HoneyBook, a startup final valued in late 2021 at $2.4 billion, informed TechCrunch that it hit $140 million in annualized recurring income (ARR).

This makes HoneyBook one of many few startups with peak-VC-era valuations to report their financials after the market cooled. 

Many startups that raised in 2021 and haven’t raised since then stay below strain to generate the income wanted to validate their beforehand inflated valuations, and many may not survive much longer.

However HoneyBook is doing so nicely, it sees no purpose to nonetheless preserve its income metrics secret.

HoneyBook provides enterprise administration software program for impartial service-based entrepreneurs similar to photographers, occasion planners, and inside designers. Its final raise was a $250 million Series E from Tiger World Administration about three and a half years in the past.

Provided that HoneyBook continues to be valued at $2.4 billion, the most recent ARR determine implies a valuation a number of of about 17 instances ARR.

Whereas there aren’t any hard-and-fast guidelines for valuing non-public corporations, buyers say that late-stage pre-AI period software program corporations are typically priced not a lot otherwise from their public market comparables. Meritech SaaS Index reveals that corporations rising at 25% or more a year are actually priced at a median of 13 instances their ARR.

So what might probably justify the marginally higher-than-average a number of for HoneyBook? One phrase: AI. This week, the corporate launched new AI performance that helps customers determine how one can worth companies and serve their clients higher.  

The corporate claims it’s uniquely positioned to assist entrepreneurs make enterprise choices with AI as a result of it has knowledge on how related small enterprise house owners worth their companies and develop their shopper lists.

HoneyBook’s AI is embedded into its present providing that features a CRM, handles billing and funds, and offers eligible customers entry to the funds for enterprise development.

Jeff Crowe, senior managing companion at Norwest and a HoneyBook investor, believes the corporate can turbo-charge its enterprise with AI.

“Solopreneurs, like photographers, don’t have the time or the enterprise savvy” to suppose strategically about how one can develop their enterprise, Crowe stated. 

The hope is that the brand new performance will assist HoneyBook’s present customers develop their very own companies, and because of this, the startup will make more cash from the bigger quantity of transactions it processes.