AvePoint, Inc. (AVPT): what the price requires
At today's price, AvePoint, Inc. (AVPT) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~14.8 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/AVPT
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | AVPT |
| Company | AvePoint, Inc. |
| Current price | $12.60/sh |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin today | 7.4% |
| Must persist for | 14.8y |
| Multiple paid | 72x operating income |
Solve inputs: computed at a 10.2% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2.4 years.
How unusual the bet is: high
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| cohort percentile (of 177 peers) | 94 |
| sustained it ~10 years at this level | 15% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 5.23x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 2.24x | 4 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.68x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.74x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=17)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $21.95 | 0.57x | yes | FCF base $0.1B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.2%, 7yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $16.38 | 0.77x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 56.0x / 58.0x / 60.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $9.49 | 1.33x | yes | P/E 42.84x (blended: static sector reference 35x + trailing (TTM) 61x), scenarios: 34.5x / 42.8x / 51.2x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 34.89x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $2.23 | 5.65x | yes | BV/sh $1.94, ROE (TTM) 10.6%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $2.38 | 5.29x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $17.07 | 0.74x | yes | Rev $0.4B, growth 27% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 5.2x / 6.4x / 7.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $2.40 | 5.25x | yes | EPS $0.20, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=30.56 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | $2.41 | 5.23x | yes | BV $1.94 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 10.6% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 6.9%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $2.96 | 4.26x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $0.20 × BVPS $1.94) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $6.41 | 1.97x | yes | EBITDA $0.04B × sector EV/EBITDA 25.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $6.76 | 1.86x | yes | FCF $105.6M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $4.99 | 2.53x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.07B (FCF $0.11B − SBC $0.04B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $6.45 | 1.95x | yes | EPS $0.20 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $4.80 | 2.63x | yes | BV $1.94 × (ROIC 22.7% / WACC 9.2%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $15.70 | 0.80x | yes | Revenue $0.44B × sector P/S 8.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $7.50 | 1.68x | yes | EPS $0.20 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $2.16 | 5.83x | yes | EPS $0.20 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net cash | $444.5m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -15.43x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -14.23x (net cash) |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 5.5% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- AvePoint sells data governance, backup, and security software that runs on top of Microsoft 365 and other collaboration clouds, and its recurring base keeps compounding: SaaS revenue grew 35% in Q1 2026 to $93.4 million and annual recurring revenue reached $435.2 million, up 26%.
- The catch is the price: only the forward-growth methods reach today's level, while asset value, earnings power, and peer multiples all read the stock as expensive, so the entire valuation rests on the growth assumption holding.
- The company carries roughly $444 million of net cash and no meaningful debt, and it raised full-year 2026 ARR guidance to $523.4-$529.4 million, about 26% growth at the midpoint.
Bull Case
Begin where the methods disagree, because that disagreement is the bull thesis. AvePoint's price sits above where three of the four families of valuation method land, and only the forward-growth methods reach it. The earnings-power lens, which capitalizes today's profit without crediting future growth, places the stock at roughly half the price; the asset-value lens sits far lower; peer multiples read it as expensive too. The growth-DCF is the only frame that arrives at today's level, and it does so by extending the recent compounding forward. The bull case is the wager that the growth frame is the correct one, and the recent prints are the evidence for it. Revenue rose 26% in Q1 2026 to $117.2 million, SaaS revenue grew 35%, and the company marked its twelfth consecutive quarter of double-digit organic net new ARR growth.
The durability of that growth rests on where AvePoint sits in the stack. It is not a standalone application competing for a budget line; it is a governance and protection layer that lives on top of Microsoft 365, and the 10-K is candid that its value "depend largely on our ability to integrate our platform with third-party solutions", with customer satisfaction "contingent on their perception of, and satisfaction with" those partner solutions. That dependence cuts both ways, but on the bull side it is a moat: as enterprises pour more data into collaboration clouds and pile generative-AI tools on top, the governance problem AvePoint solves grows with the data, and the 10-K describes a market "characterized by the exponential growth in data generated and managed by enterprises". The shift toward recurring revenue is structural, not cosmetic: the filing notes SaaS growth came as "term license and support and maintenance revenue" declined by design, trading lumpy license sales for a base recognized ratably over the contract.
The balance sheet gives the growth story room to run without external financing. AvePoint holds roughly $444 million of net cash against negligible debt, and it is not burning cash; non-GAAP operating margin expanded to 17.5% in Q1 from 14.4% a year earlier. A profitable, net-cash software company growing the recurring base in the mid-twenties does not need to dilute or borrow to keep investing, which is what lets the forward-growth case stay intact rather than being undercut by a financing overhang. The analysts who initiated coverage credit exactly this: Morgan Stanley opened at Overweight, calling AvePoint an underappreciated data-security name with strong Microsoft alignment and exposure to rising generative-AI spending.
Bear Case
The bear case starts with the company AvePoint is built on top of. Microsoft is both the platform and the largest latent competitor: every governance, backup, and security feature AvePoint sells is a feature Microsoft could fold into Microsoft 365 natively, and when it does, the third-party layer becomes redundant. Beyond Microsoft, the data-protection field is crowded with capable specialists. Veeam, Druva, Acronis, and Cove all compete for the same backup-and-protection budgets, several rated as highly as AvePoint in independent reviews. The 10-K does not pretend otherwise; it warns that AvePoint's offerings "may become less competitive" in a market shaped by "rapid technological advances, changes in customer requirements". A layer that sits on someone else's platform is always one product release away from being absorbed.
That competitive exposure matters more here because of what the price requires. At today's level the market is paying for AvePoint to compound operating income at a high rate for roughly a decade, and the company earns a thin operating margin today, under 10% on a trailing basis. The gap between a sub-10% margin now and the sustained compounding the price embeds is the bet, and it is a long one. If the growth assumption mean-reverts toward something more ordinary, the multiple it supports compresses hard, because the price already trades at roughly 75 times its blended earnings base. There is no value-method cushion under it: when only the growth-DCF reaches the price and the earnings, asset, and peer-multiple methods all sit well below, a stumble in growth has nothing to fall back on.
The third weight is on the cost side and the share count. AvePoint's reported share count has been rising, growing about 5.5% a year, which is dilution the bull case has to clear, and a familiar pattern for a software company funding growth partly through stock-based compensation. The recent margin expansion is encouraging, but a 17.5% non-GAAP operating margin still leaves the company a long way from the steady-state profitability the price assumes it reaches. Add the macro overhang management itself flagged: a strengthening dollar created an FX headwind that offset part of the ARR raise in the full-year guide. None of these is fatal on its own. Together they describe a stock priced for a decade of clean execution by a small company building on a giant's platform, where the giant is also the most plausible disruptor.
Valuation
The price embeds a specific bet, and it is worth stating before any multiple. At today's level the market is paying for AvePoint to keep compounding operating income at a high-twenties pace for roughly a decade, from a starting operating margin under 10%. That is a long runway of sustained acceleration demanded of a business still early in its profitability ramp, and the reference points underline how unusual that persistence is: a compounding run that long has held in only a minority of comparable fast-growers.
The four families of method split cleanly, and the split is the whole story. Only the forward-growth methods reach the price. The earnings-power methods, which value today's cash generation without crediting future growth, land at roughly half the price; the peer-multiple lens reads the stock as expensive against a software cohort that includes names like Commvault and Guidewire; the asset-value lens sits lower still. Only the growth-DCF, which credits the forward compounding by construction, arrives at today's level. So this is not a value read and not a turnaround. It is a durability premium: the price is a bet on growth the static frames structurally cannot price, and the spread between the growth family and everything else is the size of that bet.
Solvency takes the balance sheet off the table and leaves the question squarely on growth. AvePoint holds roughly $444 million of net cash and effectively no debt, and it is generating, not consuming, cash; the recurring SaaS base recognized ratably over each contract gives the revenue line visibility a license-driven model would lack. The downside here is not insolvency. It is multiple compression: a stock at roughly 75 times its blended earnings base, with no valuation family beneath the growth methods to catch it, has a long way to fall if the decade of compounding the price assumes arrives slower than the market expects.
Catalysts
The most recent print reset the bar upward. Q1 2026 revenue rose 26% to $117.2 million with SaaS up 35%, GAAP operating income climbed to $12.7 million, and the company raised full-year ARR guidance to $523.4-$529.4 million, roughly 26% growth at the midpoint, while guiding total revenue to $509.4-$515.4 million. The qualifier management attached matters for the next quarter: the CFO flagged a continuing currency headwind from a stronger dollar, with incremental FX drag built into the full-year guide offsetting part of the ARR raise. So the next read is whether constant-currency ARR growth holds in the mid-twenties even as reported revenue absorbs the FX hit.
Coverage has turned constructive. Morgan Stanley initiated at Overweight with a $23.70 target, framing AvePoint as an underappreciated data-security play with Microsoft alignment and generative-AI tailwinds; DA Davidson opened at Buy with a $20 target; B. Riley opened at Buy with a $25 target. The street's average one-year target sits near $21, well above where the trailing-lens valuation methods land, and the difference is precisely the forward growth those analysts credit. The watch item underneath all of it is competitive: whether Microsoft's native governance and protection capabilities expand into AvePoint's territory, and whether the twelve-quarter streak of double-digit net new ARR growth survives a broader, more contested data-protection market.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
SaaS Data Management Platform (reported)
- CVLT (Commvault Systems, Inc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- NTNX (NUTANIX, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BOX (Box, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- DBX (Dropbox, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GWRE (Guidewire Software, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- QTWO (Q2 Holdings, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- APPF (AppFolio, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SPSC (SPS COMMERCE, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
AVPT Q1 2026 earnings release · Morgan Stanley initiation, 2026 · G2 and Gartner Peer Insights, 2026 · AVPT Q1 2026 earnings call · analyst initiations, 2026