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BRZE, Braze

Software asset-light Unprofitable

Braze is a leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging.

Vision To forge vibrant connections between people and the brands they love, fueled by a community that inspires and technology that lights the way.

Customer Engagement is an emerging category of business activity and software which we define as the full set of activities that companies use to build and maintain direct, meaningful relationships with their customers.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

BRZE · Braze

The business

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

Revenue · FY2026

$738M

+24.4% YoY · 38% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $787M 5-yr avg $479M

Gross margin 66% 5-yr avg 68%

Operating margin −16.8% 5-yr avg −29.1%

ROIC −24% 5-yr avg −76%

Owner-earnings margin 8% 5-yr avg −2%

Free cash flow margin 8% 5-yr avg −3%

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 −31% through the cycle on a 67% 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. 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 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 −30%, above 15% in 0 of 5 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 →

45% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2026

United States55%$405M
International45%$333M

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, 2020–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	2026’26	TTMTTMApr 2026
								Income statement
$96M	$150M	$238M	$355M	$472M	$593M	$738M	$787M	RevenueRevenue
63%	64%	67%	67%	69%	69%	67%	66%	Gross marginGross mgn
17%	19%	22%	25%	22%	20%	20%	17%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
21%	19%	25%	27%	25%	23%	23%	22%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($34M)	($32M)	($78M)	($148M)	($145M)	($122M)	($145M)	($132M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−34.8%	−21.4%	−32.9%	−41.7%	−30.7%	−20.6%	−19.6%	−16.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($32M)	($32M)	($77M)	($139M)	($129M)	($104M)	($131M)	($122M)	Net incomeNet inc.
								Cash flow & returns
($7M)	($6M)	($35M)	($22M)	$7M	$37M	$71M	$75M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$645K	$2M	$3M	$5M	$7M	$10M	$19M	$23M	DepreciationDeprec.
$11M	$17M	($9M)	$40M	$32M	$15M	$40M	$26M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$2M	$2M	$15M	$10M	$13M	$10M	$9M	CapexCapex
1.8%	1.6%	1.0%	4.3%	2.1%	2.2%	1.3%	1.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($8M)	($8M)	($38M)	($27M)	($113K)	$27M	$62M	$66M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−8.3%	−5.1%	−15.8%	−7.6%	−0.0%	4.5%	8.4%	8.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($9M)	($9M)	($38M)	($38M)	($3M)	$23M	$62M	$66M	Free cash flowFCF
−9.4%	−5.7%	−15.8%	−10.6%	−0.6%	4.0%	8.4%	8.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	$0	$0	$16M	$0	$182M	$182M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$204K	$0	$0	$165K	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	-273%	-31%	-30%	-25%	-23%	-24%	ROICROIC
—	—	-15%	-31%	-29%	-22%	-21%	-21%	Return on equityROE
—	—	−15%	−31%	−29%	−22%	−21%	−21%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
$12M	$29M	$479M	$69M	$68M	$83M	$124M	$145M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$35M	$65M	$78M	$92M	$95M	$122M	$118M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$439K	$2M	$3M	$6M	$2M	$2M	$6M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$34M	$62M	$75M	$86M	$93M	$121M	$113M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$134M	$608M	$583M	$601M	$644M	$568M	$547M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$101M	$160M	$217M	$289M	$324M	$420M	$441M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	1.3×	3.8×	2.7×	2.1×	2.0×	1.4×	1.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	—	—	$0	$28M	$28M	$262M	$262M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$171M	$666M	$705M	$811M	$871M	$1.1B	$1.1B	Total assetsAssets
($12M)	($29M)	($479M)	($69M)	($68M)	($83M)	($124M)	($145M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
($87M)	($109M)	$502M	$445M	$444M	$475M	$624M	$582M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
12.9%	5.0%	19.8%	20.3%	20.6%	19.4%	19.5%	18.9%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
								Per share
16.2M	18.0M	34.9M	94.6M	98.1M	102M	108M	111M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$5.95	$8.36	$6.82	$3.76	$4.81	$5.81	$6.84	$7.10	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.96	$-1.77	$-2.20	$-1.47	$-1.32	$-1.02	$-1.22	$-1.10	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.49	$-0.43	$-1.08	$-0.28	$-0.00	$0.26	$0.57	$0.60	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.56	$-0.48	$-1.08	$-0.40	$-0.03	$0.23	$0.57	$0.60	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.11	$0.14	$0.07	$0.16	$0.10	$0.13	$0.09	$0.09	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-5.37	$-6.04	$14.37	$4.71	$4.53	$4.65	$5.78	$5.25	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.94 into 2022 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.71 into 2023 — 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

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+2.3%/yr	−3.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	−3.0%/yr	−8.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

108Mpeak FY2026

ROIC

−23%low FY2022

Gross margin

67%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$62Mowner earningsvs.($131M)net incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2024FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2022–FY2026cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

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 2026 the business turned a $131M loss into $62M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022
Reported net income	($131M)	($104M)	($129M)	($139M)	($77M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$19M	+$10M	+$7M	+$5M	+$3M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$144M	+$115M	+$97M	+$72M	+$47M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$40M	+$15M	+$32M	+$40M	−$9M
Cash from operations	$71M	$37M	$7M	($22M)	($35M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$10M	−$10M	−$7M	−$5M	−$2M
Owner earnings	$62M	$27M	($113K)	($27M)	($38M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$3M	−$3M	−$11M	—
Free cash flow	$62M	$23M	($3M)	($38M)	($38M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	8%	4%	0%	-8%	-16%

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 $144M), owner earnings is nearer ($82M).

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

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“Risks Related to Public Company Reporting and Public Disclosure Practices We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting associated with certain Information Technology General Controls, or ITGCs.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

No meaningful interest burden

Little or no interest expense reported

What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$124M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $124M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $124M, 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.
How long is cash tied up? 58d

Tight

DSO 60 + DIO 0 − DPO 2 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. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median -3%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 8%

Positive this year, negative across the cycle

latest $62M = operating cash $71M − maintenance capex $10M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (7-yr median -5%)

Industry peers: median 5%

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 8% of revenue this year, a -5% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $144M of SBC) leaves ($82M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $71M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($131M) · cash from operations $71M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

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?

Where do the earnings go? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $165K ÷ Owner Earnings $62M

What this means
Of $62M Owner Earnings, $165K (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $165K buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($144M 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? 0.50×

Harvesting

Capex $10M ÷ depreciation $19M

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 · 0 of 4 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 · $738M

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× · 1.35×

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.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (7-yr record) · 7 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 $-1.08/share (latest year $-1.17), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.54/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, 2020–2026

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

Profitable years 0 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −30% → −24% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −30% early to −24% lately, median −31% — pricing power intact or improving.
Worst year 2023 · −41.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

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 Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Further, recent advances in, and the public availability of, generative and agentic AI have been, and may continue to be, a significant disruptor in consumer engagement and marketing strategies.”

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, Apr 30, 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$547M

Cash & short-term investments$145M
Receivables$118M
Other current assets$283M

Current liabilities$441M

Accounts payable$6M
Other current liabilities$436M

Current ratio1.24×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.24×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.33×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$105Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+30.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.0× → 1.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$261Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$39MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$81M$81M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$343Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2026

Over the record, the business generated $44M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$55M · 124%
Buybacks$369K · 1%

Returned to owners$369K
5% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $369K as buybacks.
Source of funding−$11M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $11M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $369K over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count584.4%
The diluted count rose from 16M to 111M: 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.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 7-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$323M29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity42%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$198Mover 7 years buying other businesses, against $55M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2022	William Magnuson	$29.3M	$45.7M	($38M)
2023	William Magnuson	$667k	−$22.6M	($27M)
2024	William Magnuson	$12.0M	$27.8M	($113K)
2025	William Magnuson	$11.0M	$1.2M	$27M
2026	William Magnuson	$14.2M	$654k	$62M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

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$144M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 19% 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 Braze 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 2020–2026.

2 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?584.4%
Diluted shares grew 584.4% over 2020–2026, even as the company spent $369K 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 hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?4 of 7 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 4 of the last 7 years, $748K in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?

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, FY2026

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes 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.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
COURCoursera Inc.	$758M	53%	-22.9%	—	0%
BANDBandwidth Inc.	$754M	44%	-2.3%	-2%	5%
SPSCSPS Commerce	$752M	67%	14.1%	13%	21%
BRZEBraze	$738M	67%	-30.7%	-30%	-5%
CWANClearwater Analytics	$731M	72%	1.7%	0%	15%
APPNAppian Corporation	$727M	71%	-18.7%	-50%	-6%
NAVNNavan Inc.	$702M	68%	-28.0%	-21%	-10%
BLBlackLine	$700M	76%	-9.4%	-3%	11%
Group median	—	68%	-14.0%	-3%	2%

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 Braze has delivered.

Today’s price $

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($27M) Net of stock comp (−$149M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

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 · since FY2025+164%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’26)—

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 $66M on 113M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-20; net cash $145M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). 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.

Weigh BRZE against another business →

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

Manual order: ← BRX its page in the Manual BSM →

Industry order: ← BOX the Software chapter BSY →