happyinmotion
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From Stark on LinkedIn: "Stark Future SL Achieves the First Month of EBITDA Profitability and Records All-Time High Revenue"
I work in venture capital. I can say with experience that most start-ups fail. Most electric vehicle companies fail. Alta burned through US$44 million without making a profit. Cake raised at least $75m and went bankrupt. So it's pretty damn awesome that Stark are looking very strong.
Obviously, there's a heap of caveats here. EBITDA profit isn't net profit. EBITDA is "Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization". That means some important costs are not included:
- Interest will be the big one. Stark will be in debt - they had to pay up-front to build the factory. How much debt and how much interest cost? Don't know. Some of that cost will be covered by the €50m equity investment from Eicher (Royal Enfield) so no interest but some is debt and that means interest, even if it is at reasonable rates (that's the €20m working capital facility from Banco Santander and the €25m credit from Big Bets).
- Taxes should be zero as they're yet to make an actual profit.
- Depreciation will also be a cost coz factories don't last forever.
- Amortization (like depreciation but for intangibles like the value of Stark's technology & design) - I don't know how Stark are accounting for this, might be zero.
And some of the sales will be the pent-up demand as buyers have had to wait for two years, so they have three years of orders squeezed into one year of deliveries.
But postive EBITDA means Stark are fundamentally strong - they're selling bikes for more than it costs to build them. Build costs will only go down as volumes go up, so profits should be up and be there to pay off the factory and the funds already spent to get the company to where it is right now.
Stark Future SL ... is proud to announce a landmark achievement in June 2024, marking its first month of EBITDA profitability within just four years of its inception. The company also celebrated an all-time high [monthly] revenue of 10.4 million EUR, with an EBITDA of 210,000 EUR, underscoring its rapid ascent and operational efficiency.
I work in venture capital. I can say with experience that most start-ups fail. Most electric vehicle companies fail. Alta burned through US$44 million without making a profit. Cake raised at least $75m and went bankrupt. So it's pretty damn awesome that Stark are looking very strong.
Obviously, there's a heap of caveats here. EBITDA profit isn't net profit. EBITDA is "Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization". That means some important costs are not included:
- Interest will be the big one. Stark will be in debt - they had to pay up-front to build the factory. How much debt and how much interest cost? Don't know. Some of that cost will be covered by the €50m equity investment from Eicher (Royal Enfield) so no interest but some is debt and that means interest, even if it is at reasonable rates (that's the €20m working capital facility from Banco Santander and the €25m credit from Big Bets).
- Taxes should be zero as they're yet to make an actual profit.
- Depreciation will also be a cost coz factories don't last forever.
- Amortization (like depreciation but for intangibles like the value of Stark's technology & design) - I don't know how Stark are accounting for this, might be zero.
And some of the sales will be the pent-up demand as buyers have had to wait for two years, so they have three years of orders squeezed into one year of deliveries.
But postive EBITDA means Stark are fundamentally strong - they're selling bikes for more than it costs to build them. Build costs will only go down as volumes go up, so profits should be up and be there to pay off the factory and the funds already spent to get the company to where it is right now.