Software companies are pouring record money into R&D, and AI has turned that spend into a running meter. Financial statements show what was spent, not what it earned, so investors and boards can't tell winners from cash burners.
That blind spot is where the next decade's software wealth gets made or lost. Whoever sees R&D return first backs the compounders and avoids the burners.
We grade 251 public software companies on one scale, the R&D Return Score (AAA–D), built only from SEC filings, and rank every company on Ratings v3 (0–100).
Every note pairs a primary-filing thesis with live Ratings v3 scores and direct 1-click entry into the 3-statement financial model.
ServiceNow's third quarter tests a question we parked: will superintelligence agents replace the seats software companies charge for? On this print, no. Agents are adding dollars on top of seats, renewals held at 98%, and the CFO says customers are not asking for outcome pricing.
At its Investor Day on Oct 28, Oracle capped new money at $20B through fiscal 2030 and said new contracts will not need incremental capital from Oracle. Both promises leave out leases.
Varonis is being taken private. On Oct 15, 2026 it signed an all-cash merger with Proofpoint, a Thoma Bravo portfolio company, valued at about $6.3B and expected to close in the first half of 2027.
The headline metric in Anthropic's S-1 is Net Revenue Retention of approximately 900%. Read with its definition, a one-quarter base, a $1 entry bar and revenue growth of 1,300%, it mostly measures how fast the whole business grew, not how firmly customers are committed.
Every covered software company is evaluated through one standardized framework: quarterly financial statements and 5-year DCF models, published research pieces, and a single R&D Return rating formula.
Clean, scannable quarterly fundamentals, 6 core operating KPIs, explicit 5-year unlevered cash flow schedules, and WACC sensitivity matrices.
Published software equity research pieces, Stock Profile hubs (/research/[ticker]), catalyst notes, and valuation teardowns with quantified operating value levers across the coverage universe.
One unified Ratings v3 (0–100) formula combining 45% R&D Spend + 35% Net Profit + 20% 1-Yr Payback (Leader to Laggard), 3-factor percentile ranks, and 1-year lagged R&D Return grades (AAA–D).
