Motive vs. Samsara: Using Scout AI to Build an IPO Model in Minutes

Motive Technologies filed its S-1 on December 23rd with the formal roadshow kicking off this week. Motive (MTVE on the NYSE) is a software automation platform for the “physical economy,” a dramatically underinvested vertical (only 30% of global venture capital funding since 2015). Their software allows transportation companies to track and improve driver safety and manage fleets more efficiently.

Motive’s 4 core elements are- (1) Driver Safety- GPS devices to increase safety and lower insurance costs. (2) Fleet Tracking/Compliance to meet regulatory requirements. (3) Spend Management and (4) Maintenance to reduce downtime.

I decided to put Daloopa’s new Scout AI Excel agent to the test. Could I build a model for an IPO filing and benchmark it against its publicly traded competitor, Samsara, in the time it used to take just to locate the key data points in the S-1?

The Setup: A Real-Time IPO Analysis Problem

The obvious takeaway is that Motive has solid but hardly spectacular metrics, especially vis-à-vis Samsara. $327.3 million in revenue through Q3’25, up 22% year-over-year. ARR exceeding $500 million up 28% year over year. A 70% gross margin, despite having a hardware segment that basically breaks even. Operating losses are considerable but it is unclear how much was ramped up ahead of the IPO.

Samsara (NYSE: IOT) is the 800-pound gorilla in this space, with $1.75 billion in ARR, 29% growth, and as of Q3 FY2026, 77% gross margins and actual GAAP profitability.

Manually pulling the relevant metrics from Motive’s 200+ page S-1, cross-referencing Samsara’s 10-Q, and building a comparable model would normally take a full day. Scout did it in about 5 minutes.

What Scout Built

I prompted Scout to build a revenue model with key metrics. Then I asked it to run the same framework for Samsara and generate a side-by-side comparison.

Here’s what jumped out:

Revenue & Growth

Samsara is roughly 3.5x Motive’s scale on an ARR basis, growing faster than Motive, albeit decelerating from 35% a year ago to 29% y/y vs. 22% for Motive.

Profitability

Samsara has much higher gross margins at 78% and just reached GAAP profitability in the September quarter, while Motive’s gross and operating margins stand at 70% and low -20%’s, respectively. The focus of the roadshow will clearly be on accelerating revenue growth and its implications for improving cash burn.

Customer Metrics

Motive is earlier in its enterprise journey, but the trajectory is promising. Large customers grew 58% year-over-year and now represent 37% of ARR, up from 28% a year ago. Samsara’s large customer cohort is more mature, they crossed $1 billion in ARR from $100K+ customers alone this quarter.

The Valuation Question

Samsara trades at roughly 12-13x forward ARR, with a current ~$22 billion market cap. Given the slower growth on a smaller base and cash burn, it will clearly trade at a discount, likely in the mid to high single digits forward ARR, with the discount depending on the messaging from management and Q4’25 results, most importantly 2026 full year guidance.

The Bottom Line

Motive is a legitimate competitor to Samsara with a real product, real customers, and a real growth story. But it’s also a company that needs to prove it can get to profitability without destroying the growth engine. The S-1 gives you all the building blocks to model that path, Scout just removes the friction of actually building the model.

Scout helped me get a quick overview and model structure in minutes, rather than days, allowing me more time to drill into key competitive and margin analyses.