Research

The Intelligence Yield Curve™

A quantitative framework for measuring how fast a company learns, and what that learning is worth.

AI is a commodity input. The model is no longer the moat. The moat is the rate at which a company compounds intelligence from its own data. The Intelligence Yield Curve measures that rate, and connects it directly to enterprise value.

The gap the market is mispricing

AI startups captured 50–61% of global venture capital in 2025 (OECD, Crunchbase, PitchBook). Fewer than 1% of companies have actually achieved advanced AI maturity by structured assessment (ServiceNow Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2025). That spread is systematic mispricing on a multi-trillion-dollar scale: the market is pricing the label, not the substance.

A single coefficient

The IYC answers one question: does this company compound intelligence faster than its competitors? It produces a single coefficient, beta, the Intelligence Yield Coefficient™, describing the steepness of a company's learning curve. Beta maps directly to implied EV/Revenue multiples and to forward compounding projections. Companies sit on a curve from the flat zone, through an elbow, into the compounding zone, scored by the Intelligence Yield Index (IYI, 0–5).

The five dimensions: DIFHA™

  • Data Depth — how much proprietary data the company captures through normal operations, and how structured and accessible it is.
  • Intelligence Reinforcement — the speed of the feedback loop from outcomes back to model improvement.
  • Feedback Frequency — how often the system receives and processes outcome data: real-time, batch, or manual.
  • Human-AI Integration — how effectively people and AI co-train each other within the workflow.
  • Adoption Breadth — breadth of real usage across customers, teams, use cases and partners.

CAPM, restated for the AI era

The formula structure deliberately parallels the Capital Asset Pricing Model. In CAPM, expected return decomposes into a risk-free baseline plus a risk premium scaled by market beta. In the IYC, enterprise value decomposes into a sector baseline plus an intelligence premium scaled by intelligence beta. Same architecture, new inputs. When a fund manager asks what a company's beta is, the IYC reframes the question from how volatile the stock is to how fast the company learns.

Illustrative result: same revenue, different intelligence

Company ACompany B
RevenueUSD 50mUSD 50m
IYI Score1.53.6
Beta0.591.69
Implied EV/Revenue2.1x9.5x
Implied EVUSD 105mUSD 475m

Identical revenue. A 4.5x valuation gap. The gap is the difference in intelligence compounding. Illustrative figures from the published primer.

Applying the framework

The full working paper is on SSRN. The applied diagnostics, a 15-question Quick Score for founders and a 75-question portfolio diagnostic for investors, are run through 47X Group, the platform's operating partner. Professional clients can request the methodology and source documents directly.

Read the paper on SSRN Request a diagnostic

Published by Xavier J. R. Kris, CEO of IMX Funds Limited (ADGM) and founder of 47X Group, March 2026. The IYC, the Intelligence Yield Coefficient, IYI and DIFHA are proprietary to Xavier J. R. Kris, IMX Funds Limited, and 47X Group. Provided for informational purposes only. Not investment advice.

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