Archer Aviation Inc. (ACHR) Stock Analysis
Archer Aviation Inc.
▾ What's in the 36/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read ACHR (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
A discounted-cash-flow model can only discount POSITIVE cash flows. ACHR's free cash flow is currently negative — it's reinvesting / still pre-profit — so a forward DCF can't produce a meaningful number. That's a property of the model, not missing data; the full financials and story are below.
What to use instead: This is exactly where the Reverse-DCF earns its keep: it shows the growth the market is ALREADY pricing in, so you can judge whether that's achievable. Pair it with the EV/Sales peer lens, the Rule-of-40 read, and the cash-runway section — the right tools for a pre-profit company.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — ACHR's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
⚠ We found no genuine same-industry (Aircraft) comparables at all — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 8 names in the table below therefore include 8 broader Industrials names marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does ACHR stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare ACHR only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.7x / 0.8x / 3.7x |
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
4.5x / 5.5x / 9.4x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
13.2x / 16.5x / 19.0x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 peers (broad — see caveat); implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VECO | VEECO INSTRUMENTS INC | Special Industry Machinery ·fallback | $3.5B | 5.6x | 14.1x | 104.9x | 1.3% |
| ZIM | ZIM Integrated Shipping Services L | Deep Sea Foreign Transport ·fallback | $3.3B | 0.5x | 2.5x | — | 17.2% |
| TPC | TUTOR PERINI CORP | General Bldg Contractors - ·fallback | $3.8B | 0.7x | 5.8x | 16.3x | 9.5% |
| EFXT | Enerflex Ltd. | Industrial Machinery ·fallback | $3.0B | — | 5.2x | — | — |
| TREX | TREX CO INC | Lumber & Wood Products ·fallback | $4.3B | 3.7x | 9.4x | 16.7x | 2.3% |
| TRMD | TORM plc | Deep Sea Foreign Transport ·fallback | $2.8B | — | — | — | — |
| UFPI | UFP INDUSTRIES INC | Lumber ·fallback | $4.6B | 0.8x | 4.5x | 13.2x | 10.0% |
| VVX | V2X, Inc. | Facilities Support Managem ·fallback | $2.6B | 0.8x | — | 19.0x | 6.0% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$618.2M in FY2025.Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$432.9M (was -$368.6M the prior year).Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$432.9M vs net income -$618.2M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -25.1% vs -53.6% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 3.3% of assets vs 6.4% a year ago ($80.3M of $2,465.9M assets).
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 19.89x vs 12.07x a year ago.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 65.7% (376.7M → 624.3M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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· Sales per asset (asset turnover) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
Plain English: the company holds about $1,022M in cash and is burning roughly $433M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 2.4 yrs before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.
Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for ACHR. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for ACHR because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Archer Aviation Inc. because its operating cash flow is negative and it has not been profitable in the last five years, as indicated by the health signals. Investors are likely betting on the future success and adoption of its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The market may be assigning value to the potential for regulatory approval and commercialization of urban air mobility, which is not in the model. The #1 quantifiable risk is the rising long-term debt, which has increased from $19M to $80M.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Receipt of key regulatory certifications (e.g., FAA Type Certification)
- Announcement of significant aircraft orders or operational partnerships
- Progress towards commercial flight operations and initial revenue generation
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$735.2M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$618.2M — loss widening.
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Adam Goldstein serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Archer Aviation Inc., a company he co-founded. Brett Adcock is the Executive Chairman. They lead the company's efforts in developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
What They Make
Archer Aviation Inc. designs and develops electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for urban air mobility. These aircraft are intended to serve as air taxis for short-distance travel within and around cities.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Archer Aviation based on its future growth potential in the nascent urban air mobility sector, rather than current cash flows, as indicated by its negative net income and operating cash flow. The market may be assigning value to the successful development and certification of its eVTOL aircraft, which is not in the model. Investors are focused on the company's ability to achieve commercial scale and regulatory approval for its innovative transportation solution.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself primarily through equity raises and has seen its long-term debt rising, indicating a reliance on external financing for its growth and development.
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 15.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
The company has been unprofitable in 0/5 years and has negative operating cash flow, indicating it is in an early, cash-burning stage of development.
Geography & Markets
Archer Aviation Inc. is headquartered in the United States, with its primary focus on developing urban air mobility solutions for the US market and potential global expansion. Exact geographic revenue mix is not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)64.2NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (3 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Archer Aviation Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 300,000 | -618.2M | $-0.99 |
| 2024 | — | -536.8M | $-1.42 |
| 2023 | — | -457.9M | $-1.69 |
| 2022 | — | -317.3M | $-1.32 |
| 2021 | — | -347.8M | $-3.14 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -432.9M | 78.8M | 223.5M | -735.2M |
| 2024 | -368.6M | 82.0M | 108.8M | -559.4M |
| 2023 | -271.6M | 44.3M | 45.2M | -361.1M |
| 2022 | -200.4M | 6.9M | 102.8M | -310.1M |
| 2021 | -108.4M | 3.5M | 123.6M | -235.5M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: -432.9M − 78.8M − 223.5M (SBC & adj.) = -735.2M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 2.5B |
| Total Liabilities | 263.1M |
| Equity | 2.2B |
| Total Debt | 80.3M |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.