← All companies ← MASI Manual MAT → ← LH Life Sciences Tools & Services MDXH →

MASS, 908 Devices Inc.

Life Sciences Tools & Services consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundNet current asset value

Devices are used at the point-of-need to interrogate unknown and invisible materials and provide quick, actionable answers to directly address some of the most critical problems in vital health, safety and defense tech applications, addressing the fentanyl and illicit drug crisis, toxic carcinogen exposure, and global security threats.

Analysis at the Speed of Life We are making chemical analysis simple, smart and speedy with our purpose-built handheld devices that empower people to take swift action in life-altering applications.

We have developed an innovative suite of purpose-built handheld devices for point-of-need chemical analysis.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MASS · 908 Devices Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$56M

+17.7% YoY · 16% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $58M 5-yr avg $49M

Gross margin 51% 5-yr avg 53%

Operating margin −71.4% 5-yr avg −80.7%

ROIC −40% 5-yr avg −134%

Owner-earnings margin −14% 5-yr avg −56%

Free cash flow margin −14% 5-yr avg −56%

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. 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 −76% through the cycle on a 51% 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. Inventory runs near 23% 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 −76%, 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 →

27% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States73%$41M
EMEA19%$10M
Asia Pacific5%$3M
Americas other3%$2M

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
$27M	$42M	$47M	$50M	$48M	$56M	$58M	RevenueRevenue
55%	55%	56%	50%	51%	51%	51%	Gross marginGross mgn
46%	76%	94%	92%	83%	69%	66%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
31%	31%	37%	44%	31%	28%	26%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($6M)	($22M)	($35M)	($43M)	($57M)	($39M)	($41M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−21.6%	−52.3%	−75.5%	−85.1%	−120.2%	−70.1%	−71.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($13M)	($22M)	($34M)	($36M)	($72M)	$19M	($36M)	Net incomeNet inc.
							Cash flow & returns
$4M	($29M)	($21M)	($25M)	($30M)	($24M)	($7M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$831K	$925K	$2M	$2M	$5M	$4M	$4M	DepreciationDeprec.
$16M	($10M)	$4M	($831K)	$26M	($57M)	$14M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$9K	$737K	$2M	$2M	$602K	$955K	$836K	CapexCapex
0.0%	1.7%	4.4%	4.1%	1.3%	1.7%	1.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$4M	($30M)	($23M)	($27M)	($31M)	($25M)	($8M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
15.3%	−70.7%	−48.1%	−54.0%	−64.6%	−43.9%	−14.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$4M	($30M)	($23M)	($27M)	($31M)	($25M)	($8M)	Free cash flowFCF
15.3%	−70.7%	−49.0%	−54.0%	−64.6%	−43.9%	−14.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	-315%	-163%	-76%	-64%	-54%	-40%	ROICROIC
-9%	-10%	-18%	-22%	-63%	14%	-27%	Return on equityROE
−9%	−10%	−18%	−22%	−63%	14%	−27%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$159M	$224M	$188M	$146M	$70M	$113M	$112M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$7M	$16M	$10M	$9M	$9M	$11M	$10M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$5M	$8M	$13M	$15M	$11M	$13M	$13M	InventoryInvent.
$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$2M	$2M	Accounts payablePayables
$10M	$23M	$21M	$23M	$18M	$23M	$21M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$171M	$253M	$216M	$174M	$103M	$145M	$142M	Current assetsCur. assets
$11M	$15M	$19M	$23M	$25M	$34M	$40M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
15.8×	17.0×	11.2×	7.7×	4.1×	4.2×	3.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	—	$10M	$10M	$0	$0	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
$179M	$261M	$243M	$203M	$159M	$190M	$187M	Total assetsAssets
$15M	$15M	$15M	—	—	—	$15M	Total debtDebt
($144M)	($209M)	($173M)	—	—	—	($97M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-6.0×	-45.4×	-274.3×	-212.7×	—	—	-205.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$139M	$215M	$191M	$165M	$115M	$144M	$134M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
2.0%	5.9%	15.4%	19.5%	24.6%	17.5%	17.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
27.4M	28.0M	31.5M	32.2M	34.1M	35.9M	36.8M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.98	$1.51	$1.49	$1.56	$1.40	$1.57	$1.57	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.47	$-0.79	$-1.07	$-1.13	$-2.12	$0.54	$-0.98	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.15	$-1.07	$-0.72	$-0.84	$-0.91	$-0.69	$-0.23	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.15	$-1.07	$-0.73	$-0.84	$-0.91	$-0.69	$-0.23	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.03	$0.06	$0.06	$0.02	$0.03	$0.02	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.07	$7.68	$6.05	$5.13	$3.36	$4.00	$3.64	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2021 are restated ×5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

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

	5-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.8%/yr	+9.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+140.9%/yr	+140.9%/yr
Book value / share	−4.6%/yr	−4.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

36Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−54%low FY2021

Gross margin

51%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($25M)owner earningsvs.$19Mnet incomelow FY2024

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 reported $19M of profit but ($25M) of owner earnings: $44M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$19M	($72M)	($36M)	($34M)	($22M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$4M	+$5M	+$2M	+$2M	+$925K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$10M	+$12M	+$10M	+$7M	+$3M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$57M	+$26M	−$831K	+$4M	−$10M
Cash from operations	($24M)	($30M)	($25M)	($21M)	($29M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$955K	−$602K	−$2M	−$2M	−$737K
Owner earnings	($25M)	($31M)	($27M)	($23M)	($30M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$431K	—
Free cash flow	($25M)	($31M)	($27M)	($23M)	($30M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-44%	-65%	-54%	-48%	-71%

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 $10M), owner earnings is nearer ($34M).

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 →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -196.1×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($39M) ÷ interest expense $201K

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? +$97M

Net cash

Cash $71M + ST investments $42M − debt $16M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $97M, 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? 223d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 74 + DIO 171 − DPO 21 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 -76%

Below average through the cycle

5-yr median, range -315%–-54%; -44% latest = NOPAT ($39M) ÷ invested capital $89M

Industry peers: median -32%

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 5 years (it ran -44% 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 -54%

Consumes cash through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range -71%–15%; latest ($25M) = operating cash ($24M) − maintenance capex $955K

Industry peers: median -56%

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 -44% of revenue this year, a -54% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $10M of SBC) leaves ($34M).
Are earnings backed by cash? -1.22×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops ($24M) ÷ net income $19M

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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.21×

Harvesting

Capex $955K ÷ depreciation $4M

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 · 2 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 · $56M

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× · 4.24×

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 Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $16M vs $110M 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) · 5 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 $-0.79/share (latest year $0.52), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.80/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 1 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −50% → −92% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −50% early to −92% lately, median −76% — competition or costs are biting in.
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 2024 · −120.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, 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 are unable to use artificial intelligence technologies, it could make our business less efficient and result in competitive disadvantages.”

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$142M

Cash & short-term investments$112M
Receivables$10M
Inventory$13M
Other current assets$7M

Current liabilities$40M

Accounts payable$2M
Other current liabilities$37M

Current ratio3.58×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio3.25×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.82×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$102Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway13.5 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+13.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters5.1× → 3.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$98Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$89MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$19M$4M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$19Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 6-year cash-flow record

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

Goodwill & intangibles$36M19% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity0%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$14Mover 6 years buying other businesses, against $6M of capital spent building

$41M written down across 1 year (2024): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 6-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.

Insider ownership28.2%
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$10M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 18% 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 908 Devices 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.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−54.1% vs −34.5%
The business ran at a loss early in the record (an owner-earnings margin of −34.5%) and the loss has widened to −54.1% across the last three years, with the latest year at −43.9%. Ask the filing where the widening sits — price, cost, or spending growing faster than revenue — and what would narrow it.

And these came back clean

Did debt outgrow the business?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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, 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
CTKBCytek Biosciences Inc.	$201M	56%	-5.7%	-5%	1%
BBNXBeta Bionics Inc.	$100M	55%	-71.5%	-22%	-76%
NPCENeuropace Inc.	$100M	74%	-36.6%	-32%	-42%
CBLLCeriBell Inc.	$89M	87%	-65.6%	-34%	-56%
DCTHDelcath Systems Inc.	$85M	81%	-690.0%	-127%	-640%
ELMDElectromed Inc.	$64M	77%	10.8%	11%	7%
MASS908 Devices Inc.	$56M	53%	-72.8%	-76%	-51%
CLPTClearPoint Neuro Inc.	$37M	63%	-75.4%	-228%	-65%
Group median	—	68%	-68.5%	-33%	-53%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

908 Devices Inc. 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, delivered13%/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−14%

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 MASS against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "908 Devices Inc. (MASS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MASS, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MASI its page in the Manual MAT →

Industry order: ← LH the Life Sciences Tools & Services chapter MDXH →