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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Software sold from Tasmania to customers on the mainland and overseas, and managed IT providers serving small firms from Glenorchy to Kingston: valued on the cash customers will keep paying, and on what would remain if one or two people left.
A Hobart SaaS or software business is usually valued with a discounted cash flow built from customer cohorts, because recurring revenue can be projected and growth rarely settles into one steady year. The discount rate carries the risks a small Tasmanian team brings, such as reliance on a founder or one government contract, and private sale multiples test the result.
Ownership changes in Hobart's tech sector tend to happen between people who already know each other. A founder buys out a co-founder who has moved interstate, a product company grants options under Division 83A to keep engineers who could work remotely for anyone, or a managed IT provider sells its client book to a competitor across the Derwent. Each needs a figure both sides can test, and so does a property settlement in the Hobart registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia or a restructure the ATO may look at later.
The other trigger is an unexpected approach. Because Hobart tech companies often sell nationally from their first year, they are visible to mainland and overseas acquirers who may want the product, the contracts or simply the team. Their first offer tends to be a headline multiple, and having your own reasoned figure lets you test it before you negotiate.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. Subscription and support revenue follows patterns you can measure: how many customers stay each year, how much more the ones who stay spend, and how quickly new accounts arrive. A discounted cash flow uses those patterns directly, where a single year of earnings would freeze a business that is still changing shape.
We build the forecast cohort by cohort from your own billing data, not from a growth rate laid over last year's revenue. Each year's free cash flow is discounted to today and a terminal value is added once growth is expected to settle. When the cohort history is short, as it often is for a young Hobart product, the report says so and widens the range instead of inventing precision.
A managed service provider with settled contracts and modest growth is a different case. Capitalising future maintainable earnings suits it better, and an IT support business serving small firms in Moonah, Glenorchy and Kingston on rolling agreements usually belongs in that model rather than a cohort forecast.
The discount rate is assembled in layers: a risk-free rate from long-dated Australian Government bond yields (Source: RBA, Statistical Tables F2 Capital Market Yields), an equity risk premium, a size premium, an industry premium and a company-specific premium. In a Hobart business the last layer usually carries the weight: dependence on a founder or senior engineer, a handful of large customers, and how hard those people would be to replace.
We look for private sales of software and IT businesses that resemble yours in scale, growth and retention, and convert them to multiples of recurring revenue or earnings. Listed technology multiples set an outer limit only: a Tasmanian private company is smaller, cannot be sold as easily and usually leans on fewer customers.
Useful mainly as a floor for an IT services business with equipment and receivables. For a software product, the value of the code shows up in what it earns, so development costs on the balance sheet are not added on top.
This is the step where two valuers of the same software company usually part ways, so every adjustment is written into the body of the report with its reason. For Hobart software and managed IT businesses the usual list is:
Hobart's software businesses rarely share a precinct. Many are remote-first, with a founder in Sandy Bay or the Hobart CBD and engineers working from home across Tasmania, the mainland and overseas, selling to customers who never visit the state. Others grew out of local demand: tools for salmon aquaculture, data work tied to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean science on Castray Esplanade and at Kingston, booking systems for tourism operators, and contracts with Tasmanian Government agencies. Each customer base brings its own contract length and concentration risk, and the valuation reads them separately.
A remote-first structure changes two inputs. Salaries are benchmarked against what it would cost to hire the same skills wherever the business recruits, which for senior engineers is usually a national market rather than a Hobart one. And because a small team may hold most of its product knowledge in two or three heads, the key-person premium is set from evidence: documentation, code ownership, and whether those people are tied to the business by equity or restraints.
For a managed IT provider, hardware and spare parts shipped across Bass Strait add lead time and freight that a buyer will expect to see in the margins. The local client base is made up of small and mid-sized firms: at 30 June 2025 there were 6,940 actively trading businesses in the City of Hobart council area, 4,258 in Clarence, 3,324 in Glenorchy and 2,929 in Kingborough (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2021 to June 2025, released 26 August 2025).
Across Tasmania the count rose by a net 850 actively trading businesses (1.9 per cent) in 2025 to 2026, to 45,094 at 30 June 2026, while nationally professional, scientific and technical services, the ABS division that includes computer system design, grew 3.6 per cent and information media and telecommunications 4.0 per cent (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More firms competing for the same engineers is one reason salary benchmarks are tested against current hiring rather than last year's payroll.
Every report states its purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information relied on, including anything we asked for and did not receive. It then walks through the approaches considered, the method chosen, each normalisation adjustment and its reason, and the reconciliation that turns those results into a range, with the weighting explained in words.
That reconciliation is the first thing an opposing expert reads. In the Supreme Court of Tasmania, expert opinion is governed by Part 19 of the Supreme Court Rules 2000 and the court's Practice Direction No 1 of 2016, which attaches the Expert Witness Code of Conduct, and a report that cannot say why the cohort forecast was preferred to a revenue multiple, or how the company-specific premium was set, will not hold up there or with an investor's adviser. Our reports follow APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and are signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain the opinion under questioning.
Ask which assumption in the forecast you would attack first if you were on the other side, and what the value becomes if it moves. A valuer who has done the work answers straight away.
An Indicative valuation helps a founder decide whether an approach from a mainland buyer deserves a reply, or set an internal price before shares change hands between existing holders. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits a capital raise, an employee share scheme grant or a co-founder buyout. A Detailed report is the right choice for a family law settlement, a shareholder dispute in the Supreme Court of Tasmania or a tax position the ATO may review.
Investors in a later round often ask to see the valuation behind earlier option grants, so a report written for an employee share scheme should assume it will be read by someone sceptical.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.