One-glance verdict
Not enough data
Fair value unavailable
Not enough cash-flow history to value this one with our method.
Fundamentals snapshot
AEye, Inc.
LIDR · NCM · Technology · Software - Infrastructure
Current price
$1.22
52-week range
$1.01 - $4.00
Market cap
$56.94M
Balance sheet
Healthy
-396.66x Concerning
Net cash $70.02M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
1 Reward
3 Risks
1 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 93.1% last year.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from -2709.3% to -5324.3% over 3 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -89.3% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 2.5% (peer median: 6.0%).
What this company does
AEye, Inc.
AEye builds advanced sensors called lidar, which act like high-tech eyes by using lasers to help self-driving cars and other machines see a 3D map of their surroundings. The company makes money selling this technology to automakers as well as to other industries like construction and defense. AEye's success depends on these sectors adopting its sensors to make their vehicles and equipment safer and more autonomous.
How the company got here
AEye was founded in 2013 by Luis Dussan, an engineer who previously designed sensors for fighter jets. He saw an opportunity to adapt similar advanced sensor technology to help self-driving cars see the world around them more effectively and safely. The company focused on developing a smarter type of sensor called lidar (which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, a method that uses lasers to measure distances and create a 3D map of an environment). A key moment for the company was partnering with Continental, a major auto parts supplier, to bring its technology to the broader car market. AEye became a publicly traded company in 2021, which allowed it to raise more money to fund its growth and product development.
What it actually does
AEye creates high-performance 'eyes' for machines, helping them understand and react to the world in real-time. Their main technology is called lidar, which works by shooting out pulses of laser light and measuring how long they take to bounce back, creating a precise 3D map of the surroundings. This is crucial for self-driving cars to see pedestrians, other vehicles, and obstacles. Beyond cars, AEye's sensors are used in other areas like intelligent transportation systems to monitor traffic flow, in the defense industry for things like drone detection, and even in space mobility on lunar vehicles. The company sells not just the physical sensor hardware, but also the complex software that makes the sensor 'intelligent' and adaptable to different situations.
Physical AI Sensing Solutions
This is AEye's single, primary business. The company designs and sells its advanced lidar systems, which include both hardware and software, to customers across several industries. In the automotive world, car manufacturers and their suppliers pay AEye for its sensors to be integrated into new vehicles to enable advanced driver-assistance systems (features that help with things like automatic braking and lane-keeping) and eventually, fully autonomous driving. Another major set of customers are in the industrial and defense sectors, who buy these systems for applications like monitoring large infrastructure projects, providing security, or equipping military vehicles and drones with advanced sensing capabilities. This non-automotive part of the business is a key area of growth for the company.
What management is betting on now
Management is focused on expanding the use of its technology beyond just cars into a variety of industries like defense, aviation, and intelligent transportation systems. They are pursuing a 'capital-light' strategy, which means they partner with large-scale manufacturers to produce their sensors instead of building and owning expensive factories themselves. A major priority is their software-defined platform; this allows the sensor's capabilities to be updated with new software, much like a smartphone, without needing to replace the hardware. The company is also betting heavily on its partnerships, especially with tech giants like NVIDIA, to integrate its lidar with the powerful computing platforms that act as the 'brains' for autonomous machines.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$-7.76M
FY2024 Q4
$-4.87M
FY2025 Q1
$-7.81M
FY2025 Q2
$-6.36M
FY2025 Q3
$-6.13M
FY2025 Q4
$-7.59M
FY2026 Q1
$-8.74M
FY2026 Q2
$-7.42M
Revenue
$202.00K
Net income
$-10.02M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-7.29M
Free cash flow
$-7.42M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$101.00K
Net income
$-8.35M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-8.55M
Free cash flow
$-8.74M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$97.00K
Net income
$-7.34M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-7.53M
Free cash flow
$-7.59M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$50.00K
Net income
$-9.33M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-6.09M
Free cash flow
$-6.13M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$22.00K
Net income
$-9.27M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-6.36M
Free cash flow
$-6.36M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$64.00K
Net income
$-8.02M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-7.80M
Free cash flow
$-7.81M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$46.00K
Net income
$-8.55M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-4.81M
Free cash flow
$-4.87M
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Sources
Revenue
$104.00K
Net income
$-8.71M
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$-7.57M
Free cash flow
$-7.76M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value — vs current price $1.22
We couldn't calculate a fair value right now.
Is it drowning in debt?
Healthy
Net cash $70.0M - more cash than debt. Interest coverage -396.7x.
Net debt
$-70.02M
Interest coverage
-396.66x
AEye, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here and 3 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Healthy
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
LIDR
BASELINE
AEye, Inc.
Total debt $1.49M Interest coverage -396.66x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $35.63M Interest coverage -621.40x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $45.45M Interest coverage -3.74x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $102.37M Interest coverage -46.60x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
What you should know
The case for and against LIDR
1 Reward
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 93.1% last year.
Risks
-
Operating margin compressed from -2709.3% to -5324.3% over 3 years.
-
Return on equity was -89.3% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Insider ownership is only 2.5% (peer median: 6.0%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
—
Forward P/E
-1.92x
P/B
0.83x
P/S
126.53x
EV/EBITDA
0.37x
PEG ratio
—
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
-103.1%
Operating margin
-5,324.3%
Net margin
0.0%
ROE
-89.3%
ROA
-45.6%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.02x
Current ratio
10.83x
Quick ratio
10.45x
Total debt
$1.49M
Total cash
$71.50M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$450.00K
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-47.2%
EPS TTM
-0.94
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-29.46M
Free CF TTM
$-27.89M
FCF margin
-6,196.9%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
—