● Business Valuation Services

Business Valuation Services in Washington, District of Columbia

Raise a round, sell the company, hand equity to the next generation, or answer an examiner – each one turns on a value someone else will test. CountSure delivers independent, defensible valuations for Washington, DC businesses, CVA certified and prepared under Licensed US CPA supervision.

● Why It Matters

The moment you need a number you can defend

Almost no one commissions a valuation out of curiosity – there is usually a date on the calendar. These are the moments a number that holds up actually changes what happens next.

Raising capital

A backer wants your 409A before the term sheet is signed

Washington rounds do not wait around, and a govtech or cyber raise often lands on a compressed schedule. A clean 409A means you can price options and close without a valuation question becoming the thing that holds everyone up.

Selling or merging

A price is on the table and you need footing

Buyer or seller, sitting across from a number you cannot back is a weak place to be. An independent valuation hands you ground the other side cannot simply wave away.

Transferring ownership

Shares are moving to family or into an estate plan

The IRS reads gift and estate filings closely, and a soft number is where it starts pulling. A supportable valuation shields both the transfer and the people counting on it.

Facing an audit

An auditor or examiner wants to see your work

Once the question lands, the report has to answer it on its own. We write ours for exactly the reader most inclined to push back on the conclusion.

None of these quite fit your situation?

Walk us through what is coming up. We will steer you to the valuation that fits – or tell you plainly if you do not need one at all.

● What We Value

Valuation Services We Offer

Eight focused services, each matched to a specific purpose, stage, and standard of value.

Startup Valuation

Defensible valuations for early-stage and venture-backed companies raising capital or issuing equity.

409A Valuation

IRS-compliant fair market value reports for common stock and employee equity grants.

Purchase Price Allocation

Allocation of acquisition consideration across tangible and intangible assets for reporting.

Portfolio Valuation

Audit - ready fair value marks for funds, GPs, and institutional investors.

Intangible Asset Valuation

Valuation of patents, trademarks, customer relationships, and other intangibles.

Merger & Acquisition Valuation

Transaction support and fairness analysis for buy - side and sell - side deals.

Gift & Estate Tax Valuation

IRS-compliant valuations for
wealth transfer, gifting, and estate planning.

Compliance Service Valuation

Ongoing valuation support to keep your business audit ready and compliant.

● Inside the Report

A figure is only as good as what sits behind it

A number is easy. The proof under it is the hard part, and that is where most of our hours go.

For a Washington, DC business, we work past the headline financials to the drivers that actually set value, then pull them into one conclusion you can hold your ground on – whether the reader is a lender, a board, or an examiner.

What you own and owe

Benchmarking against comparable Washington, DC and national transactions and the multiples they traded at.

How you earn

A forward look at cash flow, margins, and whether the earnings are built to last.

Where you can go

A grounded take on growth, room to scale, and where you stand against the competition.

What the market says

Benchmarking against comparable Washington, DC and national transactions and the multiples they traded at.

● How We Get to a Number

Three ways to value a business - and the judgment to weight them

There is no one formula that fits every Washington, DC company. We begin with a simpler question – what really drives value here – and then lean on the approach, or blend of approaches, the evidence actually supports.

Approach 01

Income Approach

Prices the business on the cash it is likely to throw off, discounting projected flows or capitalizing earnings back to present value. It carries most operating companies with steady, readable results and sits behind the bulk of 409A and M&A work – because it pays attention to what a company earns, not just what shows up on its books.

Approach 02

Asset Approach

Works up from the balance sheet – assets marked to fair value, liabilities netted out, landing on net asset value. It takes the lead for holding companies, real-estate- and asset-heavy entities, and businesses whose earnings will not carry a going-concern number. More often than not it establishes the floor: what the business is worth even when the cash flows run thin.

Approach 03

Market Approach

Ties value to what comparable companies and deals have genuinely sold for, pulling multiples from guideline public companies and private transaction data. It comes into its own where believable comparables exist – and the capital region, with steady government services, technology, and association deal flow, tends to supply the evidence this approach needs to rest a number on observed behavior rather than theory.

A number worth defending seldom leans on a single method. We run the approaches that fit your business, weight them against the facts, and reconcile them into one conclusion that stands up in front of an investor, a board, or the IRS.

● Why It Holds Up

Built to be defended, not just delivered

A valuation is really tested on the day someone decides to argue with it. Ours are built for that day, not the quiet ones before it.

Credentialed oversight

Led by Parth Shah, US CPA and Indian FCA. Our valuation practice is CVA certified through NACVA, and every engagement runs under Licensed US CPA supervision, with work credentialed under IBBI and ICAI on the India side.

Recognized methodology

We apply the established income, market, and asset-based approaches the same way every time, so the reasoning is transparent and anyone can follow it.

IRS-aware preparation

Every report is written with IRS expectations in view, giving you clean footing for 409A, gift, estate, and ownership-transfer matters.

Documented to the last assumption

Every conclusion traces back to the input it came from, so the report holds through audit, due diligence, and investor review.

Not the same thing as an asset appraisal

People run these two together all the time. Here is where valuing a business parts ways with appraising one asset, like a building.

	Business Valuation	Asset Appraisal (e.g. Real Estate)
What's valued	The whole operating business - cash flow, intangibles, and where it is headed.	One physical asset, such as a building or a piece of office property.
How	Income (DCF), market (comparable Washington, DC transactions), and asset-based approaches.	Sales comparison, cost, and property-specific income approaches.
Result	A single fair market value for the equity or the enterprise.	An estimated value for the one property or tangible asset in question.

From first call to a report you can use

A defined path with nothing hidden in it, so at every step you know where things stand and what is coming.

We set the brief together

We fix the purpose, the standard of value, and the effective date up front, so the engagement is scoped right from the first day.

You send the data over

Financials, the cap table, and the operating and legal documents we need – all collected through secure channels.

We read the market

We work through Charlotte trends, comparable deals, and the benchmarks that actually apply to your sector.

We settle on the approach

Income, market, or asset-based - whichever the facts call for - applied with the reasoning written down.

We build it and write it up

The model plus a clear, standards-aligned report, assumptions and supporting evidence included.

We stand behind it

We take you through the findings and stay reachable for boards, investors, auditors, and the IRS.

● What to Have Ready

Documents we'll ask you for

Most Washington, DC engagements run on the same short stack. Send what you have – we flag anything missing on the first call.

● What You Get

What you walk away with

Every engagement closes with the same set of working documents, built to be used rather than filed away.

Full written valuation report

The complete analysis: purpose, standard of value, the approaches applied, and the concluded number.

Executive summary

A short version built for boards, buyers, or counsel who need the conclusion without the full read.

Documented methodology and assumptions

The reasoning written out: which approaches we used, how we weighted them, and the inputs behind each.

Supporting exhibits and schedules

The financial analyses, comparable data, and calculations that sit under the conclusion.

A walkthrough call plus audit and reviewer support

We present the findings, then stay reachable when an auditor, investor, or examiner comes back with questions.

● Sector Fluency

Industries We Serve in Washington, DC

What sets value apart varies sector by sector. We shape each analysis around how these Washington, DC industries genuinely earn.

Government Contracting & Consulting

Thousands of firms across the region live on federal task orders, from small disadvantaged-business set-aside holders to mid-tier systems integrators. Value here rests on contract backlog, option-year probability, and recompete risk, so a credible number has to price the pipeline rather than trailing revenue alone.

Cybersecurity & GovTech Software

Venture-backed security, cloud, and public-sector software companies cluster here to sit close to their largest buyer. These firms issue options early and refresh often, which makes a defensible 409A a routine requirement rather than a one-time exercise.

Law Firms & Professional Services

Legal, lobbying, accounting, and policy advisory practices form the District’s densest employment cluster and drive a large share of downtown leasing. Value sits in recurring client relationships and partner books, which is what makes partner buyouts and admissions turn on a supportable number.

Associations & Mission-Driven Organizations

Trade associations, advocacy groups, and their for-profit subsidiaries concentrate in the District at a density no other city matches. Their taxable arms, publishing units, and events businesses regularly need independent valuations for spin-offs, mergers, and related-party transfers.

Healthcare & Biomedical Research

Academic medical centers, specialty physician groups, and federally funded research organizations anchor a steady stream of practice sales and roll-ups. Grant-dependent revenue and referral relationships behave nothing like commercial earnings, and the analysis has to reflect that.

Hospitality & Real Estate Operators

Hotels, restaurant groups, and mixed-use developers ride demand tied to conventions, tourism, and a downtown in the middle of a conversion wave. Where an owner holds the building and runs the business inside it, the two values have to be separated before either one means anything.

● Local Ground Truth

What makes a Washington, DC valuation different

The method is national; the ground it stands on is local. These are the District-specific dynamics a generic template quietly skips.

An economy that turns on federal budgets, not business cycles

Professional and business services account for roughly a quarter of regional output, and much of it traces back to federal procurement rather than commercial demand. That makes appropriations timing, continuing resolutions, and recompete outcomes the real drivers of earnings volatility, so a credible valuation weighs contract backlog and option-year probability instead of treating a single strong year as the run rate.

A downtown mid-reset, with office comparables split by vintage

Overall office vacancy has held above twenty percent for several years while newer trophy space fills and older stock empties, and the District is now one of the country's most active office-to-residential conversion markets. Sale comparables from the two ends of that market are not interchangeable, so for owners whose building and operating business sit under one roof we value the real estate and the enterprise separately before combining anything.

A franchise tax that reaches pass-throughs other states leave alone

The District taxes unincorporated businesses through a franchise tax on net income and treats S corporations as regular corporations, so LLCs and partnerships that would flow through cleanly elsewhere are taxed at the entity level here. Statutory exemptions exist for qualifying personal-service businesses and for certified high-technology companies, which means two similar-looking firms can carry very different effective burdens. The District also levies its own estate tax at a threshold well below the federal exclusion, which pulls family transfers into scope earlier than owners expect.

● Avoid These

Mistakes Washington, DC owners make with valuations

Five patterns we see over and over, each one avoidable with a little lead time.

Waiting until a deal is already on the table

By the time a letter of intent arrives, there is no time left to clean the books or fix the cap table. A valuation produced under deadline pressure reads that way to the other side, and it costs you leverage.

Relying on a rule-of-thumb multiple or an online calculator

A "3x revenue" shortcut ignores margins, customer concentration, and what buyers actually paid for comparable companies. Neither the IRS nor a lender gives it any weight.

Letting a 409A go stale after a round or material event

A new financing, a major contract win, or any material shift resets fair market value. Granting options on last year's number creates tax exposure your employees end up carrying.

Confusing an asset appraisal with a business valuation

Ordering a property appraisal when the deal needs a business valuation leaves the operating company unpriced. In a downtown where older buildings are being repriced for conversion while the businesses inside them keep trading, the two get blended constantly - and the blend muddies both numbers.

Modeling a District pass-through as if it flowed through cleanly

Owners who incorporate an LLC or S corporation here often assume income passes to them untaxed at the entity level, the way it would in most states. The District's franchise tax reaches unincorporated businesses and treats S corporations as regular corporations, subject to specific exemptions, and its estate tax starts below the federal threshold. A model that skips both layers overstates what an owner or a buyer actually keeps.

● The CountSure Difference

Why Choose CountSure?

Any number of firms will hand you a valuation. Here is what changes when Washington, DC owners pick us to prepare it.

Independent, CPA-supervised

CVA certified through NACVA and run under Licensed US CPA supervision - an impartial conclusion that stands up in front of investors, auditors, and the IRS.

One accountable lead

Parth Shah, US CPA, CVA, and Indian FCA, leads the work himself - it is not passed off down a chain. You always know exactly whose name is behind the number.

A full-service partner

The valuation ties into our broader tax, accounting, and advisory work, so the conclusion sits inside the bigger picture rather than off on its own.

Built for the Washington, DC market

We build in the local realities - from federal contract concentration to the District's unincorporated business franchise tax and its treatment of S corporations - that a generic, out-of-market template would skate right past.

● Who We Work With

The people who come to us in Washington, DC

HOW FAST

1 to 2 weeks

is the usual draft turnaround on many standard valuations once your data is in. We lock a firm timeline on the first call, and when a deal, a round, or a filing deadline is setting the pace, we can move faster.

● Where We Work

Across Washington, DC and the metro area

We work with businesses throughout the District and the surrounding region:

● Questions

Valuation questions Washington, DC owners ask us

What usually sends a Washington, DC business looking for a valuation?

Nine times out of ten there is a deal or a date behind it – an acquisition, a raise that needs a 409A, or a gift or estate filing. Bank financing and succession planning bring owners in just as often.

How does the District's tax treatment change what my business is worth?

It changes what an owner keeps, and often the value itself. The District taxes unincorporated businesses and S corporations through the franchise tax at the entity level, which most pass-through models built for other states leave out entirely, and the District also imposes its own estate tax at a threshold below the federal one. We build both layers into the model rather than valuing your company as if it sat anywhere.

Will the report survive the IRS and outside auditors?

That is exactly the bar we write to. Reports are CVA certified, prepared under Licensed US CPA supervision using recognized methodology, with every assumption documented so the work holds up when it is reviewed.

How often should a Washington, DC startup refresh its 409A?

The working rule is once every twelve months – or sooner if something material happens, like a new round or a real shift in the business or its market. For govtech and defense-adjacent companies, a large contract award or a major recompete loss counts as material and should trigger a refresh.

What is the turnaround?

On many standard valuations, a draft lands within a few weeks of your data arriving – and we can compress that when a deadline is setting the pace.

Who actually does the work?

Parth Shah, US CPA and Indian FCA, leads every engagement. Our valuation practice is CVA (Certified Valuation Analyst) certified through NACVA, with US valuations performed under US CPA supervision and work credentialed under IBBI and ICAI on the India side.

Get Started

Put a number you can defend on your Washington, DC business

Bring us the deadline, the deal, or the filing – and we will hand back an independent, audit-ready valuation, prepared under Licensed US CPA supervision, that holds when it actually matters.