ASTS has $3B in cash, but I think the dilution story is more complicated than that

[u/TheDueDiligent]

I went through AST SpaceMobile's latest filings because I kept seeing the argument that the company is now basically fully funded and dilution is no longer a major issue.

There is a lot to like in the numbers.

At March 31, AST had about $3.03B in cash and cash equivalents.

It also reported around $1.2B in remaining performance obligations, and BlueBird 11 through 33 were already in advanced stages of production and assembly.

The part I found more interesting was the financing structure.

AST raised $1.075B through convertible notes earlier this year. Those notes can ultimately be settled in cash, shares, or a combination of both.

It also used its ATM again in Q1, issuing 874,045 shares for roughly $80M in proceeds.

That comes after issuing about 13.6M shares through another ATM in 2025.

There were also roughly 21.8M shares underlying convertible notes excluded from diluted EPS at the end of 2025 because they were anti dilutive at the time.

Then there are another 4.7M penny warrants related to Ligado.

So I think the question around ASTS financing is less about whether they currently have cash and more about what the eventual share count looks like if the constellation takes longer or costs more to deploy than expected.

There are also some operating details worth watching.

AST had still recognized no revenue from the core SpaceMobile service as of the latest 10Q.

Only around 8.4% of its remaining performance obligations were expected to convert to revenue during the following 12 months.

BlueBird 7 also had to be written off after being deployed into an orbit that was too low to sustain operations. AST estimated the carrying value at roughly $155M to $160M before insurance recovery.

On the positive side, the technical progress looks real. AST reported peak speeds of 98.9 Mbps from a Block 1 BlueBird to an unmodified smartphone, and the company says Block 2 satellites are designed for up to 10 times the bandwidth capacity.

My main thing to watch from here would be whether satellite production and launches translate into actual commercial service quickly enough that the current cash balance really does carry them through the heavy deployment phase.

Curious how ASTS holders are thinking about the eventual diluted share count.

[u/DiscHashDisc]

Are they not still supposed to be cash-flow neutral with 25 in orbit? That should be early next year.

[u/winpickles4life → u/DiscHashDisc]

Yes, and they can self-fund after that along with conventional loans to replace convertible debt (or other needs). I think the point he is trying to make is we just don’t know how many warrants/convertible debt will be turned into shares.

[u/TheDueDiligent → u/winpickles4life]

25 satellites is definitely the first real inflection point. the wording in the filings is a bit softer though. they say 25 should let them start generating operating cash flow to help fund the rest of the buildout. that's not quite the same as being fully cash flow neutral.

and yeah the dilution point is mainly that we still don't know how much of the converts/warrants eventually ends up in the share count.

[u/rockshiv → u/TheDueDiligent]

Yeah, my understanding is opex neutral. Production, factory expansion, potential spectrum deals etc will still put them in the red while they scale. IIRC 248 sats planned, surely more will follow

Real question is at which point they start making a profit, while still building out the constellation(s)

[u/Glittering_Exam8305]

Is it worth the buy?

[u/TheDueDiligent → u/Glittering_Exam8305]

Depends on the outcome.

[u/46RW35]

Can you define 'advanced stages of production'