Alpha Teknova (NASDAQ:TKNO) executives told investors the company delivered faster growth and improved profitability metrics in 2025, and said they believe the business is approaching an “inflection point” as it scales its mix of research-grade and GMP-grade reagents. On the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call, management highlighted rising clinical customer counts, improving manufacturing performance, and a plan to reinvest in sales and marketing to drive growth into 2027.
2025 results: revenue growth and margin improvement
CEO Stephen Gunstream said 2025 was “another year of strong all-around execution,” with top-line revenue growth accelerating to 7% versus 2024 despite what he described as a challenging macro backdrop. CFO Matt Lowell reported Q4 2025 revenue of $10.0 million, up 8% from $9.3 million in Q4 2024, and full-year 2025 revenue of $45.0 million, up 7% from $37.7 million in 2024.
Teknova also narrowed losses and improved cash usage. Net loss was $4.8 million ($0.09 per diluted share) in Q4 2025 versus $5.7 million ($0.11 per diluted share) in Q4 2024. Full-year net loss improved to $17.3 million ($0.32 per diluted share) from $26.7 million ($0.57 per diluted share). Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.8 million in Q4 2025 versus negative $3.2 million a year earlier, and negative $6.7 million for full-year 2025 versus negative $14.5 million in 2024.
Free cash flow was negative $0.8 million in Q4 2025 compared with negative $1.5 million in Q4 2024. Full-year free cash flow improved to negative $9.8 million from negative $13.5 million in 2024. Gunstream said the company used about $10 million of cash in 2025, better than its prior free cash outflow guidance of $12 million.
Business mix: Lab Essentials steady, Clinical Solutions growth and “lumpiness”
Lowell broke out performance across Teknova’s two major segments:
- Lab Essentials: Revenue was $6.8 million in Q4 2025, flat year over year, as increased customer counts were offset by lower average revenue per customer. For full-year 2025, Lab Essentials revenue rose 7% to $31.0 million from $28.9 million, driven by an 11% increase in customers, partially offset by a 3% decrease in average revenue per customer. Management said about 75% of Lab Essentials revenue in 2025 came from catalog products and 25% from custom products.
- Clinical Solutions: Revenue grew 47% in Q4 2025 to $2.7 million from $1.9 million, which Lowell attributed to an increased number of customers, partially offset by lower average revenue per customer. For full-year 2025, Clinical Solutions revenue increased 8% to $7.7 million from $7.1 million. About 90% of Clinical Solutions revenue came from custom products, with 10% from catalog items.
Lowell emphasized that Clinical Solutions can be “lumpier” quarter to quarter due to larger average order sizes. He also noted Teknova ended 2025 with 60 Clinical Solutions customers spending more than $5,000 annually, up from 48 in 2024. Average revenue per Clinical Solutions customer fell 14% to $128,000 in 2025, which he said can be influenced by onboarding newer customers who typically order less initially.
Clinical pipeline exposure and customer metrics
Gunstream framed Teknova as a “critical supplier” of GMP-grade reagents to developers of emerging therapies and diagnostics. He said 60 clinical customers were active at year-end 2025, including 50 biopharma-related customers. Teknova believes it is supporting at least 70 therapies across those 50 biopharma customers.
Management also described an increase in later-stage exposure. Gunstream said Teknova believes it supported five therapies in Phase II or later and 12 therapies in Phase I at the end of 2025, compared with lower levels at the end of 2024. He added the company believes it will be supporting at least one commercial therapy by the end of 2027.
On the Q&A, Gunstream provided an estimate of the spend ramp as therapies advance: he said the progression from Phase I to a commercialized therapy represents “about a 30-fold increase” in spend, and the increase from late Phase II or Phase III to commercial is “about a 10-fold.”
For the research-grade side, Gunstream said the company has built a customer base of over 3,000 customers with 95% annual retention and low concentration, noting that 18% of total revenue came from the top 10 Lab Essentials customers in 2025. He also said Teknova delivered about 95% of products on time in 2025.
2026 outlook: modest growth, higher commercial investment
Teknova guided to 2026 total revenue of $42 million to $44 million, which Lowell said implies about 6% growth at the midpoint versus 2025. He said the company saw strength in life science tools, diagnostics, and other end markets, while remaining cautious on biotech until there is evidence of sustained recovery. Customer conversations on 2026 orders were “encouraging,” he said, but Teknova had not yet seen a “material change” in the number of larger Clinical Solutions orders that would drive faster growth.
Lowell said the company expects 2026 gross margin in the “mid-30s” percentage range, compared with about 33% in 2025 at the midpoint of the revenue outlook. Teknova also expects free cash outflow of less than $10 million in 2026, even with an increase of approximately $2 million in sales and marketing investment.
Gunstream and Lowell said the company is shifting from cost cutting to targeted growth investment. Operating expenses in 2025 were $30.4 million versus $33.4 million in 2024, and headcount ended Q4 2025 at 158 associates compared to 173 a year earlier.
Drivers into 2027: funding lag, private label, and operating leverage
Management pointed to several potential catalysts over the next 12 to 18 months, including market stabilization and improved biotech funding trends. Gunstream said Teknova typically sees roughly a four-quarter lag between changes in biotech funding and impacts on revenue. In response to an analyst question, he said the segment most sensitive to funding is “custom biopharma” (custom products for biopharma across research and clinical), which he said has historically represented about 25% of revenue.
Gunstream also discussed using increased commercial investment to deepen share in higher-growth areas such as sequencing, spatial genomics, and cancer screening, including adding field personnel with existing customer relationships and increasing branding and awareness. He highlighted private label manufacturing as an area of expansion, noting that some larger customers already rely on Teknova for proprietary formulations used in kits or bulk reagents for in-house kit manufacturing.
On profitability, Lowell said Teknova expects to become adjusted EBITDA positive at $52 million to $57 million in annualized revenue, reflecting the planned increase in commercial spending. Both Lowell and Gunstream reiterated the goal of delivering a positive adjusted EBITDA quarter by the end of 2027, contingent on revenue scaling and market recovery timing. As of Dec. 31, 2025, Teknova reported $21.3 million in cash equivalents and short-term investments and $13.2 million in gross debt.
In the Q&A, management also said 24% of total revenue in 2025 came from cell and gene therapy-related customers, while noting they would follow up separately on the total number of cell and gene customers.
About Alpha Teknova (NASDAQ:TKNO)
Alpha Teknova, Inc (NASDAQ: TKNO) is a life science tools and reagents company that develops, manufactures and distributes proprietary products to support research, drug discovery and biomanufacturing. Its offerings target academic institutions, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, and diagnostic developers, with a focus on high-purity reagents and optimized workflows designed to accelerate molecular biology and protein science applications.
The company’s portfolio includes molecular biology reagents, cell culture buffers, in vitro translation kits, custom recombinant proteins, high-throughput screening buffers and other specialized formulations.
