Kartoon Studios, Inc. (TOON) Stock Analysis
Kartoon Studios, Inc.
▾ What's in the 29/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend, DCF applicability). It excludes the the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately, which relies on a proxied (estimated) input. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read TOON (speculative micro-cap)
No model can pin a precise fair value on a company this small — but that does not mean there is nothing to learn. The useful questions are what the price is betting on, and whether the company can survive long enough to deliver it.
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1
Reverse-DCF — what growth the price assumes ↓
The single most useful number here: it backs out the growth the market is paying for. If that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals.
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2
Cash runway ↓
A pre-profit micro-cap lives or dies on whether it can fund itself to profitability before running out of money and diluting you.
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3
The raw financial statements + the 10-K ↓
At this scale, the actual numbers, insider ownership, and share-count trend tell you more than any ratio.
What growth must the market believe? Reverse DCF — Instead of asking "what is this stock worth?", asks "what growth rate is the current market price already assuming?"
Why it matters: It crystallizes the bull thesis as a single number you can argue with. If the market expects 40% growth for 10 years and you do not believe that, the stock is overvalued.
Reference: 10–15% = sustainable for strong companies · 20–25% = exceptional · 30%+ = historically very rare
Traditional DCF asks "what is this stock worth?" Reverse DCF flips it: it treats today's price as correct and solves for the growth rate that justifies it. In plain terms — if our model is right about everything else, the company's cash flow would have to grow (or shrink) by this much every year for the next 10 years for today's price to make sense. If that required growth looks unrealistic, the price is stretched; if it looks easy to beat, the price may be cheap.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → must grow at:
▾ Exactly how this 10-year figure is computed
Forecast length: 10 years, single flat growth rate (no fade)
Terminal growth after year 10: 3.0%
Discount rate: 11.5% (the rate the model used)
Price used: $0.63 — the live price shown on this page (not frozen)
Method: solve for the constant annual growth rate that makes the discounted 10-year FCF stream + terminal value equal today's price.
Market is pricing in shrinking cash flow — often a sign of undervaluation OR a dying business. Check leverage, the cash-flow trend and the measurable financial-health screens below to tell them apart.
For reference: The market is pricing in a material multi-year contraction in cash flow (≈39.8%/yr) — a significant decline, not a flat business.
▾ How we computed this · Reality check thresholds · Assumptions
- Starting FCF/share: $0.53 (projected from revenue × terminal margin)
- 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 →: 11.5% — standard 8-12%; 9-10% matches S&P 500 historical return - Terminal Growth RateTerminal Growth Rate — The growth rate we assume the company holds forever, after the explicit 10-year forecast period ends.
Why it matters: It anchors the long-tail value. Cannot mathematically exceed long-term GDP growth or the company eventually becomes larger than the global economy.
Reference: 2–3% (matches long-term US GDP growth) · Above 4% is mathematically problematic
Full explanation →: 3.0% — matches long-term GDP growth - Forecast horizon: 10 years explicit + terminal perpetuity
| ≤ 0% | Priced for decline — likely undervalued OR dying business |
| 5-12% | Reasonable; sustainable for quality businesses |
| 12-18% | Demanding — strong execution required |
| 18-25% | Exceptional — few companies sustain for a decade |
| 25-35% | Heroic — historically very rare |
| 35%+ | Borderline impossible at scale |
Sustaining 30%+ cash-flow growth for a full decade at scale is exceedingly rare — the bar is brutally high.
Use the interactive calculator below to change the discount rate, growth and terminal-growth assumptions and watch the value move.
⚠ At today's price, the market values TOON at about 0.7× its annual sales — a typical established company trades around 1–3×. Standard industry multiples (the bars below) collapse toward $0 at this scale, so they aren't the useful read. For a micro-cap with sales, lean on the Reverse-DCF (what revenue growth that price implies), the Momentum trend, and cash runway — see 📍 What to focus on.
Football field: where does the price sit?
Different valuation methods produce different fair-value ranges depending on assumptions. Plotting them together lets you see at a glance whether the current price is reasonable across approaches, or only one specific lens.
Industry multiples sourced from: sector: Communication Services. See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.
How to read a company this small
TOON is too small and/or too volatile for the valuation lenses we use on larger, more stable companies. The numbers shown below should be taken as rough orientation only.
- Market cap $31.7M — nano-cap territory (below $50M)
Growth percentages on tiny revenue bases (1000% going from $200K to $2M is not predictive). P/E and ROE swing wildly with small earnings changes. Peer comparisons fail because there often aren't comparable companies at this scale.
Start with the Reverse-DCF above — it backs out the growth the price is betting on; if that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals. Then the cash runway (can it fund itself to profitability before diluting you?). Then the raw Financials table and the 10-K on SEC EDGAR — at this scale, insider ownership and the share-count trend often matter more than any ratio.
Classified as Speculative Nano / Micro-cap (confidence 80%). Disagree? An admin can override via the post edit screen.
⚠ Genuine comparables are scarce at this size, so peer multiples are unreliable here. Treat as rough context only — see 📍 What to focus on above.
How does TOON stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare TOON 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 → |
0.5x / 1.2x / 1.8x |
| 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 → |
0.7x / 1.0x / 12.3x |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GAIA | GAIA, INC | Film & Video | $58M | 0.6x | 0.7x | — | 26.5% |
| MPU | Mega Matrix Inc | Film & Video | $14M | 0.5x | 1.0x | — | 27.1% |
| UONE | URBAN ONE, INC. | Radio Broadcasting Station ·fallback | $29M | 1.2x | — | — | 151.2% |
| XPOF | Xponential Fitness, Inc. | Entertainment & Recreation ·fallback | $39M | 1.8x | — | 28.4x | 30.3% |
| RDI | READING INTERNATIONAL INC | Motion Picture Theaters ·fallback | $26M | 0.3x | — | — | 285.7% |
| UONEK | URBAN ONE, INC. | Radio Broadcasting Station ·fallback | $23M | 1.2x | — | — | 390.9% |
| SFHG | SAMFINE CREATION HOLDINGS GROUP Lt | Publishing ·fallback | $51M | — | 12.3x | — | — |
| ROLR | High Roller Technologies, Inc. | Entertainment & Recreation ·fallback | $60M | 2.9x | — | — | 3.8% |
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 -$24.5M in the latest year.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 -$11.4M (was -$3.5M 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 -$11.4M vs net income -$24.5M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -34.6% vs -24.3% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 0.0% of assets vs 0.0% a year ago ($0.0M now).
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.07x vs 1.04x a year ago.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 30.8% (38.4M → 50.2M 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)Asset turnover 0.55x vs 0.38x a year ago.
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 $3M in cash and is burning roughly $11M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 3 mo 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 11.5%, the figure our model used for TOON. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: at default inputs this calculator mirrors the headline model's three-scenario weighting (conservative/base/optimistic, 40/35/25), so its opening value should land close to the headline intrinsic value of $4.20. A small gap is rounding; a large one would be a data problem — and we check for it below.
11.5% — beta-based (CAPM), from this stock's BetaBeta — How much the stock moves when the overall market moves. 1.0 = moves with the market; 1.5 = moves 50% more than the market.
Why it matters: Higher beta = more volatile = should demand higher discount rate. Low beta stocks (utilities, consumer staples) move less.
Reference: Most stocks 0.5–1.5 · Defensives ~0.3 · High-vol tech ~1.5–2.0
Full explanation → of 1.27. The safe Treasury rate plus a premium scaled by how much more (or less) volatile the stock is than the market.
13.5% — sector/quality tier. A simpler hurdle set by industry and business durability: lower for stable, wide-moat companies; higher for speculative or micro-caps.
The headline value and this calculator start at 11.5% — the beta-based rate. Drag the slider to the other rate to see the full range.
-85.0%
At the default assumptions the flat path lands near our published value of $4.20. Move any slider to recompute it with your own.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
Kartoon Studios, Inc. (TOON) is deeply undervalued by the model, showing an 83.1% discount to its intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →. The market likely discounts the stock due to its consistent negative net income and operating cash flow over the past five years, despite recent revenue growth. The primary quantifiable risk is the company's inability to generate positive operating cash flow, which is negative in the latest period.
As of 2 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.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →, indicating effective monetization of its growing revenue base.
- Reported positive operating cash flow in upcoming filings
- Announcements of new major content licensing deals
- Improvement in net income towards profitability
The trend, in plain numbers (2024 → 2025)
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.
- Revenue grew +21% to $39.4M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$11.9M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$24.5M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
Andy Heyward serves as the Chairman and CEO of Kartoon Studios, Inc., a role he has held for many years, leading the company's strategic direction in children's entertainment. Paul Robinson is the CFO. Limited executive data beyond these key roles is available.
What They Make
Kartoon Studios produces and distributes children's entertainment content, including animated series and films, targeting young audiences globally through various media platforms.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
The market prices TOON at a significant 83.1% discount, likely reflecting its consistent unprofitability, with net income negative in the latest period and zero profitable years out of five. Furthermore, the company has generated negative operating cash flow for all of the past five years, indicating ongoing cash burn. The market may be assigning value to the potential for future content monetization or strategic partnerships, which is not in the model.
Three Scenarios, Weighted
| Scenario | IV | vs Price | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $1.58 | 150.4% | 40% |
| Base | $3.95 | 525.5% | 35% |
| Optimistic | $8.74 | 1,282.7% | 25% |
| Weighted | $4.20 | 564.7% | 100% |
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself primarily through equity raises and debt, given its consistent negative operating cash flow and lack of dividend payments or buybacks.
Growth / Revenue DCF Medium
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| RevenueGrowth | 49.5% |
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
Revenue has been growing at 49.5%/yr over four years, from $8M to $39M, but net income has been consistently negative.
Geography & Markets
Kartoon Studios operates globally, producing content for international audiences, though specific geographic revenue mix percentages are not available from current data sources. Its content is distributed across various regions.
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)62.9NeutralMomentum 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 (2 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (2)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Kartoon Studios, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 39.4M | -24.5M | $-0.49 |
| 2024 | 32.6M | -20.7M | $-0.54 |
| 2023 | 44.1M | -77.1M | $-2.29 |
| 2022 | 62.3M | -45.6M | $-1.45 |
| 2021 | 7.9M | -126.3M | $-4.24 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -11.4M | 151,000 | 331,000 | -11.9M |
| 2024 | -3.5M | 117,000 | 669,000 | -4.3M |
| 2023 | -16.1M | 72,000 | 2.7M | -18.8M |
| 2022 | -25.9M | 592,000 | — | -26.5M |
| 2021 | -23.8M | 302,000 | 16.5M | -40.6M |
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: -11.4M − 151,000 − 331,000 (SBC & adj.) = -11.9M. 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 | 70.9M |
| Total Liabilities | 43.4M |
| Equity | 26.2M |