Real-Time Company Valuation® – FAQs

Yahoo Finance made public stock prices universally visible. NASDAQ built the rails for price discovery and capital formation. Eqvista is pioneering the next frontier: real-time valuation and market-grade infrastructure for private companies, transforming the opaque into transparent, and unlocking liquidity where none existed before.

How does the valuation work in real time?

Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation® combines financial data, market signals, and advanced modeling to provide an always-on view of your company’s worth powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), just like a public stock ticker, but for private companies. Powered by AI and ML, delivered by humans.

Here’s how it works:

• Live Data Sync: We connect directly with your cap table, financial metrics, and relevant company data, which allows us to continuously track changes in ownership, revenue, burn rate, and more.
• Market Calibration: Our system benchmarks your company against comparable private and public companies, current fundraising trends, and macroeconomic conditions – all updated regularly. We utilise publicly available data, as well as purchase data from third-party sources.
• Valuation Engine: Using agentic AI, MLand proprietary valuation models (developed from analyzing over $100B in assets and targeting $1T by 2026), we process this data to generate real-time estimates for 409A, Real-time, and investor-facing pre-money valuations.
• Human Oversight: Every model is auditable and supported by valuation experts to ensure accuracy and compliance. You always have access to specialists when needed.

We utilize industry-standard valuation formulas as a baseline – but our real power lies in the proprietary formula architecture we’ve developed to support real-time valuation.

Eqvista’s platform deploys custom-built combinations and algorithmic sequences tailored to the unique characteristics of each company. These proprietary models intelligently weigh inputs such as capital structure, funding history, sector comparables, secondary signals, and internal financial performance data.

Rather than relying on a single static method, our system evaluates which valuation path-DCF, market comps, option pricing, or hybrid – is most appropriate for a company’s specific context. These sequences are dynamically deployed depending on real-time data, ensuring that each valuation is not just accurate, but also strategically optimized.

The result? A dynamic, up-to-date valuation that reflects your company’s true market value – not just a static PDF based on last quarter’s data. Powered by AI and ML, delivered by humans.

What’s the difference between 409A and FMV (Fair Market Value) – and why is 409A usually lower?

Both 409A and FMV (Fair Market Value) are measures of your company’s value – but they apply to different types of shares, serve different purposes, and are calculated differently.

409A Valuation

• Used to price common stock
• Required for IRS compliance when granting employee stock options (ESOPs)
• Reflects a minority, non-marketable interest in the company
• Must follow conservative, audit-defensible methods
• Typically lower, because common shares do not have the rights or protections investors receive
  

FMV for Preferred Stock

• Reflects the value of preferred stock, which investors buy
• Used in fundraising, secondaries, M&A, and strategic planning
• Takes into account liquidation preferences, dividends, anti-dilution rights, and more
• Reflects the market’s real perception of your company’s value
• Typically higher, since preferred stock includes rights and terms that increase value

With Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation®

You get both – a certified, audit-ready 409A for common stock, and a dynamic, market-calibrated FMV for preferred stock. One platform. Two critical views. Always current.

AI and ML-Powered, humans-delivered.

How do I make sure my valuation is up-to-date?

With Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation®, your valuation is continuously updated – automatically. Our system monitors key data points like changes in your cap table, new fundraising rounds, revenue updates, and broader market conditions to keep your company value accurate and current.

To maintain the highest accuracy, we recommend:

• Keeping your financials current – regularly update your Profit & Loss statement and Balance Sheet in the platform. Contact us for more details.
• Recording significant events such as:
  • New fundraising rounds (SAFEs, equity, or convertible notes)
  • Major changes in revenue, business model, or company strategy
  • M&A activity or large secondary transactions
  • Shifts in your industry or market environment

And don’t worry – our human valuation experts are always available. AI and ML-Powered, humans-delivered. Our valuation analysts review each case and make sure that the model is correct and up-to-date. If you need an audit-defensible 409A or want to review your valuation after a major change, we’ll certify it to ensure compliance and precision.

How accurate are real-time company valuations compared to traditional methods-like PDF reports?

Yes – Real-Time Valuation is inherently more accurate because it continuously reflects the dynamic, evolving nature of a company’s financial and operational position.

Traditional valuation reports (like static PDF-based 409A or FMV documents) offer a backward-looking snapshot based on the company’s financials at a specific moment in time. By the time they are delivered, market conditions, internal performance, or cap table dynamics may have already changed-making the valuation partially obsolete.

Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation® is built to solve this limitation. It delivers live, audit-defensible valuations using a dynamic, continuously learning pricing infrastructure. Here’s what sets it apart:

• Continuous Data Sync: We integrate with your cap table, financials, KPIs, and external benchmarks to ensure your valuation is always aligned with the latest inputs.
• Advanced Market Contextualization: The system calibrates against live market comps, investor sentiment, macro trends, and sector-specific transactions.
• AI and ML-Powered, Analyst-Backed: Our valuation engine combines proprietary AI and ML models (trained on $270B+ in assets) with expert review, ensuring precision and audit readiness.
• Validated by the Market: Our FMV outputs show strong correlation with actual fundraising rounds, secondary prices, and strategic transactions-ensuring real-world reliability.
• Proprietary Learning Engine: Our valuation methodology continuously improves over time. The more valuations we perform, the more refined our models become. This enables the platform to detect pricing shifts faster, adjust for macro or micro anomalies, and apply increasingly precise formulas-unique to your company’s profile and market sector.

Real-time signifies an adaptive, data-driven valuation methodology designed for precision. By continuously integrating operational, financial, and market inputs, Eqvista’s framework produces the most analytically rigorous and temporally aligned equity pricing available across today’s private capital markets.

Is the volatility of my company a problem?

Not at all – in fact, that’s exactly why real-time valuation matters.

Startups and private companies naturally experience volatility. Fundraising rounds, rapid growth, product pivots, market shifts – all of these can impact your valuation. Traditional static valuations (like the typical 409A and FMV PDF report) completely miss this movement, leaving you with outdated and potentially misleading numbers.

Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation® is designed to account for this volatility. Our system continuously monitors your company’s data – from financial performance and cap table changes to comparable market activity – and adjusts your valuation dynamically.

Instead of volatility being a risk, it becomes insight. You get:

• Instant visibility into how market or internal changes affect your value
• More confidence when making high-stakes decisions like equity grants, fundraising, or acquisitions
• A defensible, up-to-date number – not a guess from months ago

So no – volatility isn’t a problem. It’s part of your company’s journey – and our valuation engine turns it into your advantage.

What advantages do companies gain from having real-time valuations?

Real-time valuations transform your company’s worth into a live, strategic asset – enabling faster decisions, shareholders’ visibility to the equity growth, easier access to capital, and complete confidence across every stage of growth.

• Faster, frictionless fundraising: Share an up-to-date, audit-ready valuation with investors instantly. No delays. No outdated PDFs. No second-guessing from VCs or legal teams.
• Access to non-dilutive capital: Lenders need confidence in your financial standing. Real-time, certified valuations reduce perceived risk and accelerate approval for bank loans, venture debt, and revenue-based financing – all without giving up equity.
• Smarter decisions, on your terms: Model dilution, SAFEs, equity rounds, and exits with clarity. Know your company’s worth before walking into any negotiation.
• Stronger position in M&A: Keep buyers, sellers, and acquirers aligned with a live valuation – not outdated assumptions. Have the value of your company if you need it 
• 409A and FMV compliance, always ready: Stay ahead of IRS requirements, board approvals, and audits with continuously updated, defensible valuations.
• Transparency for Shareholders: Offer your investors, board members, and employees clarity around company value – building trust and confidence.
• Improved Secondaries Management: In secondary transactions, discrepancies between past valuations and current investor sentiment can derail deals. Real-time data keeps you aligned with the market, reducing pricing gaps.
• Scenario Planning Made Simple: Test different growth plans, dilution scenarios, and funding rounds on the fly, so you’re always ready to answer “what if.”

Real-time valuation transforms your company’s stock price into a living metric – a financial signal you can use to raise capital, issue equity, plan your future, and operate with confidence. In short: it’s like having your private company ticker, always on.

Can you still provide a PDF report if the valuation is real-time?

Yes. While our valuations are updated in real time, you can always generate and download a PDF report signed by our NACVA-certified valuation analysts. These reports are ideal for auditors, legal teams, investors, and VCs who need formal documentation for due diligence, compliance, or accounting purposes.

You get the best of both worlds: real-time insights for fast decision-making, and traditional, audit-ready reports when required.

Are my company’s data shared with other providers or third parties?

Absolutely not. At Eqvista, we do not share your data with any external providers or third parties. We are contractually and ethically bound to protect your information, and data privacy is a fundamental part of our promise to clients.

Your trust is critical – and we take that seriously. We never trade or sell client data under any circumstance. Beyond privacy regulations, there’s a deeper reason: our valuation models, insights, and systems are powered by the proprietary data you and thousands of other companies entrust to us. Sharing that would mean giving away our core intellectual property and competitive advantage – something we’ll never do.

While using AI, ML and training our models, how do we use your data?

We use AI and machine-learning technologies to enhance accuracy, efficiency and user experience within Eqvista, but always with strong data privacy controls. Any data used for training or improving our models is first aggregated, anonymized or transformed so that it cannot identify you or your company.

Here is how your data is handled when AI or ML is involved:

• We may process your data through AI systems to support valuation modelling, benchmarking and platform functionality.
• Before data is used in AI training or analytics, we ensure it is de-identified and stripped of personal or company-specific identifiers.
• Aggregated insights may be used to improve our internal AI models, tools and performance, without exposing individual client information.
• We do not use identifiable client data for AI training, model improvement or external datasets.
• AI-generated outputs are intended as decision-support tools only and remain subject to human oversight.

In summary, AI improves the platform and not your privacy risk. Your identifiable information is never used to train AI models, and anonymized data is handled responsibly, ethically and only to strengthen our services.