Share count
180Mpeak FY2025
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ALAB, Astera Labs Inc.
Astera Labs is a global semiconductor company that provides hardware and software solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure applications to solve data, memory, and networking bottlenecks.
Building on years of experience with a singular focus on addressing connectivity challenges in data-centric systems, we have developed and deployed our leading Intelligent Connectivity Platform built from the ground up for cloud and AI infrastructure.
Our Intelligent Connectivity Platform comprises of semiconductor-based, high-speed, mixed-signal connectivity products that integrate a matrix of microcontrollers and sensors, and COSMOS, our software suite, which is embedded in our connectivity products and integrated into our customers' systems.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$853M
+115.1% YoY · 120% 3-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 4-yr average
Revenue $1.0B 4-yr avg $361M
Revenue $308M +93.4% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 20.1% yr-ago 7.1%
Net income $80M yr-ago $32M
Net margin 26.0% yr-ago 20.0%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Net current asset value. Current assets alone exceed every liability combined, and the surplus is most of the balance sheet: the shape Graham called a net-net.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has reached 20% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −29%) on a 73% gross margin — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Stock-based pay runs about 19% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on process leadership and the capex cycle. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →97% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
Revenue by geography, FY2025
- Singapore32%$277M
- China30%$256M
- Taiwan29%$247M
- International5%$44M
- United States3%$27M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2022–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||
| $80M | $116M | $396M | $853M | $1.0B | RevenueRevenue |
| 73% | 69% | 76% | 76% | 76% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 26% | 14% | 24% | 10% | 9% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 92% | 63% | 51% | 36% | 36% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($60M) | ($29M) | ($116M) | $173M | $224M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −75.4% | −25.5% | −29.3% | 20.3% | 22.4% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($58M) | ($26M) | ($83M) | $219M | $268M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | — | -0% | 1% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||
| ($36M) | ($13M) | $137M | $319M | $383M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $807K | $2M | $3M | $7M | $9M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($9M) | $1M | ($18M) | ($67M) | ($60M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $4M | $3M | $34M | $38M | $41M | CapexCapex |
| 4.8% | 2.4% | 8.6% | 4.4% | 4.1% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($37M) | ($14M) | $134M | $312M | $374M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −46.0% | −12.5% | 33.7% | 36.7% | 37.3% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($40M) | ($15M) | $102M | $282M | $343M | Free cash flowFCF |
| −49.8% | −13.4% | 25.8% | 33.1% | 34.2% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| — | $0 | $0 | $29M | $94M | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $313K | $210K | $1M | $0 | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| — | — | -10% | 14% | 17% | ROICROIC |
| — | — | -9% | 16% | 18% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | −9% | 16% | 18% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||
| $76M | $45M | $80M | $168M | $148M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $8M | $39M | $83M | $135M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $24M | $43M | $59M | $60M | InventoryInvent. |
| — | $6M | $27M | $42M | $56M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $26M | $55M | $100M | $139M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $186M | $1.0B | $1.4B | $1.4B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $35M | $87M | $133M | $125M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 5.3× | 11.7× | 10.2× | 11.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| — | $196M | $1.1B | $1.5B | $1.7B | Total assetsAssets |
| ($76M) | ($45M) | ($80M) | ($168M) | ($148M) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| ($85M) | ($98M) | $965M | $1.4B | $1.5B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 37.9% | 9.2% | 59.2% | 18.8% | 16.6% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||
| 34.2M | 37.1M | 131M | 180M | 181M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $2.34 | $3.12 | $3.02 | $4.75 | $5.53 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-1.71 | $-0.71 | $-0.64 | $1.22 | $1.48 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-1.07 | $-0.39 | $1.02 | $1.74 | $2.06 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-1.16 | $-0.42 | $0.78 | $1.57 | $1.89 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.11 | $0.07 | $0.26 | $0.21 | $0.22 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $-2.50 | $-2.63 | $7.35 | $7.59 | $8.25 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×3.54 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 3-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +26.6%/yr | +26.6%/yr (3-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | +22.6%/yr | +22.6%/yr (3-yr) |
The record, charted
FY2022–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Gross margin
76%low FY2023
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$312Mowner earningsvs.$219Mnet incomelow FY2022
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business earned $312M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $7M it takes just to hold its position. It put $31M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $282M.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $219M | ($83M) | ($26M) | ($58M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$7M | +$3M | +$2M | +$807K |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$160M | +$235M | +$11M | +$30M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$67M | −$18M | +$1M | −$9M |
| Cash from operations | $319M | $137M | ($13M) | ($36M) |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$7M | −$3M | −$2M | −$807K |
| Owner earnings | $312M | $134M | ($14M) | ($37M) |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | −$31M | −$31M | −$980K | −$3M |
| Free cash flow | $282M | $102M | ($15M) | ($40M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 37% | 34% | -13% | -46% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $7M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $31M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $160M), owner earnings is nearer $152M.
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- No meaningful interest burdenLittle or no interest expense reported
What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
- Net cash, debt-freeCash $168M − debt $0
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $168M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Long (60+ days)DSO 36 + DIO 104 − DPO 75 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 4%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Positive this year, negative across the cyclelatest $312M = operating cash $319M − maintenance capex $7M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (4-yr median -13%)Industry peers: median 16%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 37% of revenue this year, a -13% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $160M of SBC) leaves $152M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $319M ÷ net income $219M
In the filing’s words The filing leans on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings, but the GAAP profit is itself cash-backed — the adjustments are not papering over a cash shortfall here.
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $312M
What this means
Of $312M Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 5.50×ExpandingCapex $38M ÷ depreciation $7M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 2 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $853M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 10.24×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.21/share (latest year $1.28), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $7.96/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2022–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 1 of 4
What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Operating margin −50% → −4% (2-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −50% early to −4% lately, median −29% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Worst year 2022 · −75.4% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Even if the demand for cloud and AI compute infrastructure develop in the manner or in the time periods we anticipate, if we do not have timely, competitively priced, market-accepted solutions available to meet our customers' planned roll-out of their systems, particularly as they offer new AI infrastructure offerings,…”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$1.4B
- Cash & short-term investments$148M
- Receivables$135M
- Inventory$60M
- Other current assets$1.1B
Current liabilities$125M
- Accounts payable$56M
- Other current liabilities$69M
Current ratio11.30×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio10.82×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.19×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$1.3Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+93.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters13.9× → 11.3×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$1.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$1.2BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$42M$42M of it operating leases
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2022–2025
Over the record, the business generated $407M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$78M · 19%
- Buybacks$2M · 0%
- Retained (debt / cash)$327M · 80%
- Returned to owners$2M
0% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2M as buybacks.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $2M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count430.1%
The diluted count rose from 34M to 181M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
- Return on what it retained235%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($50M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $116M, so each retained $1 added about 2.35 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$160M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 19% of revenue, equal to 92% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why Astera Labs Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2022–2025.
1 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?430.1%
Diluted shares grew 430.1% over 2022–2025, even as the company spent $2M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
And these came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did reported profit become cash?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?≈$861M · 86% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“For example, in 2025, our top three end customers represented an aggregate of approximately 86% of our revenue.”verify →
- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Acquisitions, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Semiconductors
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPGPIPG Photonics Corporation | $1.0B | 46% | 17.9% | 10% | 16% |
| MTSIMACOM Technology Solutions Holdings Inc. | $967M | 52% | 11.7% | 4% | 20% |
| ICHRIchor Holdings | $948M | 15% | 5.2% | 11% | 4% |
| ALGMAllegro MicroSystems | $890M | 55% | 8.1% | 13% | 14% |
| ALABAstera Labs Inc. | $853M | 75% | -27.4% | 14% | 11% |
| SLABSilicon Laboratories | $785M | 59% | 3.2% | 2% | 17% |
| RMBSRambus | $708M | 80% | 11.9% | 3% | 44% |
| AOSLAlpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited | $696M | 26% | 2.6% | 3% | 2% |
| Group median | — | 54% | 6.7% | 7% | 15% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Astera Labs Inc. has delivered.
Astera Labs Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, Astera Labs Inc. earns about $90M on its 10.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 36.7% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2024+175%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2024+134%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Free cash flow $343M on 171M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $148M. The if-converted diluted count is 181M, 6% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($41M) runs well above depreciation ($9M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $377M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Astera Labs Inc. (ALAB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ALAB, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← AL its page in the Manual ALB →
Industry order: ← AIP the Semiconductors chapter ALGM →