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EVLV, Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc.

Technology Hardware consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Evolv Technologies Holdings, Inc. is a leading security technology company pioneering Artificial Intelligence-powered screening solutions designed to help create safer environments while maintaining efficient visitor flow and a positive visitor experience.

We serve customers across a range of end markets, including education, healthcare, sports, live entertainment, tourist attractions, houses of worship, and industrial workplaces.

Our solutions are delivered through a Security-as-a-Service model that integrates our proprietary sensor platform and AI-powered software, cloud connectivity, and ongoing services.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

EVLV · Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$146M

+40.5% YoY · 98% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $160M 5-yr avg $81M

Gross margin 50% 5-yr avg 34%

Operating margin −26.6% 5-yr avg −131.4%

ROIC −36% 5-yr avg −141%

Owner-earnings margin −1% 5-yr avg −255%

Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg −259%

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. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −195% through the cycle on a 27% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 24% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. 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 −81%, above 15% in 0 of 3 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.

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
$5M	$23M	$53M	$80M	$104M	$146M	$160M	RevenueRevenue
27%	17%	3%	40%	57%	52%	50%	Gross marginGross mgn
107%	85%	72%	53%	54%	38%	33%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
328%	49%	35%	31%	23%	14%	14%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($27M)	($55M)	($103M)	($90M)	($82M)	($48M)	($43M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−562.1%	−236.3%	−195.3%	−113.2%	−79.2%	−33.2%	−26.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($27M)	($11M)	($87M)	($108M)	($54M)	($33M)	($36M)	Net incomeNet inc.
							Cash flow & returns
($23M)	($57M)	($75M)	($10M)	($31M)	$19M	$18M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1M	$3M	$5M	$10M	$17M	$24M	$26M	DepreciationDeprec.
$2M	($58M)	($16M)	$64M	($19M)	$6M	$7M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$7M	$4M	—	—	—	—	$20M	CapexCapex
138.1%	15.9%	—	—	—	—	12.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($24M)	($60M)	—	—	—	—	($2M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−508.2%	−255.1%	—	—	—	—	−1.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($30M)	($60M)	—	—	—	—	($2M)	Free cash flowFCF
−624.1%	−258.6%	—	—	—	—	−1.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	-303%	—	-81%	-39%	-36%	ROICROIC
—	-4%	-33%	-75%	-46%	-28%	-30%	Return on equityROE
—	−4%	−33%	−75%	−46%	−28%	−30%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$5M	$307M	$243M	$211M	$73M	$49M	$81M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1M	$6M	$13M	$22M	$28M	$31M	$43M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$2M	$3M	$6M	$9M	$17M	$9M	$8M	InventoryInvent.
$4M	$6M	$9M	$19M	$10M	$10M	$17M	Accounts payablePayables
($1M)	$3M	$9M	$12M	$35M	$30M	$34M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$10M	$331M	$287M	$234M	$121M	$151M	$152M	Current assetsCur. assets
$13M	$24M	$33M	$50M	$97M	$123M	$126M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.8×	13.6×	8.7×	4.6×	1.3×	1.2×	1.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$22M	$363M	$332M	$305M	$268M	$304M	$305M	Total assetsAssets
$16M	$10M	$10M	$0	$0	$29M	$29M	Total debtDebt
$12M	($298M)	($233M)	($211M)	($73M)	($21M)	($52M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-62.5×	-9.1×	-144.6×	-137.7×	—	-28.0×	-15.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($85M)	$290M	$260M	$144M	$118M	$119M	$121M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
13.8%	41.0%	42.7%	30.3%	23.8%	14.5%	13.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
8.9M	71.7M	144M	149M	157M	168M	177M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.54	$0.33	$0.37	$0.53	$0.66	$0.87	$0.90	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-3.07	$-0.15	$-0.60	$-0.72	$-0.34	$-0.20	$-0.21	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-2.72	$-0.83	—	—	—	—	$-0.01	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-3.34	$-0.84	—	—	—	—	$-0.01	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.74	$0.05	—	—	—	—	$0.11	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-9.49	$4.05	$1.80	$0.97	$0.75	$0.71	$0.68	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×8.02 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 ×2.01 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	+10.1%/yr	+10.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	−93.0%/yr (1-yr)	−93.0%/yr (1-yr)

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

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

Share count

168Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−39%low FY2022

Gross margin

52%low FY2022

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2020–FY2021cash-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 2021 the business earned ($60M) of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $3M it takes just to hold its position. It put $815K more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($60M).

	FY2021	FY2020
Reported net income	($11M)	($27M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$3M	+$1M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$10M	+$662K
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$58M	+$2M
Cash from operations	($57M)	($23M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$3M	−$1M
Owner earnings	($60M)	($24M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$815K	−$6M
Free cash flow	($60M)	($30M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-255%	-508%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $3M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $815K of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $10M), owner earnings is nearer ($69M).

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? -28.0×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($48M) ÷ interest expense $2M

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? +$57M

Net cash

Cash $49M + ST investments $36M − debt $29M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $57M, 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? 75d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 77 + DIO 48 − DPO 51 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 -81%

Below average through the cycle

3-yr median, range -303%–-39%; -39% latest = NOPAT ($38M) ÷ invested capital $99M

Industry peers: median 4%

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 3 years (it ran -39% 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.
Owner-earnings margin 10%

Solid

Owner earnings $15M = operating cash $19M − maintenance capex $4M

Industry peers: median 3%

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 10% of revenue this year. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $21M of SBC) leaves ($6M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $19M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($33M) · cash from operations $19M

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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.15×

Harvesting

Capex $4M ÷ depreciation $24M

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 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× · 1.23×

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 Near

Debt ≤ working capital · $29M vs $28M 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 $-0.36/share (latest year $-0.18), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.66/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.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 3 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −331% → −75% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing ties gains to its own pricing, but names price competition too — pricing power that is real yet contested, not unopposed. The margin shows who is winning.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −331% early to −75% lately, median −195% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2020 · −562.1% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, 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.

“Further, our usage of open source AI technologies may lead to compliance issues, obligations to disclose the source code of our software, and security risks.”

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$152M

Cash & short-term investments$81M
Receivables$43M
Inventory$8M
Other current assets$20M

Current liabilities$126M

Accounts payable$17M
Other current liabilities$109M

Current ratio1.21×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.14×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.64×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$26Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+44.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.7× → 1.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$121Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($32M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$42M$13M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$92Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

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 ownership5.2%
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$21M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 14% 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 Evolv Technologies Holdings 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 hereDid debt outgrow the business?$16M → $29M
Debt rose from $16M to $29M while owner earnings went from about ($42M) to ($42M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?4 of 6 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 4 of the last 6 years, $4M 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

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 →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$16M · 10% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“One customer, which is a reseller of our products, accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue for both years ended December 31, 2025 and the year ended December 31, 2024.”verify →
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, Technology Hardware

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
NTGRNETGEAR Inc.	$700M	30%	3.1%	4%	3%
PARPAR Technology Corporation	$456M	22%	-15.1%	-8%	-8%
DGIIDigi International Inc.	$430M	53%	6.7%	5%	11%
ATENA10 Networks Inc.	$291M	78%	10.6%	38%	16%
QMCOQuantum Corporation	$280M	41%	-2.6%	—	-4%
MITKMitek Systems Inc.	$180M	—	7.3%	4%	20%
EVLVEvolv Technologies Holdings Inc.	$146M	34%	-154.2%	-81%	10%
OSSOne Stop Systems Inc.	$32M	31%	-1.6%	-5%	-2%
Group median	—	34%	0.8%	4%	7%

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 Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc. has delivered.

Evolv Technologies Holdings 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 $

Base Normalize · through-cycle (($45M)) Net of stock comp (−$22M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($14M)

—

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, delivered—

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 ($2M) on 180M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net cash $52M. 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 ($20M) runs well above depreciation ($26M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $14M, 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 EVLV against another business →

The owners of EVLV: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← EVH its page in the Manual EVMN →

Industry order: ← DELL the Technology Hardware chapter FTNT →