Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Sep 25, 2026
Ceva Inc (CEVA)
A forensic read on Ceva Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
16.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-75.1
P / E (ttm)
-3.2%
ROE
$947M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
2.5%
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.
Ceva Inc earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 16.7, placing it in the Safe zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by receivables vs revenue.
What the filings flag
164d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 127 to 164 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +33% vs revenue +2%). Receivables are outrunning sales — a flag for aggressive revenue recognition or slipping collections. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 114 → 127 → 164 days — the latest step continues a climb that was already under way, which is the persistence that separates a collection problem from a busy quarter. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-3%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Measured against the same quarter twelve months earlier — like-for-like on the calendar, so an ordinary seasonal build cannot produce it — receivables took longer to collect in 6 consecutive quarters (Mar 2025 +13, Jun 2025 +16, Sep 2025 +30, Dec 2025 +28, Mar 2026 +11, Jun 2026 +16 days). In the latest of them the receivable balance grew +27% against sales +13%, so more of a quarter's billings were still outstanding at the period end than a year earlier — money the company has recognized and not yet been paid. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.
-2.8%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -2.8% in the latest fiscal year, against -4.2% in FY2023, having run between -4.2% and -2.3% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($11M) in FY2023 and ($9M) in FY2025, with operating income at -13.8% of revenue in FY2023, -7.1% in FY2024 and -10.4% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +26% across FY2023–FY2025, from $254M to $319M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -4.2% the older base was already earning.
+1.7%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$109.6M
Revenue Growth YoY+2.5%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+6.1%
Net Margin-9.7%
Free Cash Flow-$6.3M
Return on Equity-3.2%
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 Ceva 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.
Share-count dilution.
Diluted share count changed +3% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+1.7%/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 ~1.7% 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 ~3%.
FCF ($6M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $7M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($6M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+17.6%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +17.6% 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 faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by receivables up +33% against revenue +2%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 3% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 17.6%. 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.