Owner Scorecard


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BLZE, Backblaze Inc.

Software asset-light Unprofitable

We are a high-performance cloud storage platform for data-intensive use cases in the artificial intelligence era and across a broad range of modern cloud workloads, designed to help customers address complex storage needs by reducing the barriers of lock-in, complexity, and cost.

We provide cloud services through a purpose-built, web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware.

Customers use us to support their AI workflows, help ensure the cyber-resilience of their organizations, streamline their media workflows, and enable a variety of other data-focused application and information technology ("IT") needs.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
BLZE · Backblaze Inc.
I

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025
$146M
+14.3% YoY · 22% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $150M 5-yr avg $106M
Gross margin 62% 5-yr avg 53%
Operating margin −13.5% 5-yr avg −38.7%
ROIC −23% 5-yr avg −88%
Owner-earnings margin 11% 5-yr avg −4%
Free cash flow margin 11% 5-yr avg −4%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation
Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −36% through the cycle on a 52% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −21 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −88%, above 15% in 0 of 4 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

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 →

28% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States72%$105M
  • International19%$27M
  • United Kingdom5%$8M
  • Canada5%$7M

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$54M$67M$85M$102M$128M$146M$150MRevenueRevenue
52%51%52%49%54%61%62%Gross marginGross mgn
12%19%28%26%23%20%20%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
24%30%39%39%33%32%30%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($4M)($19M)($48M)($58M)($46M)($24M)($20M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−6.9%−27.9%−56.5%−56.8%−36.3%−16.2%−13.5%Operating marginOp. mgn
($7M)($22M)($51M)($60M)($49M)($26M)($22M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$13M$4M($14M)($7M)$13M$24M$22MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$13M$16M$20M$25M$28M$26M$25MDepreciationDeprec.
$5M$3M$417K$2M$4M($3M)($6M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M$8M$7M$6M$2M$5M$5MCapexCapex
4.0%11.2%8.6%5.4%1.3%3.2%3.2%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$11M($4M)($21M)($13M)$11M$19M$17MOwner earningsOwner earn.
19.9%−6.0%−24.8%−12.6%8.5%12.9%11.4%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$11M($4M)($21M)($13M)$11M$19M$17MFree cash flowFCF
19.9%−6.0%−24.8%−12.6%8.5%12.9%11.4%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$0$2MBuybacksBuybacks
-61%-141%-115%-35%-23%ROICROIC
-23%-75%-133%-63%-31%-27%Return on equityROE
−23%−75%−133%−63%−31%−27%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$6M$105M$65M$29M$55M$51M$45MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$209K$309K$856K$800K$2M$3M$4MReceivablesReceiv.
$2M$2M$3M$2M$1M$2M$2MAccounts payablePayables
($2M)($2M)($2M)($1M)$372K$2M$3MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$9M$111M$74M$39M$66M$66M$63MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$36M$45M$56M$57M$60M$62M$60MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.3×2.5×1.3×0.7×1.1×1.1×1.0×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$54M$164M$152M$132M$169M$192M$193MTotal assetsAssets
$628K$0$10MTotal debtDebt
($5M)($105M)($35M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.3×-5.1×-11.2×-15.3×-12.7×-6.1×-4.8×Interest coverageInt. cov.
($7M)$95M$69M$45M$78M$83M$85MShareholders’ equityEquity
3.5%8.3%20.0%24.7%22.4%18.1%17.3%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
27.9M30.5M31.7M36.0M43.5M56.2M59.3MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.93$2.21$2.69$2.83$2.93$2.59$2.53Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.24$-0.71$-1.62$-1.66$-1.11$-0.46$-0.38EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.38$-0.13$-0.67$-0.36$0.25$0.34$0.29Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.38$-0.13$-0.67$-0.36$0.25$0.34$0.29Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.08$0.25$0.23$0.15$0.04$0.08$0.08Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.25$3.13$2.17$1.25$1.78$1.48$1.43Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2022 are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
5-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+6.1%/yr+6.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share−2.6%/yr−2.6%/yr
Capital spending / share+1.9%/yr+1.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count
56Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
−35%low FY2023
Gross margin
61%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$19Mowner earningsvs.($26M)net incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2020FY2025

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 turned a $26M loss into $19M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($26M)($49M)($60M)($51M)($22M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$26M+$28M+$25M+$20M+$16M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$26M+$29M+$25M+$17M+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$3M+$4M+$2M+$417K+$3M
Cash from operations$24M$13M($7M)($14M)$4M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$5M−$2M−$6M−$7M−$8M
Owner earnings$19M$11M($13M)($21M)($4M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue13%8%-13%-25%-6%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . 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 $26M), owner earnings is nearer ($8M).

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.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($24M) ÷ interest expense $4M
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Net cash, debt-free
    Cash $29M + ST investments $22M − debt $0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $51M, 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.

  • Negative, funded by others
    DSO 9 + DIO 0 − DPO 10 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    4-yr median, range -141%–-35%; -35% latest = NOPAT ($19M) ÷ invested capital $54M
    Industry peers: median -19%
    What this means

    The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 4 years (it ran -35% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.

  • Positive this year, negative across the cycle
    latest $19M = operating cash $24M − maintenance capex $5M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (6-yr median -6%)
    Industry peers: median -10%
    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 13% of revenue this year, a -6% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $26M of SBC) leaves ($8M).

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($26M) · cash from operations $24M
    What this means

    The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

  • Reinvests most of it
    Dividends + buybacks $2M ÷ Owner Earnings $19M
    What this means

    Of $19M Owner Earnings, $2M (11%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $2M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($26M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 0.18×
    Harvesting
    Capex $5M ÷ depreciation $26M
    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 5 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 Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $146M
    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 Miss
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.07×
    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.

  • Conservative debt Pass
    Debt ≤ working capital · $0 vs $4M WC
    What this means

    Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (6-yr record) · 6 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record Miss
    Uninterrupted dividends · none paid
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.

  • Earnings growth
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • 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 $-0.74/share (latest year $-0.43), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $1.39/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, 2020–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 0 of 6
    What this means

    Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Operating margin −30% → −36% (3-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

    What this means

    The recent-years average (−36%) sits below the early years (−30%), but the latest year (−16%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is −36% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.

  • Owner earnings growth +35%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 35% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2023 · −56.8% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“B2 Cloud Storage enables customers to store and manage data for use cases ranging from backup and archive to application storage, ransomware protection, and AI/ML workloads.”

AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

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, 2026

Can 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$63M
  • Cash & short-term investments$45M
  • Receivables$4M
  • Other current assets$13M
Current liabilities$60M
  • Debt due within a year$6M
  • Accounts payable$2M
  • Other current liabilities$52M
Current ratio1.05×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.05×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.76×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$3Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$6M due · $45M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+11.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 1.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$85Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($45M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$30M$24M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$36Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2025

Over the record, the business generated $31M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

  • Reinvested$29M · 93%
  • Buybacks$2M · 6%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$321K · 1%
  • Returned to owners$2M

    86% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $10M and cash and short-term investments rose $39M.

  • 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 count112.4%

    The diluted count rose from 28M to 59M: 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.

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 ownership4.2%

    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$26M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 18% of revenue. 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 Backblaze 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 2020–2025.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?112.4%

    Diluted shares grew 112.4% over 2020–2025, 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.

  • Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?0% → 3% of sales

    Receivables and inventory grew from $209K to $4M while revenue grew 179%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (0% of revenue then, 3% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Did debt outgrow the business?
  • Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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 →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names 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, Software

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
AIC3.ai Inc.$250M67%-80.5%-36%-37%
WEAVWeave Communications Inc.$239M63%-35.0%-111%-10%
XZOExzeo Group Inc.$217M40%28.4%35%
IIIVi3 Verticals Inc.$213M32%1.9%1%10%
SOUNSoundHound AI Inc$169M69%-308.2%-6%-150%
BLZEBackblaze Inc.$146M52%-32.1%-88%1%
BBAIBigBear.ai Inc.$128M25%-62.6%-31%-19%
RDVTRed Violet Inc. Common Stock$90M-3.0%-3%20%
Group median52%-33.5%-31%-5%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Backblaze Inc. has delivered.

Backblaze 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, Backblaze Inc. earns about $2M on its 1.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.9% 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.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’20→’25+35%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
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 $17M on 60M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-28; net cash $35M. 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Backblaze Inc. (BLZE), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BLZE, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BLND its page in the Manual BMBL →

Industry order: ← BLND the Software chapter BMR →