Owner Scorecard


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COUR, Coursera Inc.

Software asset-light UnprofitableNet current asset value

We use data-driven marketing to efficiently attract learners to a wide range of paid offerings, including standalone courses, multi-course specializations, industry certificate programs, and university degrees.

As a global platform, Coursera unites educators, learners, and institutions, serving approximately 197 million learners from over 230 countries and territories as of December 31, 2025.

Coursera serves learners with educational content and product experiences designed to support skills development and verification for career advancement, including interactive learning tools and personalized learning paths.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
COUR · Coursera Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$758M
+9.0% YoY · 21% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $774M 5-yr avg $605M
Gross margin 55% 5-yr avg 57%
Operating margin −11.4% 5-yr avg −23.5%
Owner-earnings margin 11% 5-yr avg 5%
Free cash flow margin 11% 5-yr avg 5%

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. 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 run around −23% through the cycle on a 53% 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 −82 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.

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 →

49% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States51%$385M
  • EMEA25%$186M
  • Asia Pacific14%$109M
  • Other10%$78M

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, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$184M$294M$415M$524M$636M$695M$758M$774MRevenueRevenue
51%53%60%63%52%53%55%55%Gross marginGross mgn
16%13%19%20%15%16%15%16%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
31%26%33%32%25%19%16%16%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($48M)($67M)($143M)($177M)($146M)($113M)($77M)($88M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−26.2%−22.7%−34.4%−33.9%−22.9%−16.3%−10.2%−11.4%Operating marginOp. mgn
($47M)($67M)($145M)($175M)($117M)($80M)($51M)($64M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($21M)($15M)$2M($38M)$30M$95M$109M$90MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$5M$10M$15M$19M$22M$25M$29M$29MDepreciationDeprec.
$4M$25M$41M$8M$14M$42M$36M$33MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$4M$3M$2M$2M$1M$2M$2M$1MCapexCapex
2.4%1.1%0.4%0.3%0.2%0.2%0.2%0.2%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($26M)($18M)$192K($40M)$29M$94M$107M$89MOwner earningsOwner earn.
−14.0%−6.2%0.0%−7.6%4.5%13.5%14.2%11.4%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($26M)($18M)$192K($40M)$29M$94M$107M$89MFree cash flowFCF
−14.0%−6.2%0.0%−7.6%4.5%13.5%14.2%11.4%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$0$59M$37M$0BuybacksBuybacks
-20%-25%-19%-13%-8%-10%Return on equityROE
−20%−25%−19%−13%−8%−10%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$56M$285M$822M$780M$722M$726M$793M$790MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$41M$34M$54M$67M$60M$65M$60MReceivablesReceiv.
$39M$49M$66M$101M$104M$100M$98MAccounts payablePayables
$2M($15M)($13M)($34M)($44M)($35M)($38M)Operating working capitalOper. WC
$355M$892M$876M$832M$831M$898M$893MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$154M$201M$242M$298M$328M$358M$362MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.3×4.4×3.6×2.8×2.5×2.5×2.5×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$418M$959M$948M$921M$930M$1.0B$1.0BTotal assetsAssets
($56M)($285M)($822M)($780M)($722M)($726M)($793M)($790M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
($187M)($222M)$742M$695M$616M$597M$636M$632MShareholders’ equityEquity
8.8%5.7%22.0%21.2%17.2%15.6%12.6%11.8%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
32.3M37.2M114M145M151M157M164M169MShares out (diluted)Shares
$5.71$7.89$3.66$3.61$4.21$4.41$4.62$4.59Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.45$-1.80$-1.28$-1.21$-0.77$-0.51$-0.31$-0.38EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.80$-0.49$0.00$-0.27$0.19$0.60$0.65$0.53Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.80$-0.49$0.00$-0.27$0.19$0.60$0.65$0.53Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.14$0.08$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-5.79$-5.96$6.53$4.78$4.08$3.80$3.88$3.75Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×3.05 into 2021 — 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-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−3.5%/yr−10.1%/yr
Capital spending / share−36.3%/yr−35.7%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

  • Revenue+9.0%
    “Revenue growth was primarily driven by an 18% increase in the average total number of Registered Learners, resulting in more paid learners, and a 10% increase in the average total number of Paid Enterprise Customers with growth supported by increased Coursera Plus subscription adoption, ongoing platform improvements, and localized pricing, payment, and promotional capabilities.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

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

Share count
164Mpeak FY2025
Gross margin
55%low FY2019

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$107Mowner earningsvs.($51M)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.

FY2021FY2025

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 $51M loss into $107M 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($51M)($80M)($117M)($175M)($145M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$29M+$25M+$22M+$19M+$15M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$95M+$108M+$110M+$111M+$91M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$36M+$42M+$14M+$8M+$41M
Cash from operations$109M$95M$30M($38M)$2M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$2M−$2M−$1M−$2M−$2M
Owner earnings$107M$94M$29M($40M)$192K
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue14%14%4%-8%0%

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 $95M), owner earnings is nearer $12M.

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?

  • 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.

  • Net cash, debt-free
    Cash $793M − debt $0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $793M, 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 32 + DIO 0 − DPO 106 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?

  • Not enough data
    Industry peers: median -10%
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • Solid, recently turned positive
    latest $107M = operating cash $109M − maintenance capex $2M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (7-yr median 0%)
    Industry peers: median 0%
    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 14% of revenue this year, a 0% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $95M of SBC) leaves $12M.

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($51M) · cash from operations $109M

    In the filing’s words And the filing leans heavily on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings — steering you off the GAAP figure just where the cash is not backing it. Read the reconciliation in the notes before taking the adjusted number.

    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 $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $107M
    What this means

    Of $107M 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? 0.05×
    Harvesting
    Capex $2M ÷ depreciation $29M
    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 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 · $758M
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.51×
    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 $-0.49/share (latest year $-0.30), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.75/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, 2019–2025

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 −28% → −16% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −28% early to −16% lately, median −23% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Worst year 2021 · −34.4% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2021, 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 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.

“If new technologies, including AI-driven advancements, emerge that can discover or deliver educational programs more effectively, efficiently, conveniently, securely, or at lower costs, enhancing plagiarism prevention, learner identity validation, or content relevance, and if we, or our content creators, fail to adopt …”

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$893M
  • Cash & short-term investments$790M
  • Receivables$60M
  • Other current assets$44M
Current liabilities$362M
  • Accounts payable$98M
  • Other current liabilities$264M
Current ratio2.47×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.47×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio2.18×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$531Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+9.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.6× → 2.5×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$601Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$525MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$6M$6M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$202Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $161M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$15M · 9%
  • Buybacks$95M · 59%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$51M · 32%
  • Returned to owners$95M

    65% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $95M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $734M.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$12.01

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 8M shares were bought for $95M, about $12.01 each.

  • Net change in share count422.7%

    The diluted count rose from 32M to 169M: 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, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021$5.4M$9.3M$192K
2022$29.1M$19.9M($40M)
2023$607k$21.2M$29M
2024$660k−$21.8M$94M
2025Mr. Hart$39.4M$36.1M$107M
2025Mr. Maggioncalda$4.7M−$4.5M$107M

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. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.

  • Insider ownership5%

    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$95M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 13% 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 Coursera 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 2019–2025.

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

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?422.7%

    Diluted shares grew 422.7% over 2019–2025, even as the company spent $95M 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, $15M 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.

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
QTWOQ2 Holdings Inc.$795M48%-14.8%-10%0%
ASANAsana$791M89%-68.9%-177%-27%
COURCoursera Inc.$758M53%-22.9%0%
BANDBandwidth Inc.$754M44%-2.3%-2%5%
SPSCSPS Commerce$752M67%14.1%13%21%
BRZEBraze$738M67%-30.7%-30%-5%
CWANClearwater Analytics$731M72%1.7%0%15%
APPNAppian Corporation$727M71%-18.7%-50%-6%
Group median67%-16.7%0%
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 Coursera Inc. has delivered.

Coursera 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, Coursera Inc. earns about $350K on its 0.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.2% 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 · since FY2023+94%/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 $89M on 169M shares outstanding, per the 10-K/A cover, as of 2026-04-23; net cash $790M. 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, "Coursera Inc. (COUR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/COUR, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← COTY its page in the Manual CPAY →

Industry order: ← CMCM the Software chapter CRM →