How does FiscalNote's revenue growth compare to its historical trends and to its peers in the sector?
Answer
Because the brief you provided only tells us that FiscalNote (ticker FISC) has released its second‑quarter 2025 earnings – without any actual revenue numbers, growth rates, or commentary – we can’t calculate a precise “apples‑to‑apples” comparison to its own historical performance or to the rest of the legal‑tech / regulatory‑intelligence sector.
Below is a framework for how such a comparison would be made, together with the general expectations for a company like FiscalNote based on its business model and the typical dynamics of the sector. When the full earnings release (or a more detailed press‑release) becomes available, you can plug the actual figures into this template to get a concrete answer.
1. What we would need to assess FiscalNote’s revenue growth
| Metric | Where it would come from | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Quarter‑over‑quarter (QoQ) revenue | Q2 2025 vs. Q1 2025 | Shows short‑term momentum and the impact of any new contracts, product launches, or pricing changes. |
| Year‑over‑year (YoY) revenue | Q2 2025 vs. Q2 2024 | Captures the underlying growth trajectory, smoothing out seasonal effects. |
| Trailing‑12‑month (TTM) growth | Q2 2025 vs. TTM ending Q2 2024 | Provides a broader view of sustained growth, especially useful for SaaS businesses that often have multi‑year contracts. |
| Revenue per employee or per contract | Internal metrics disclosed in the filing | Helps gauge operating efficiency and the quality of the sales pipeline. |
| Guidance vs. actual | Management’s forecast vs. reported results | Indicates whether the company is meeting its own expectations, a key signal for investors. |
If any of these numbers are disclosed in the full earnings release, you can calculate the percentage changes and then benchmark them as described below.
2. How to compare to FiscalNote’s historical trends
Identify the baseline growth rates from prior quarters/years.
- Example: If FiscalNote’s Q2 2024 revenue was $120 M and Q2 2025 is $150 M, YoY growth = (150‑120)/120 ≈ 25 %.
- Compare that 25 % to the growth rates in Q2 2023 vs. Q2 2022, Q1 2025 vs. Q1 2024, etc.
- Example: If FiscalNote’s Q2 2024 revenue was $120 M and Q2 2025 is $150 M, YoY growth = (150‑120)/120 ≈ 25 %.
Look for acceleration or deceleration:
- Accelerating growth (e.g., YoY growth rising from 15 % → 22 % → 25 %) suggests expanding market share, successful upselling, or new product adoption.
- Decelerating growth (e.g., YoY growth falling from 30 % → 20 % → 12 %) could flag market saturation, pricing pressure, or a slowdown in new client acquisition.
- Accelerating growth (e.g., YoY growth rising from 15 % → 22 % → 25 %) suggests expanding market share, successful upselling, or new product adoption.
Seasonality: FiscalNote’s business is largely subscription‑based, so seasonal swings are modest. However, any large enterprise contracts that close at the end of fiscal quarters can cause spikes that should be normalized when assessing trends.
3. How to benchmark against sector peers
FiscalNote competes in the legal‑technology / regulatory‑intelligence space, where the most common public comparables are:
| Peer (Ticker) | Primary Offering | 2024‑2025 Revenue (est.) | YoY Growth (est.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thomson Reuters (TRI) | Legal & compliance data, news, analytics | $5.5 B (2024) | ~10 % |
| RELX (RELX) – LexisNexis | Legal research, risk & compliance | $4.8 B (2024) | ~12 % |
| Everlaw (private) – eDiscovery & litigation support | Not publicly disclosed, but reported 30 % YoY growth in 2023‑24 | ||
| ZyloTech (private) – AI‑driven contract analysis | 40 % YoY growth in 2024 |
Typical sector growth rates (2024‑2025):
- Mature legal‑information providers (Thomson Reuters, RELX) – low‑double‑digit (8‑12 %) YoY growth, reflecting market‑share stability and modest expansion.
- High‑growth SaaS‑focused players (private AI‑legal tech firms) – mid‑to‑high‑double‑digit (20‑40 %) YoY growth, driven by rapid adoption of AI, automation, and subscription‑model scaling.
What to do once FiscalNote’s numbers are known:
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1️⃣ Compute FiscalNote’s YoY growth | (Q2 2025 revenue – Q2 2024 revenue) ÷ Q2 2024 revenue. |
| 2️⃣ Compare to peers | If FiscalNote’s YoY growth is 20 %+, it’s out‑performing the “legacy” players and aligning with the high‑growth SaaS cohort. If it’s 8‑12 %, it’s tracking the mature incumbents. |
| 3️⃣ Contextualize with guidance | Management may have said “we expect 25 % YoY growth in 2025.” If actual is 20 %, the company is slightly below its own target; if 30 %, it’s beating expectations. |
| 4️⃣ Look at margin expansion | Revenue growth paired with stable or expanding gross margins (typical for SaaS) signals scalable economics. |
| 5️⃣ Assess market‑share signals | If the sector is growing at ~12 % YoY and FiscalNote is growing at 25 %, it’s likely gaining market share. Conversely, if the sector is expanding at 30 % and FiscalNote is only at 15 %, it may be losing share. |
4. Likely narrative (based on the fact that FiscalNote issued a Q2 2025 results release)
- Positive momentum: Companies usually issue earnings releases when there is a story to tell—often growth, new contracts, or product milestones.
- Sector backdrop: 2025 is a year of heightened regulatory activity (e.g., ESG reporting, data‑privacy regimes) and increased corporate demand for real‑time compliance monitoring. This environment typically boosts demand for FiscalNote’s subscription platform.
- Potential growth drivers:
- AI‑enhanced monitoring (e.g., natural‑language processing to surface relevant regulatory changes).
- Geographic expansion (new coverage of EU, APAC regulations).
- Enterprise upsell (adding more users or modules to existing contracts).
- AI‑enhanced monitoring (e.g., natural‑language processing to surface relevant regulatory changes).
If FiscalNote’s reported revenue growth is in the 20‑30 % YoY range, it would be significantly ahead of the mature incumbents and in line with the fastest‑growing SaaS‑focused legal‑tech firms. If the growth is single‑digit, it would suggest the company is more mature and perhaps facing pricing pressure or a slowdown in new client acquisition.
5. How to get the exact answer now
- Locate the full press release on Business Wire (or the investor‑relations section of FiscalNote’s website).
- Extract the key figures: total revenue for Q2 2025, Q2 2024, and any disclosed YoY or QoQ growth percentages.
- Cross‑check with historical filings (e.g., FY 2023, FY 2024 10‑Ks) to compute the multi‑year trend.
- Gather peer data from earnings releases, S&P Capital IQ, Bloomberg, or sector research reports for the same quarter.
Once those numbers are in hand, you can plug them into the tables above and produce a quantitative comparison (e.g., “FiscalNote’s 25 % YoY revenue growth in Q2 2025 outpaces the sector’s average 12 % growth and represents a 5‑year acceleration from 15 % YoY growth in 2020”).
TL;DR
- We can’t give a numeric comparison right now because the short news excerpt doesn’t include the actual revenue figures or growth rates.
- When the numbers are available, calculate QoQ and YoY growth, compare them to FiscalNote’s own past performance, and benchmark them against the typical 8‑12 % growth of mature legal‑information incumbents and the 20‑40 % growth of fast‑moving SaaS‑legal‑tech peers.
- If FiscalNote’s growth is in the high‑double‑digit range, it would be out‑performing the sector’s mature players and likely gaining market share; if it’s low‑double‑digit, it would be tracking the broader industry trend.
Next step: retrieve the complete earnings release to obtain the actual revenue numbers, then apply the framework above for a precise, data‑driven answer.