Most guides to startup valuation repeat the same handful of rules of thumb — "SaaS trades at 10x revenue," "e-commerce gets 2-3x" — without saying where those numbers came from or when they stopped being true. They also tend to skip the one thing that's actually reshaping every valuation conversation happening right now: AI companies are being priced on a completely different curve than everyone else, and the gap is wide enough that using a generic multiple on an AI startup — in either direction — will get you laughed out of a term sheet negotiation.

This guide covers the standard methods, then goes where most others don't: the actual, sourced numbers on the AI premium, what's driving it, and where it's already starting to level off.