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CTKB, Cytek Biosciences Inc.

Life Sciences Tools & Services consumer brand UnprofitableNet current asset value

We are a leading cell analysis solutions company advancing the next generation of research and clinical tools with our novel technical approach of leveraging the full spectrum of fluorescence signatures from multiple lasers to distinguish fluorescent tags on single cells.

Biological systems are highly complex, and scientists are challenged by the multitude of questions that remain unanswered.

Analysis at the single-cell level is essential to understand these complex systems.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CTKB · Cytek Biosciences Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$201M

+0.5% YoY · 17% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $204M 5-yr avg $177M

Gross margin 52% 5-yr avg 57%

Operating margin −21.5% 5-yr avg −7.7%

ROIC −13% 5-yr avg −4%

Owner-earnings margin −6% 5-yr avg 0%

Free cash flow margin −6% 5-yr avg −1%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What it is: Revenue is Products (72%) and Services (28%).
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 reached 15% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −10%) on a 56% 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. Inventory runs near 25% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the installed base and the upgrade cycle. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, 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 −5%, 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 →

Products is 72% of revenue, with Services the other meaningful line at 28%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Products72%$144M
Services28%$57M

By geographyUnited States47%EMEA28%Asia Pacific20%Other5%

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, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
							Income statement
$93M	$128M	$164M	$193M	$200M	$201M	$204M	RevenueRevenue
56%	62%	62%	57%	55%	52%	52%	Gross marginGross mgn
10%	16%	21%	23%	22%	29%	32%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
15%	19%	21%	23%	20%	18%	18%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$14M	$9M	($2M)	($28M)	($21M)	($40M)	($44M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
14.7%	7.2%	−1.1%	−14.4%	−10.2%	−20.0%	−21.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$19M	$3M	$2M	($12M)	($6M)	($67M)	($74M)	Net incomeNet inc.
							Cash flow & returns
$15M	$5M	($12M)	$5M	$25M	($5M)	($7M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$603K	$1M	$2M	$6M	$7M	$8M	$8M	DepreciationDeprec.
($5M)	($6M)	($34M)	($11M)	($3M)	$30M	$36M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$4M	$10M	$5M	$4M	$4M	$5M	CapexCapex
1.7%	3.4%	5.9%	2.4%	1.8%	2.0%	2.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$15M	$3M	($15M)	$633K	$22M	($9M)	($13M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
15.7%	2.6%	−9.0%	0.3%	10.9%	−4.4%	−6.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$14M	$266K	($22M)	$633K	$22M	($9M)	($13M)	Free cash flowFCF
14.7%	0.2%	−13.4%	0.3%	10.9%	−4.4%	−6.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$17M	$0	$45M	$471K	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	$0	$0	$44M	$22M	$15M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	11%	-1%	-10%	-5%	-13%	-13%	ROICROIC
—	1%	1%	-3%	-2%	-19%	-23%	Return on equityROE
—	1%	1%	−3%	−2%	−19%	−23%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$165M	$365M	$297M	$167M	$99M	$91M	$66M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$17M	$30M	$49M	$56M	$61M	$63M	$52M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$23M	$32M	$48M	$61M	$44M	$48M	$50M	InventoryInvent.
$3M	$3M	$5M	$3M	$6M	$6M	$7M	Accounts payablePayables
$37M	$59M	$92M	$114M	$99M	$105M	$95M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$209M	$432M	$454M	$392M	$396M	$392M	$379M	Current assetsCur. assets
$27M	$33M	$49M	$56M	$68M	$78M	$81M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
7.9×	13.0×	9.3×	7.0×	5.9×	5.0×	4.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$476K	$10M	$10M	$16M	$17M	$17M	$17M	GoodwillGoodwill
$220M	$463M	$519M	$494M	$500M	$462M	$449M	Total assetsAssets
($165M)	($365M)	($297M)	($167M)	($99M)	($91M)	($66M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
41.0×	5.3×	-0.7×	-13.4×	—	-85.2×	-98.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($16M)	$405M	$426M	$393M	$396M	$342M	$328M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.7%	5.1%	10.1%	11.4%	13.4%	12.2%	11.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
32.6M	81.5M	139M	135M	131M	128M	129M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$2.85	$1.57	$1.18	$1.43	$1.53	$1.58	$1.59	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.60	$0.04	$0.02	$-0.09	$-0.05	$-0.52	$-0.57	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.45	$0.04	$-0.11	$0.00	$0.17	$-0.07	$-0.10	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.42	$0.00	$-0.16	$0.00	$0.17	$-0.07	$-0.10	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.05	$0.05	$0.07	$0.03	$0.03	$0.03	$0.04	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.49	$4.97	$3.07	$2.91	$3.03	$2.68	$2.55	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.5 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.7 into 2022 — 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

	5-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−11.1%/yr	−11.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	−7.6%/yr	−7.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

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

Share count

128Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

−13%low FY2025

Gross margin

52%low FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($9M)owner earningsvs.($67M)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.

FY2020FY2024

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-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 2025 the business turned a $67M loss into ($9M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($67M)	($6M)	($12M)	$2M	$3M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$8M	+$7M	+$6M	+$2M	+$1M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$25M	+$27M	+$22M	+$17M	+$7M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$30M	−$3M	−$11M	−$34M	−$6M
Cash from operations	($5M)	$25M	$5M	($12M)	$5M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$4M	−$4M	−$5M	−$2M	−$1M
Owner earnings	($9M)	$22M	$633K	($15M)	$3M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$7M	−$3M
Free cash flow	($9M)	$22M	$633K	($22M)	$266K
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-4%	11%	0%	-9%	3%

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 $25M), owner earnings is nearer ($33M).

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?

Can it pay its interest? -85.2×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($40M) ÷ interest expense $474K

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$91M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $91M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $91M, 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? 271d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 113 + DIO 182 − DPO 24 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?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median -21%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 0%

Thin through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range -9%–16%; latest ($9M) = operating cash ($5M) − maintenance capex $4M

Industry peers: median -13%

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 -4% of revenue this year, a 0% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $25M of SBC) leaves ($33M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($5M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($67M) · cash from operations ($5M)

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 not.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.54×

Harvesting

Capex $4M ÷ depreciation $8M

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 · $201M

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× · 5.04×

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 (6-yr record) · 3 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −440%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $-0.22/share (latest year $-0.52), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.65/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 3 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin 7% → −15% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 7% early to −15% lately, median −10% — competition or costs are biting in.
Owner earnings growth −6%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 6% a year over the record.
Worst year 2025 · −20.0% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

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 we cannot use AI technologies or that use is restricted, our business may be less efficient, or we may be at a competitive disadvantage.”

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, 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$379M

Cash & short-term investments$66M
Receivables$52M
Inventory$50M
Other current assets$212M

Current liabilities$81M

Accounts payable$7M
Other current liabilities$74M

Current ratio4.69×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio4.07×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.81×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$298Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway5.2 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+6.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters7.3× → 4.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$295Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$258MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$16M$16M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$48Mcustomer 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 $34M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$28M · 83%
Buybacks$81M · 241%

Returned to owners$81M
477% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $81M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$75M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $75M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: cash and short-term investments drew down $100M.
Average price paid for buybacks$5.82
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 14M shares were bought for $81M, about $5.82 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $4.58 (2025) to $6.68 (2023), and 2023, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($44M).
Net change in share count294.8%
The diluted count rose from 33M to 129M: 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 year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Wenbin Jiang, Ph.D	$4.8M	−$130k	$3M
2022	Wenbin Jiang, Ph.D	$3.9M	$1.9M	($15M)
2023	Wenbin Jiang, Ph.D	$4.9M	$3.7M	$633K
2024	Wenbin Jiang, Ph.D	$6.1M	$4.4M	$22M
2025	Wenbin Jiang, Ph.D	$5.1M	$3.6M	($9M)

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 ownership10.4%
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$25M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 12% 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 Cytek Biosciences 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 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?2.3% vs 3.1%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 3.1% early in the record and 2.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?294.8%
Diluted shares grew 294.8% over 2020–2025, even as the company spent $81M 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

Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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 Revenue recognition, Inventory, 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, Life Sciences Tools & Services

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
TXG10x Genomics Inc.	$643M	77%	-31.9%	-42%	-9%
MLABMesa Laboratories Inc.	$249M	60%	6.8%	1%	19%
STAASTAAR Surgical Company	$239M	75%	5.3%	9%	3%
CERSCerus Corporation	$234M	58%	-40.9%	-43%	-31%
AXGNAxogen Inc.	$225M	81%	-19.9%	-17%	-13%
ESTAEstablishment Labs Holdings Inc.	$211M	65%	-33.0%	-36%	-35%
CTKBCytek Biosciences Inc.	$201M	56%	-5.7%	-5%	1%
SIBNSI-BONE Inc.	$201M	88%	-36.2%	-21%	-38%
Group median	—	70%	-25.9%	-19%	-11%

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 Cytek Biosciences Inc. has delivered.

Cytek Biosciences Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Cytek Biosciences Inc. earns about $3M on its 1.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −4.4% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($3M) Net of stock comp (−$23M) Steady-state · maintenance capex (($11M))

—

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 · ’20→’25−6%/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.

Free cash flow ($13M) on 129M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $66M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($5M) runs well above depreciation ($8M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about ($11M), 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.

Weigh CTKB against another business →

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

Manual order: ← CTEV its page in the Manual CTMX →

Industry order: ← CSTL the Life Sciences Tools & Services chapter DGX →