Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Sep 25, 2026
Backblaze, Inc. (BLZE)
A forensic read on Backblaze, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
4.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-38.7
P / E (ttm)
-30.8%
ROE
$870M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
14.3%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Backblaze, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 4.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+51.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +51.7% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by receivables up +90% against revenue +14%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 114% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 51.7%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
-18.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -18.5% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -73.7%. After-tax operating profit was ($46M) in FY2023 and ($19M) in FY2025, with operating income at -56.8% of revenue in FY2023, -36.3% in FY2024 and -16.2% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +63% across FY2023–FY2025, from $62M to $101M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -73.7% the older base was already earning.
+24.9%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +56% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+24.9%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~24.9% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~36%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$145.8M
Revenue Growth YoY+14.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+19.5%
Net Margin-17.6%
Free Cash Flow$11.3M
Return on Equity-30.8%
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Backblaze, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 25, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
18% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 18% of revenue and 234% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.47 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 25.0% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Backblaze, Inc. (BLZE) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy