Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Oct 25, 2026
LiveOne, Inc. (LVO)
A forensic read on LiveOne, 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
Distress
Financial health
-25.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-32.6%
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). 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.
LiveOne, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -25.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-432.7%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -432.7% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2024–FY2026 from -36.8%. After-tax operating profit was ($4M) in FY2024 and ($12M) in FY2026, with operating income at -3.9% of revenue in FY2024, -15.8% in FY2025 and -20.1% in FY2026. The capital base behind it came down -72% across FY2024–FY2026, from $10M to $3M, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on. Across FY2025–FY2026, $6M went into capital expenditure and purchases of intangible assets against $4M of depreciation excluding $3M of intangible-asset amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference. FY2025's operating profit carried a $12M asset write-down and a $2M goodwill write-off that alone took about 209.5 points off that year's return; FY2025 sits between the two ends of FY2024–FY2026, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it.
FCF ($14M)
FY2026
Shareholder returns.Returned $599,000 to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026, but free cash flow was ($14M) 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.
40d DSO
FY2025→FY2026
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 26 to 40 days FY2025→FY2026 (receivables +2% vs revenue -33%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2024–FY2026 the day count ran 41 → 26 → 40 days, so the latest reading sits on top of a record that was flat or falling before it — one year's move, not a direction the business has been travelling in. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-16%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. 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 — FY2025's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2024–FY2026) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.
14% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 14% of revenue in FY2026 — about $1.02 per basic share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the basic count still rose about 15.6% a year across FY2025–FY2026, above the level at which the count is a material claim on a stake, and only one year's change is on file — enough to state what a holder gave up, not enough to say whether the rate is climbing or coming down. 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.
$2M
FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $2M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2025 ($2M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$77.1M
Revenue Growth YoY-32.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-19.3%
Net Margin-27.2%
Free Cash Flow-$13.7M
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 LiveOne, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?