Owner Scorecard


← 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

A precision-instruments business, selling measurement and electronic gear into labs and production lines.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
MASS · 908 Devices Inc.
I

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 $61M 5-yr avg $49M
Gross margin 52% 5-yr avg 53%
Operating margin −64.0% 5-yr avg −80.7%
ROIC −48% 5-yr avg −134%
Owner-earnings margin 1% 5-yr avg −56%
Free cash flow margin 1% 5-yr avg −56%

Next report Est. 11/2–11/12 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 45 days of period end · has filed ~42 days after · the wire records it on arrival

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 −73% through the cycle on a 53% 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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMJun 2026
Income statement
$27M$42M$47M$50M$48M$56M$61MRevenueRevenue
$15M$23M$26M$25M$25M$28M$32MGross profitGross prof.
55%55%56%50%51%51%52%Gross marginGross mgn
46%76%94%92%83%69%64%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
31%31%37%44%31%28%24%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($6M)($22M)($35M)($43M)($57M)($39M)($39M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−21.6%−52.3%−75.5%−85.1%−120.2%−70.1%−64.0%Operating marginOp. mgn
($34M)($37M)($53M)($33M)Pretax incomePretax
($13M)($22M)($34M)($36M)($72M)$19M($35M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$4M($29M)($21M)($25M)($30M)($24M)$1MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$831K$925K$2M$2M$5M$4M$5MDepreciation & amortizationD&A
$16M($10M)$4M($831K)$26M($57M)$22MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$9K$737K$2M$2M$602K$955K$876KCapexCapex
0.0%1.7%4.4%4.1%1.3%1.7%1.4%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$4M($30M)($23M)($27M)($31M)($25M)$615KOwner earningsOwner earn.
15.3%−70.7%−48.1%−54.0%−64.6%−43.9%1.0%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$4M($30M)($23M)($27M)($31M)($25M)$615KFree cash flowFCF
15.3%−70.7%−49.0%−54.0%−64.6%−43.9%1.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
($9K)($737K)($16M)($26M)($46M)$51MInvesting cash flowInv. cash
$137M$95M$1M($16M)($376K)($697K)Financing cash flowFin. cash
$18K$13K($65K)$27KExchange-rate effectFX
$141M$65M($36M)($67M)($77M)$26MChange in cashΔ cash
-315%-163%-76%-64%-54%-48%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$102MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$7M$16M$10M$9M$9M$11M$12MReceivablesReceiv.
$5M$8M$13M$15M$11M$13M$14MInventoryInvent.
$1M$1M$1M$1M$1M$2M$3MAccounts payablePayables
$10M$23M$21M$23M$18M$23M$23MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$171M$253M$216M$174M$103M$145M$132MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$11M$15M$19M$23M$25M$34M$49MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
15.8×17.0×11.2×7.7×4.1×4.2×2.7×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$850K$2M$3M$3M$2M$4MNet PP&ENet PP&E
$10M$10M$0$0$11MGoodwillGoodwill
$179M$261M$243M$203M$159M$190M$198MTotal assetsAssets
$15M$15M$15MTotal debtDebt
($144M)($209M)($173M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-6.0×-45.4×-274.3×-212.7×-193.7×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$40M$46M$52M$37M$45M$46MTotal liabilitiesTotal liab.
$139M$215M$191M$165M$115M$144M$127MShareholders’ equityEquity
2.0%5.9%15.4%19.5%24.6%17.5%16.2%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
27.4M28.0M31.5M32.2M34.1M35.9M37.3MShares out (diluted)Shares
$0.98$1.51$1.49$1.56$1.40$1.57$1.63Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.47$-0.79$-1.07$-1.13$-2.12$0.54$-0.93EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.15$-1.07$-0.72$-0.84$-0.91$-0.69$0.02Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.15$-1.07$-0.73$-0.84$-0.91$-0.69$0.02Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00$0.03$0.06$0.06$0.02$0.03$0.02Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.07$7.68$6.05$5.13$3.36$4.00$3.40Book 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-yr5-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

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.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • Below average through the cycle
    5-yr median, range -315%–-54%; -44% latest = NOPAT ($39M) ÷ invested capital $89M
    Industry peers: median -51%
    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.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    6-yr median margin, range -71%–15%; latest ($25M) = operating cash ($24M) − maintenance capex $955K
    Industry peers: median -59%
    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 -51% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $10M of SBC) leaves ($34M).

  • 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?

  • 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 & amortization as filed $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.

The promise and the pay packet

  • Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 17.5%
    The count is rising
    Stock compensation $10M (fiscal 2025), 17.5% of revenue · no repurchases · diluted shares +14.0% since 2022
    What this means

    Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 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 · $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
    Uninterrupted dividends · no dividend line tagged in the data
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. This record carries no dividends-paid line in any year — common for partnerships, whose distributions file under tags the chain doesn't read — so the criterion is withheld rather than judged on silence.

  • 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 $-0.72/share (latest year $0.47), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.48/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.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Jun 30, 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$132M
  • Cash & short-term investments$102M
  • Receivables$12M
  • Inventory$14M
  • Other current assets$4M
Current liabilities$49M
  • Accounts payable$3M
  • Other current liabilities$47M
Current ratio2.67×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.38×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio2.05×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$83Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+23.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters4.2× → 2.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$71Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$61MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$4M$4M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$22Mcustomer 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 1 years since fiscal 2022 buying other businesses, against $6M of capital spent building over the 6-year record

$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.

Beside that spending sits $6M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2022 — the purchase price of past deals, expensed over time.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and amortization summed across the company's full tagged history, write-downs 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 in fiscal 2025, 17.5% 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.

Peers, Life Sciences Tools & Services

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

CompanyRevenuelatest FY, USDGross marginmedian over the recordOp. marginmedian over the recordROICmedian over the recordOwner earn. marginmedian over the record
TXG10x Genomics Inc.$643M77%-31.9%-42%-9%
CTKBCytek Biosciences Inc.$201M56%-5.7%-5%1%
PACBPacific Biosciences of California Inc.$160M38%-146.8%-51%-88%
MDXHMDxHealth SA$108M52%-102.3%-104%-95%
BNRBurning Rock Biotech Limited$80M71%-86.6%-229%-59%
PSNLPersonalis Inc.$70M26%-80.7%-48%-58%
MASS908 Devices Inc.$56M53%-72.8%-76%-51%
EYPTEyePoint Inc.$31M-240.6%-113%-274%
Group median53%-83.6%-63%-58%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what 908 Devices Inc. has delivered.

$
Base

The assumptions

9.0% = the 4.71% 10-year Treasury (Aug 18, 2026) + 4.29 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth, delivered
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)
P/B
Graham’s price gate

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.71%, as of Aug 18, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $615K on 41M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-08-07; net cash $102M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "908 Devices Inc. (MASS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MASS, data as of 2026-08-17.

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

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