Reference library

Useful resources.

The sources we use in our analysis.

Velonix is a financial advisory firm supporting US private equity sponsors, CPA firms and growth-stage companies with white-label Financial Due Diligence, Quality of Earnings analysis, Financial Modeling and fractional CFO support. The sources below are the ones our team works from on live engagements. Each entry notes what the source is and precisely where it enters our workflow.

Sources

Quality of Earnings and Financial Due Diligence

Sources we rely on when testing a target's reported earnings, working capital and revenue quality.

SEC EDGAR

sec.gov/edgar

What it is: The Securities and Exchange Commission's full-text database of every filing made by US public companies, searchable back more than twenty years.
Where we use it: EDGAR is our first stop on any buy-side Financial Due Diligence engagement. We use it to benchmark a target's revenue recognition policies, working capital cycles and EBITDA adjustments against public comparables in the same NAICS sector, and to confirm that a proposed add-back is consistent with how listed peers in that industry actually present the same item.

Financial Due DiligenceQuality of Earnings

FASB Accounting Standards Codification

asc.fasb.org

What it is: The authoritative source of US GAAP. The Basic View is free with registration.
Where we use it: Most Quality of Earnings findings we surface trace back to three standards: ASC 606 on revenue recognition, ASC 842 on leases and ASC 805 on business combinations. When we challenge a target's cut-off, deferred revenue balance or breakage assumption, the Codification is what we cite in the report so the finding holds up with the buyer's audit firm.

Quality of EarningsFinancial Reporting

Bureau of Labor Statistics

bls.gov

What it is: Official US statistics on consumer prices, producer prices, employment and wages.
Where we use it: CPI and PPI series are essential for normalizing a target's cost base in a QoE analysis. Separating genuine margin improvement from input-price inflation is one of the most contested areas of any diligence report, and BLS data is what makes that adjustment defensible to a deal team. We also use wage indices when assessing whether a target's labor cost run-rate is sustainable post-close.

Quality of EarningsCost Normalization

USASpending.gov

usaspending.gov

What it is: The US federal government's open database of contract awards, obligations and outlays.
Where we use it: An underused diligence tool for government-contractor targets. Contract award history, obligation schedules and option-year exercises let us test revenue concentration, backlog quality and re-compete risk before the data room even opens, often surfacing customer concentration issues the seller's CIM has smoothed over.

Financial Due DiligenceRevenue Quality

Sources

Valuation and Financial Modeling

Inputs behind the discount rates, comparables and assumptions in every model we build.

Damodaran Online: Current Data

pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar

What it is: Aswath Damodaran's freely published dataset covering industry betas, implied equity risk premiums, sector margins and trading multiples. Refreshed each January.
Where we use it: This is the practitioner's standard for cost of capital inputs in DCF modeling, and we reference it in nearly every three-statement financial model we build. Industry unlevered betas drive our re-levering calculations; sector margin and multiple benchmarks give us a sanity check on management's projections before we take a model to an investment committee.

Financial ModelingValuation

Damodaran: Country Risk Premiums

pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar

What it is: Country default spreads and adjusted equity risk premiums by jurisdiction, updated annually.
Where we use it: Applied on cross-border valuations and for targets with material international revenue exposure. Where a US-headquartered business earns a meaningful share of revenue offshore, we weight the equity risk premium by revenue source rather than by country of incorporation, and this table is what makes that possible.

ValuationCross-Border Advisory

US Treasury Yield Curve Rates

home.treasury.gov

What it is: Daily par yield curve rates published by the US Department of the Treasury across the full maturity spectrum.
Where we use it: The risk-free rate underpinning every discount rate we build. We match the maturity to the projection horizon rather than defaulting to the ten-year, and we date-stamp the rate used so that a model reviewed months later can be reconciled to the assumptions in force on the valuation date.

ValuationFinancial Modeling

FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data

fred.stlouisfed.org

What it is: The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis maintains over 800,000 economic time series in one searchable database.
Where we use it: We pull SOFR, Treasury spreads and sector output indices directly into financial models to keep assumptions grounded in observable data rather than plug figures. For debt schedules in an LBO or refinancing model, FRED's rate series let us build floating-rate forecasts that a lender will recognize.

Financial ModelingFP&A

Sources

Fractional CFO and Multi-State Tax Exposure

References we use when assessing state-level obligations, frequently the largest contingent liability in a lower-middle-market deal.

Federation of Tax Administrators: State Tax Agencies

taxadmin.org

What it is: A single directory linking directly to the revenue department of every US state.
Where we use it: Indispensable for multi-state nexus questions, state apportionment reviews and identifying unrecorded sales and use tax exposure. Rather than relying on secondary summaries, we go to the governing state authority for rate and filing-threshold confirmation, which matters when a finding will be quantified as a purchase price adjustment.

Fractional CFOTax Due Diligence

Multistate Tax Commission

mtc.gov

What it is: An intergovernmental agency publishing guidance on nexus standards, income apportionment and UDITPA.
Where we use it: Our reference point when a target operates across state lines and its historical apportionment methodology needs testing. Particularly relevant where a company has grown through remote hiring and has created income tax nexus in states where it has never filed.

Tax Due DiligenceCFO Advisory

Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board

streamlinedsalestax.org

What it is: Economic nexus thresholds and registration requirements by state, established in the wake of South Dakota v. Wayfair.
Where we use it: For SaaS and e-commerce targets, uncollected sales tax is frequently the single largest Quality of Earnings adjustment we identify. We use these thresholds to model historical exposure state by state and quantify the escrow or indemnity the buyer should be seeking.

Quality of EarningsSaaS and E-Commerce Diligence

Sources

Startup and Growth Advisory

Benchmarks we share with founders and sponsors when there is no clean public comparable.

Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report

bschool.pepperdine.edu

What it is: Free annual survey research on private-company cost of capital and expected returns segmented by capital provider.
Where we use it: One of the very few credible public benchmarks for valuing businesses that sit below the public-comparable threshold. We use it when advising founders on what a realistic cost of capital looks like for a company at their revenue scale, and to temper valuation expectations before a process begins.

Startup AdvisoryValuation

PitchBook Research Reports

pitchbook.com/news/reports

What it is: Quarterly US private equity and venture capital breakdowns covering deal volumes, median multiples and exit activity. The published report library is free.
Where we use it: Useful context for founders benchmarking a raise and for sponsors sizing a market. We reference median EV/EBITDA multiples by sector and deal size when framing a valuation range in an advisory memo, and quote the source explicitly so the client can see the basis rather than take our word for it.

Startup AdvisoryMarket Benchmarking

Discuss your requirements with our team

Schedule a consultationOr write to hello@velonix.ai