Cepton, Inc.

NasdaqCM:CPTN Stock Report

Market Cap: US$52.2m

This company has been acquired

The company may no longer be operating, as it has been acquired. Find out why through their latest events.

Cepton Past Earnings Performance

Past criteria checks 0/6

Cepton's earnings have been declining at an average annual rate of -18.4%, while the Electronic industry saw earnings growing at 13.7% annually. Revenues have been growing at an average rate of 44.4% per year.

Key information

-18.40%

Earnings growth rate

27.12%

EPS growth rate

Electronic Industry Growth15.34%
Revenue growth rate44.38%
Return on equity-54.71%
Net Margin-145.34%
Last Earnings Update30 Sep 2024

Recent past performance updates

Recent updates

Analysis Article Jun 28

Will Cepton (NASDAQ:CPTN) Spend Its Cash Wisely?

We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. For example, although Amazon.com made...
Analysis Article Apr 05

After Leaping 28% Cepton, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPTN) Shares Are Not Flying Under The Radar

Cepton, Inc. ( NASDAQ:CPTN ) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a...
Analysis Article Apr 03

Time To Worry? Analysts Just Downgraded Their Cepton, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPTN) Outlook

The analysts covering Cepton, Inc. ( NASDAQ:CPTN ) delivered a dose of negativity to shareholders today, by making a...
Analysis Article Mar 27

Here's Why We're Watching Cepton's (NASDAQ:CPTN) Cash Burn Situation

Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, biotech and...
Analysis Article Sep 22

Here's Why We're Not Too Worried About Cepton's (NASDAQ:CPTN) Cash Burn Situation

Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the...
Analysis Article Aug 24

Shareholders In Cepton (NASDAQ:CPTN) Should Look Beyond Earnings For The Full Story

Even though Cepton, Inc. ( NASDAQ:CPTN ) posted strong earnings recently, the stock hasn't reacted in a large way. We...
Seeking Alpha Aug 01

Cepton picks internal executive for COO role

Cepton (NASDAQ:CPTN) appointed Dr. Liqun Han as COO; he will continue to lead execution of Cepton's flagship ADAS lidar program and drive product success to support the company's growing presence across automotive and smart infrastructure markets. Since joining in 2016, Dr. Han has led Cepton’s product development, commercialization and operational excellence teams as VP, Operations, and most recently as SVP, Operations.
Seeking Alpha Jul 22

Cepton: Better Times Ahead

Cepton is headed towards the launch of an automotive production deal for their Lidars. The company continues to project a massive ramp in revenues, but the cash balance only ended March at $45 million. The stock is very appealing considering the business prospects, but the company needs to raise more cash to fund operations before becoming ultra-bullish on the story. A lot of sectors had companies rush to complete SPAC deals and typically the leading companies went first. In the Lidar sensor space, Cepton (CPTN) was the last of a group to complete deals, but the company is not necessarily the worst in the sector. My investment thesis is Bullish on the stock trading at only $1.50 after completing the SPAC deal only back in February. Automotive Pipeline The company has the largest ADAS Lidar series production award to date. The plan is for the series production to start in 2023 with General Motors (GM) Ultra Cruise that combines cameras, radars and Lidar to an integrated ADAS system. Over the next few years, the company will expand the program to over 12+ vehicle models and alliance partners with the deal will be starting with several thousand units shipped this year. Cepton April 2022 Presentation The company hasn't announced a contract award amount yet, but Lidar sensor competitor Innoviz Technologies (INVZ) announced a major $4+ billion deal with an automotive OEM. The deal sets a rather larger hurdle for the GM contract to top. The GM Ultra Cruise deal is supposed to involve thousands of Lidar sensors this year leading to scaled production in 2023 and beyond. In total, Innoviz lists over $6.6 billion in backlog and Luminar Technologies (LAZR) was supposed to be the leader in the automotive sector. The scale of automotive deals and the involvement of Cepton with both GM and Ford (F) provide great coverage for the business targets provided as part of the SPAC deal announced less than a year ago. With the crackdown on SPAC forward projections by mid-2021, the company had a push to not be overly aggressive on projections. Revenue is still set to soar as Smart Infrastructure deals ramp prior to the automotive market that ultimately is forecast to account for 70% of total revenues. Cepton SPAC Presentation Despite some of the positive news on a major OEM deal with GM, the stock has absolutely collapsed to only $1.50. The SPAC deal just closed in February when the shareholders approved the merger at $10. Minimal Business Now As with all of the other Lidar players, Cepton has a very minimal revenue stream right now. For Q1'22, the company only reported revenue of $1.5 million. Revenues were up nearly 240%, but the amount was still near immaterial for a business with a TAM running into the billions. Cepton had promised material revenues of $250 million by 2024 jumping to $861 million in 2025. Analysts now have those numbers targeted at $177 million to $540 million by 2025. Hitting the updated targets would be very bullish for the stock. Seeking Alpha The biggest negative on the stock is the lack of cash on the balance sheet. Cepton ended the March quarter with a cash balance of only $45 million. The company is relying on the Trinity loan facility for another $15 million and a Lincoln Park Capital equity purchase commitment for another $100 million. Cepton only has a market cap of $200+ million, but the company had EBITDA losses of $11.4 million in Q1'22 with negative operating cash flows of $19.5 million. The Lidar sensor company most definitely will need to raise additional funds in order to finance the business and the stock trading at only $1.50 is problematic for this endeavor.
Seeking Alpha Mar 01

Cepton: Short Squeezes Provide Interesting Short Selling Opportunities

The company recently listed on NASDAQ through a SPAC deal and redemptions were around 90%. It seems that retail investors have realized the public float is low and there appears there was a short squeeze on February 17 when the share price hit $80.16. I think we could see more short squeezes in the near future, which could create good short selling scenarios. Historically, short squeezes rarely last more than a couple of days and if that happens again with Cepton stock, the share price is likely to fall back to around $10-$12 per share once more.

Revenue & Expenses Breakdown

How Cepton makes and spends money. Based on latest reported earnings, on an LTM basis.


Earnings and Revenue History

NasdaqCM:CPTN Revenue, expenses and earnings (USD Millions)
DateRevenueEarningsG+A ExpensesR&D Expenses
30 Sep 2418-262021
30 Jun 2421-272122
31 Mar 2414-422428
31 Dec 2313-492430
30 Sep 2310-582632
30 Jun 238-642633
31 Mar 237-472732
31 Dec 22792933
30 Sep 227142631
30 Jun 227232329
31 Mar 226122027
31 Dec 215-371424
30 Sep 214-321221
30 Jun 213-291018
31 Mar 212-24714
31 Dec 202-20612
31 Dec 194-17611

Quality Earnings: CPTN is currently unprofitable.

Growing Profit Margin: CPTN is currently unprofitable.


Free Cash Flow vs Earnings Analysis


Past Earnings Growth Analysis

Earnings Trend: CPTN is unprofitable, and losses have increased over the past 5 years at a rate of 18.4% per year.

Accelerating Growth: Unable to compare CPTN's earnings growth over the past year to its 5-year average as it is currently unprofitable

Earnings vs Industry: CPTN is unprofitable, making it difficult to compare its past year earnings growth to the Electronic industry (-5%).


Return on Equity

High ROE: CPTN has a negative Return on Equity (-54.71%), as it is currently unprofitable.


Return on Assets


Return on Capital Employed


Discover strong past performing companies

Company Analysis and Financial Data Status

DataLast Updated (UTC time)
Company Analysis2025/01/08 00:28
End of Day Share Price 2025/01/06 00:00
Earnings2024/09/30
Annual Earnings2023/12/31

Data Sources

The data used in our company analysis is from S&P Global Market Intelligence LLC. The following data is used in our analysis model to generate this report. Data is normalised which can introduce a delay from the source being available.

PackageDataTimeframeExample US Source *
Company Financials10 years
  • Income statement
  • Cash flow statement
  • Balance sheet
Analyst Consensus Estimates+3 years
  • Forecast financials
  • Analyst price targets
Market Prices30 years
  • Stock prices
  • Dividends, Splits and Actions
Ownership10 years
  • Top shareholders
  • Insider trading
Management10 years
  • Leadership team
  • Board of directors
Key Developments10 years
  • Company announcements

* Example for US securities, for non-US equivalent regulatory forms and sources are used.

Unless specified all financial data is based on a yearly period but updated quarterly. This is known as Trailing Twelve Month (TTM) or Last Twelve Month (LTM) Data. Learn more.

Analysis Model and Snowflake

Details of the analysis model used to generate this report is available on our Github page, we also have guides on how to use our reports and tutorials on Youtube.

Learn about the world class team who designed and built the Simply Wall St analysis model.

Industry and Sector Metrics

Our industry and section metrics are calculated every 6 hours by Simply Wall St, details of our process are available on Github.

Analyst Sources

Cepton, Inc. is covered by 7 analysts. 1 of those analysts submitted the estimates of revenue or earnings used as inputs to our report. Analysts submissions are updated throughout the day.

AnalystInstitution
Richard ShannonCraig-Hallum Capital Group LLC
Samik ChatterjeeJ.P. Morgan
Matthew GalinkoMaxim Group