2023 is now behind us, and it is time to conclude the year and look into 2024. After a strong year-end stock market rally following declining interest rates and expectations of massive cuts by the central banks in 2024, the rally has primarily been observed across the larger software companies. Across approx. 80 US-listed SaaS companies, the median return was +40% in 2023 (source: Clouded Judgement). 

However, this positive momentum has not been seen across the Danish SaaS sector yet, as the median return was -20% in 2023 based on the current listings (note that good performers such as SimCorp and Digizuite are not included, as these were acquired at a share price premium and relatively high valuation multiples). However, some analysts expect that the smaller and medium-sized companies will rebound in 2024 with the increasing risk appetite and valuation gap to the larger companies. This could be positive for the Danish SaaS sector, primarily consisting of smaller and medium-sized companies, after hitting a median ARR multiple of 3.0x by the end of 2023 (vs. 6.9x ARR for the US SaaS sector by the end of November 2023 – the ARR multiple from The SaaS Capital Index for end December 2023 is not updated yet, but this number may have increased in December 2023). By the end of 2023, some stocks in the Danish SaaS sector may also have been under short-term pressure due to tax-loss harvesting.