I did look at OCF and FCF/EQ as well, but that didn’t look better and I thus didn’t post.
Here they are:
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Operating Cash Flow
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Free Cash Flow to Equity
The nature of (Hardware enabled) SaaS business is fundamentally different (recurring revenues with high GM% and thus also rather different benefits of scaling fast). Whether right/accurate or not, multiples of Sales are more often used than multiples of earnings/CF for valuation and this multiple is influenced by other metrics (like the Rule of 40).
In the end, if everybody agreed on the same valuation, there wouldn’t be much trading on the stock market so these differences keeps things interesting:)
Finally found a listed company which one could use as a reasonable benchmark: Samsara (ticker: IOT)
That company is much further ahead (1B+ revenues) and sheds a light on what’s possible. The valuation is rather heavy also… which points to Blackline being cheap.
Quiet volatile:
But still kind of expensive. Even after the drop of 15% on Friday…
All my multibagger have one thing in common: they were completely surprises. At the moment I hold the following multibagger, some of it kind of boring bigcaps: ABBV,AVGO,CAT,CEG,CMI,FTI,MET,NUE,SMCI,TRI,UTI and VIST
Definition of a multibagger is a capital gain of more than 100% without dividends. The key for multibaggers is to hold as long as possible… but not longer.
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I would agree …
You’re still paying a multiple of over 100!
Also, in my mind I expand their ticker IOT into “Internet Of Things” which is a term that has been tainted by my déformation professionelle (in the cyber security space people like to think of the “Internet Of Things” as the “Internet Of Shit” …).*
That’s where we differ: I planned all of mine. 
Most of my multibaggers are also plain old boring companies (perhaps with the exception of Broadcom).
And as you state, time does most of the heavy lifting.
* The label stems from the fact that lots of these IOT devices are ticking time bombs as they go out of date and will never be patched, growing a fleet of Internet reachable vulnerable devices.
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Agree that Samsara is expensive and what put me off a bit is that they’re not profitable despite having scaled quite a bit (more than 1 billion annual revenues if my memory serves me well).
Here is the recent earnings release from earlier today from Blackline Safety though:
"Blackline Safety Reports Record Fiscal First Quarter 2025 Revenue of $37.7 million, up 43%, and EBITDA of $2.1 million
Record Annual Recurring Revenue(1) (“ARR”) of $70.9 million, up 31% year-over-year
32nd consecutive quarter of year-over-year top-line growth
Blackline achieves “Rule of 40”(1)
Gross Margin improves to 60% in Q1, up 500 basis points year-over-year
Net Dollar Retention(1) (“NDR”) was 128%, seventh consecutive quarter above 125%"
So:
- continued strong growth
- EBITDA profitable at a much lower revenue number than Samsara
- when you compare the 2 companies… Samsara is in a hardware space which is a bit more mundane vs. the area Blackline is in
This is part of what makes investing so difficult and fun though… for every buyer there is also a seller with a different perspective:)
I like (understatement) the trajectory Blackline is on and the market opportunity they are addressing. THe Samsara reference was just to create some ‘fantasy’ about what the valuation of a Blackline could be (using the multiple on revenues).
I would never have uncovered Blackline if I was not an expert in the space they operate in. I suspect for the vast majority of investors they are well below the radar screen (due to being Canadian and small-cap).
Interesting times ahead - also Blackline had a drop past week and I pulled up the truck to acquire more shares. Will be curious how the market reacts to todays earnings release.
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New one here, only just started to look at it. In an interesting space (healthtech) which I know little about but their business model looks appealing and it’s an opportunity to get in ‘earlier’ than the Blackline Safety case mentioned above. Company is called: DarioHealth. Am curious if anybody here with a background in healthtech has an interesting PoV on it.
Nice, from 6000 to 0.5. Come on, still space to zero. At the cash-burn rate they have probably little time left to try. Or do they spend it on people promoting it on the mustachian forum?
They have the ultimate medication that could have saved my mother from dying from cancer I suppose. Too late for me.
A month ago a little pump-n-dump seemed to have worked, hope you did not get hurt there:
briefly looked at the 10K. Stock-based compensation is 60% of revenues? Looks a little suspicious if you ask me
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I knew this one would trigger a response:)
I’ve not yet had the time to look at ‘what happened’ during the earlier years of this company’s existence - perhaps a case of a a group of execs/investors shifting their business model looking for something which works. In any case, I am intrigued by the space they are in with the potential it brings as well as by the revenue momentum and SaaS margins. While they’re still burning cash, the valuation vs. where this business potentially could be in say 5 years if it maintains this momentum is modest. Clearly a rather risky play compared to Blackline which seems to be going from strength to strength and is ‘out of the gates’ in terms of proving their viability as a business / offering. Blackline was in a similar position just a few years ago though (at much lower stock price). No guts, no glory:)
Blackline got a boost from US/China relations warming up and the recent news of awards for some of its products. Let’s see if the door is open for sustained increases going forward. Upcoming quarterly earnings will be key.
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With a business / stock like this there’s always going to be volatility up and down but recent developments are very, very encouraging:
- On August 22, 2025, Blackline Safety announced a multi-year agreement with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for the deployment of 2,200 IoT-enabled devices—comprising G6 wearable gas detectors and location beacons—with potential expansion to as many as 28,000 devices. That’s a LOT of devices and a lot of sticky recurring revenues! They’ve only fairly recently started focusing on the huge Middle East market so this is a statement win taking a lot of share from entrenched competitors.
- Bit of marketing spin: This high-profile contract has positioned Blackline as a leader in industrial IoT safety, reinforcing its HeSaaS (Hardware-enabled SaaS) model, which supports recurring revenue growth (33% year-over-year ARR growth) and strong profitability (63% gross margins). I consider this a reasonable statement… lot of great ideas out there, some turning into businesses, but very few scaling like Blackline AND profitable now.
- Analysts have responded with a “Buy” consensus rating, and a target price of CA$9.14, which is approximately 46% above the stock’s recent closing price of CA$6.26. As stated earlier, This is really just if they execute in their current swim lane. I consider Blackline a platform play with a lot more long term potential (never mind then likelihood of them being acquired by a slow incumbent in this industry like Honeywell - to add: Honeywell acquired the prior company of the founder / CEO of Blackline….)
- Market commentary also notes unusual upward movement in the stock, supported by insider buying—signaling investor confidence.
This is not a stock for those seeking faint hearted. Things will go up and down.
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I’m a fan of this company/stock (if you hadn’t guessed).
They just announced quarterly earnings:
“Highest Ever Annual Recurring Revenue (1) (“ARR”) of $80.2 million, up 29% year-over-year
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Record third quarter revenue of $37.6 million
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Net Dollar Retention(1) (“NDR”) of 128%, surpassing 125% for the ninth consecutive quarter
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Adjusted EBITDA(1) of $1.3 million and 5th consecutive quarter of positive Adjusted EBITDA
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34th consecutive quarter of year-over-year top-line growth”
Blackline Safety Reports Record Fiscal Third Quarter 2025 Results
They also recently had a very strategic customer win in the middle east which confirms their trajectory and competitive position (vs. larger multinationals) is stronger than ever.
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Biggest bull factor? I trimmed my position in it a few days ago