as zero.

n.m. / n.d.

Not meaningful / not disclosed. A multiple is treated as not meaningful, and excluded from every median, in two cases: the denominator is zero or negative (a loss-making or no-revenue constituent), or the resulting multiple exceeds the input cap for that measure (40x on EV / Revenue, 60x on EV / EBITDA), which indicates a denominator near zero rather than a genuine valuation. Not disclosed marks a figure the source does not report at all.

Transaction classification

Every precedent transaction and financing is classified into exactly one of the 17 categories below. The split between the two activity measures follows the announced deal type: M&A activity aggregates control transactions (Merger/Acquisition, Buyout/LBO), and financing activity aggregates venture and growth rounds (Early Stage VC, Later Stage VC, PE Growth/Expansion). Deals in the x category are tracked for completeness but omitted from every statistic on this site.

The Carlsquare “Pulse” scale

The Pulse check is a relative measure, not an absolute one. Within the selected window, each category’s combined announced M&A and capital-raise count is divided by the highest combined count of any category in that same window, and the result is drawn as a proportion of the 8-block scale. The busiest category therefore always fills the scale, and the blocks answer “how does this category compare with the most active one right now” — they do not encode a fixed number of deals, and a category’s block count is not comparable across two different timeframes. The deal count and disclosed value beside each row are the underlying absolute figures.

Timeframes & period comparisons

Every timeframe is trailing: L3M is the three months ending where the data stops, LTM the twelve, and so on. Each half of the dashboard ends at its own cutoff, and they are not the same date — public-market figures run to the most recent close, deal activity to the most recent transaction. Deal activity is counted in whole calendar months, so its windows open on the first of a month; price windows are measured to the day. Each half also offers only the windows its own history can fill.

The “vs prior period” figures on the M&A and financing panels compare the selected window with the same number of months immediately before it. Where a cutoff falls mid-month the prior window’s final month is cut at the same day of the month, so both windows cover the same span, and the unfinished month is drawn hatched in the activity strips. Comparables are reported by quarter — the finest grain the underlying financials carry — so a window that opens mid-quarter reads every quarter it touches.

Sources & caveats

Financial data is compiled by Carlsquare from company filings and public market data; Share prices fetch automatically each weekday after the US close. Transaction data is compiled from Carlsquare research, PitchBook, company announcements. Deals with an undisclosed size are included in counts but excluded from value totals and medians. Deal activity is recorded on the announcement date, not on close, so announced transactions that later lapse remain in the counts. Nothing on this site constitutes investment advice or an offer of securities. AI-generated summaries are produced from the figures shown on this dashboard and are labeled as such.