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KOPN, Kopin Corporation

Kopin Corporation is headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, is a leader of innovative microdisplay technologies and optical systems, catering to defense, enterprise, industrial, consumer, and medical sectors.

Corporate Background and Market Presence As used herein, the terms "Company," "we," "us," or "our" refer to Kopin Corporation, a Delaware corporation.

The display is a bi-directional, human-in-the-loop and artificial intelligence enabled backplane that can be manufactured into microdisplays using either OLED or MicroLED deposition technology.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

KOPN · Kopin Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$39M

−21.9% YoY · −0% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $39M 5-yr avg $45M

Gross margin 46%

Operating margin −30.3% 5-yr avg −45.9%

ROIC −40% 5-yr avg −131%

Owner-earnings margin −35% 5-yr avg −35%

Free cash flow margin −39% 5-yr avg −36%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −86% through the cycle on a 35% 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. Inventory runs near 14% 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 process leadership and the capex cycle. 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 −70%, above 15% in 0 of 10 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, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$23M	$28M	$24M	$30M	$40M	$46M	$47M	$40M	$50M	$39M	$39M	RevenueRevenue
21%	35%	35%	29%	47%	—	—	—	—	—	46%	Gross marginGross mgn
75%	74%	111%	72%	29%	40%	38%	54%	45%	41%	45%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
67%	56%	51%	31%	10%	14%	18%	9%	12%	17%	16%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($20M)	($30M)	($40M)	($26M)	($5M)	($14M)	($22M)	($17M)	($43M)	($10M)	($12M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−90.4%	−108.8%	−163.4%	−89.4%	−11.9%	−30.2%	−46.0%	−42.5%	−85.6%	−25.1%	−30.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($24M)	($25M)	($35M)	($30M)	($4M)	($13M)	($19M)	($20M)	($44M)	$3M	$2M	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
($26M)	($26M)	($28M)	($21M)	($4M)	($11M)	($18M)	($15M)	($14M)	($16M)	($13M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1M	$900K	$1M	$800K	$651K	$669K	$722K	$608K	$637K	$830K	$857K	DepreciationDeprec.
($6M)	($4M)	$639K	$6M	($1M)	($2M)	($351K)	$4K	$26M	($22M)	($19M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$395K	$3M	$1M	$170K	$543K	$1M	$833K	$949K	$815K	$1M	$2M	CapexCapex
1.7%	10.0%	4.8%	0.6%	1.4%	2.3%	1.8%	2.4%	1.6%	3.7%	5.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($27M)	($27M)	($29M)	($21M)	($5M)	($11M)	($19M)	($16M)	($15M)	($16M)	($14M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−117.3%	−96.3%	−119.7%	−71.8%	−12.4%	−25.0%	−39.1%	−39.3%	−29.5%	−41.6%	−35.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($27M)	($29M)	($29M)	($21M)	($5M)	($12M)	($19M)	($16M)	($15M)	($17M)	($15M)	Free cash flowFCF
−117.3%	−103.1%	−119.7%	−71.8%	−12.4%	−25.8%	−39.1%	−40.1%	−29.9%	−43.2%	−38.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$792K	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$792K	Dividends paidDiv. paid
-28%	-46%	-94%	-92%	-33%	-84%	-108%	-57%	-373%	-33%	-40%	ROICROIC
-32%	-33%	-72%	-103%	-16%	-34%	-80%	-67%	-188%	4%	3%	Return on equityROE
−32%	−34%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$16M	$25M	$14M	$22M	$21M	$29M	$13M	$17M	$36M	$36M	$37M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$2M	$4M	$3M	$6M	$9M	$12M	$7M	$10M	$12M	$11M	$3M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$3M	$5M	$5M	$4M	$4M	$7M	$6M	$8M	$6M	$6M	$5M	InventoryInvent.
$4M	$5M	$4M	$4M	$6M	$5M	$5M	$5M	$6M	$5M	$6M	Accounts payablePayables
$611K	$4M	$4M	$6M	$8M	$13M	$8M	$12M	$12M	$11M	$3M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$83M	$80M	$49M	$34M	$39M	$52M	$31M	$40M	$63M	$92M	$82M	Current assetsCur. assets
$13M	$12M	$10M	$11M	$17M	$18M	$14M	$16M	$44M	$34M	$32M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
6.2×	6.6×	4.8×	3.0×	2.3×	3.0×	2.1×	2.5×	1.4×	2.7×	2.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$844K	$2M	$331K	$0	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
$88M	$91M	$60M	$43M	$48M	$63M	$44M	$49M	$71M	$108M	$102M	Total assetsAssets
($16M)	($25M)	($14M)	($22M)	($21M)	($29M)	($13M)	($17M)	($36M)	($36M)	($37M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$74M	$77M	$48M	$29M	$28M	$40M	$24M	$30M	$23M	$64M	$61M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
10.7%	8.2%	19.6%	7.0%	2.0%	9.7%	2.7%	9.6%	6.6%	7.7%	7.0%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	$600K	$1M	$331K	—	—	—	—	—	—	$331K	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
64.0M	69.9M	73.2M	80.3M	82.3M	88.8M	91.4M	109M	133M	175M	187M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.35	$0.40	$0.33	$0.37	$0.49	$0.51	$0.52	$0.37	$0.38	$0.22	$0.21	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.37	$-0.36	$-0.47	$-0.37	$-0.05	$-0.15	$-0.21	$-0.18	$-0.33	$0.01	$0.01	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.41	$-0.38	$-0.40	$-0.26	$-0.06	$-0.13	$-0.20	$-0.15	$-0.11	$-0.09	$-0.07	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.41	$-0.41	$-0.40	$-0.26	$-0.06	$-0.13	$-0.20	$-0.15	$-0.11	$-0.10	$-0.08	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.01	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.01	$0.04	$0.02	$0.00	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.16	$1.10	$0.65	$0.36	$0.35	$0.45	$0.26	$0.27	$0.18	$0.37	$0.33	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−4.9%/yr	−14.4%/yr
Capital spending / share	+3.2%/yr	+4.5%/yr
Book value / share	−12.0%/yr	+1.2%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

175Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−33%low FY2024

Gross margin

47%low FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($16M)owner earningsvs.$3Mnet incomelow FY2018

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 earned ($16M) of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $830K it takes just to hold its position. It put $608K more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($17M).

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$3M	($44M)	($20M)	($19M)	($13M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$830K	+$637K	+$608K	+$722K	+$669K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$3M	+$3M	+$4M	+$1M	+$4M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$22M	+$26M	+$4K	−$351K	−$2M
Cash from operations	($16M)	($14M)	($15M)	($18M)	($11M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$830K	−$637K	−$608K	−$833K	−$669K
Owner earnings	($16M)	($15M)	($16M)	($19M)	($11M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$608K	−$179K	−$341K	—	−$365K
Free cash flow	($17M)	($15M)	($16M)	($19M)	($12M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-42%	-30%	-39%	-39%	-25%

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 $830K, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $608K 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 $3M), owner earnings is nearer ($19M).

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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 →

Material weakness in financial controls

“We are in the process of developing and implementing our remediation plan for the identified material weaknesses, and we expect that this work will continue in 2026.”

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? +$58M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $36M + ST investments $21M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $58M, 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? 103d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 100 + DIO 94 − DPO 91 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 -0%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin -42%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -120%–-12%; latest ($16M) = operating cash ($16M) − maintenance capex $830K

Industry peers: median -2%

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 -42% of revenue this year, a -42% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $3M of SBC) leaves ($19M).
Are earnings backed by cash? -5.96×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops ($16M) ÷ net income $3M

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
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

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? 1.73×

Expanding

Capex $1M ÷ depreciation $830K

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 · $39M

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× · 2.70×

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 (10-yr record) · 9 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 · 1 of 10 yrs

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 $-0.11/share (latest year $0.01), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.35/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, 2016–2025

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

Profitable years 1 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 9 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −121% → −51% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −121% early to −51% lately, median −86% — pricing power intact or improving.
Worst year 2018 · −163.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2018, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 1 of the years on record.

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 Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“These competitors may be able to respond more rapidly than us to new or emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence technologies, or changes in customer requirements.”

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 28, 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$82M

Cash & short-term investments$37M
Receivables$3M
Inventory$5M
Other current assets$37M

Current liabilities$32M

Accounts payable$6M
Other current liabilities$26M

Current ratio2.61×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.46×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio1.16×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$51Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway2.4 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−20.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.9× → 2.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$61Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$48MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1M$1M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$1Mcustomer 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, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2023	Mr. Murray	$1.0M	$1.7M	($16M)
2023	Mr. Murray	$1.0M	$1.7M	($16M)
2024	Mr. Murray	$2.4M	$2.5M	($15M)
2024	Mr. Murray	$2.4M	$2.5M	($15M)
2025	Mr. Murray	$2.3M	$2.9M	($16M)
2025	Mr. Murray	$2.3M	$2.9M	($16M)

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 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$3M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 8% 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 Kopin Corporation 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 2016–2025.

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

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?7 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 7 of the last 10 years, $13M 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?
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.

Peers, Semiconductors

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
AXTIAXT Inc	$88M	32%	6.0%	4%	-16%
AMBQAmbiq Micro Inc.	$73M	44%	-54.5%	-141%	—
AIPArteris Inc.	$71M	90%	-56.0%	—	-3%
MPTIM-tron Industries Inc.	$54M	—	10.4%	19%	9%
NVTSNavitas Semiconductor Corporation	$46M	33%	-196.7%	-41%	-108%
KOPNKopin Corporation	$39M	35%	-65.8%	-70%	-40%
LPTHLightPath Technologies Inc.	$37M	35%	-4.8%	-5%	-0%
NVECNVE Corporation	$26M	79%	61.3%	21%	52%
Group median	—	35%	-29.7%	-5%	-3%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Kopin Corporation is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered0%/yr’20→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−39%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh KOPN against another business →

The owners of KOPN: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← KOP its page in the Manual KOS →

Industry order: ← KLIC the Semiconductors chapter LAES →