Backblaze Meets The Whisper As B2 Growth Hits 47%, But A 10x Capex Ramp Explains Why The Stock Has Been Cut By 62%

Backblaze delivered the quarter its growth story needed, and the stock enters the report priced as if it hadn't. Non-GAAP earnings of $0.09 per share matched the Earnings Whisper number and were well ahead of the $0.04 consensus, so the result was in line with the market's true expectations rather than a surprise. Revenue of $46.65 million beat consensus by 4.5%. More important than either comparison is the trajectory. Total revenue growth accelerated to 25.5% from 18% in Q2 and 12% in Q1, and earnings grew 80.0% year over year. B2 Cloud Storage, now nearly two-thirds of revenue, grew 47%, its fastest rate in ten quarters and up from 34% in Q2 and 24% in Q1. The central tension is that this acceleration now requires a sharp step-up in capital spending, and the market has spent the quarter pricing that cost.

The quality of the beat holds up better than most. On a GAAP basis Backblaze still lost $2.4 million, or $0.04 per share, which narrowed from a $0.07 loss a year ago. GAAP gross margin improved to 64% from 62%. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 33% from 23%, and adjusted operating expenses rose only modestly against 26% revenue growth. There are caveats:

• Restructuring charges of $1.7 million were excluded from adjusted results.
• Non-GAAP diluted share count jumped to 74.8 million from 60.1 million, reflecting the new convertible.
• About 12 points of B2 growth came from the May pay-as-you-go price increase, which laps in 2027.

Even so, B2 grew 35% excluding pricing, up from 26% in Q2, so the acceleration is not merely a pricing artifact.

The call reinforced that demand is broadening, not just concentrating:

• B2 ARR rose 53% to $127 million.
• B2 net revenue retention improved sequentially to 115% from 113% in Q2 and 110% in Q1, though it was roughly flat against 116% a year ago.
• Customers above $50,000 in ARR grew to 254 from 187 in Q1, and that cohort's ARR doubled to $50 million.
• Backblaze closed four deals above $500,000 in ARR, bringing the year-to-date total to 11. These included a new agreement worth more than $4 million in ARR from a training-data provider that had signed roughly $1 million in Q1.
• Net new self-serve B2 additions hit a record.
• Computer Backup, the long-running drag, grew sequentially and declined only 2% year over year, better than the -5% the company had expected in February.

The forward-looking developments cut both ways. On the positive side, the large Neocloud contract worth more than $15 million in total contract value began loading data months ahead of its early-2027 schedule, and CoreWeave has started ramping. Q4 B2 growth is guided to roughly 60%, and management spoke confidently about an exit rate supporting 40%+ B2 growth in 2027. Full-year revenue guidance was raised for the third straight quarter, to $177.8-178.2 million from $172-174 million. The full-year adjusted EBITDA margin outlook rose to 30-31%.

Bears have legitimate ammunition on the other side:

• **Capex.** Management expects capex to rise roughly 10x over the next year. Q4 property and equipment spending is set at $65-83 million, largely cash-funded, a shift from the Q2 framing of free cash flow staying neutral through capital leases.
• **Gross margin.** GAAP gross margin is expected to fall 3-6 points in the first half of 2027 as depreciation runs ahead of revenue.
• **Concentration.** Neither CoreWeave nor the other Neocloud contributed meaningfully in Q3, full ramp isn't expected until Q3 2027, and analysts raised concerns about CoreWeave itself.
• **Capacity and dilution.** Data center power and capacity remain constraints. The $201 million zero-coupon convertible carries potential dilution above the $33.76 capped-call price.

That financing does give Backblaze about $230 million in cash, up from roughly $50 million in Q2, which removes near-term funding risk for the build-out.

The market setup is far more punishing than the fundamentals imply. Shares opened at $20.16 after the August report and spiked to a 52-week high of $23.99 that day. They have since collapsed 62.4% to $7.59, just 3.1% above the inter-earnings low of $7.36 set on October 30. The stock sits 17.3% below its 200-day moving average. Investor sentiment, already negative, deteriorated further from -0.18 to -0.28 heading into the print. The Earnings Whispers trend signals show sequential growth and momentum readings positive while AVWAP remains negative, consistent with improving fundamentals against still-damaged price action. Investors appear to be discounting capex intensity, customer concentration and AI-infrastructure counterparty risk rather than doubting the top line.

The bottom line is that Backblaze's operating story strengthened on nearly every measure that matters: growth, retention, large-customer adoption, margins and guidance. The debate has shifted from whether the company can grow to whether that growth can be bought at an acceptable capital cost. The next several quarters of cash burn, gross-margin dilution and Neocloud ramp execution will determine whether the stock's collapse reflected prudence or overreaction.

Read our earnings preview for Backblaze, Inc.: https://www.earningswhispers.com/article/BLZE/21369

This earnings review was originally published on Earnings Whispers.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Earnings Whispers and its staff may hold positions in the securities mentioned. It is AI-assisted, based on proprietary Earnings Whispers data and company reports, and edited by Earnings Whispers staff.