Start here if you're new
what it is
Cognyte sells investigation software to governments so they can connect data faster and catch threats before the paperwork does.
how it gets paid
Last year Cognyte Software made $351M in revenue. Investigative analytics software was the main engine at $307.1M, or 88% of sales.
why it's growing
Revenue grew 11.9% last year. EDGAR shows FY2025 revenue of $351M, up 11.9% vs. prior year, with a 70.4% gross margin.
what just happened
Revenue reached $351M for the year, but the real story is that Cognyte is still fighting to turn high gross margin into durable earnings.
At a glance
n/a balance sheet
-$0.17 fy2024 eps est
$351M fy2024 rev est
2.5% operating margin
1.35 beta
xvary composite: 53/100 — below average
What they do
Cognyte sells investigation software to governments so they can connect data faster and catch threats before the paperwork does.
Once your agency runs investigations, data feeds, and analyst workflows through Cognyte, ripping it out gets political, slow, and painful. Cognyte still produced $351M of annual revenue with a 70.4% gross margin, which tells you customers are paying for software they do not treat like a commodity. Gross margin (money left after delivering the software) → pricing power → so what: your customer usually stays because replacing this system is a career-risking project.
How they make money
$351M
annual revenue · their business grew +11.9% last year
Investigative analytics software
$307.1M
+8.9%
Support and maintenance
$24.6M
+2.0%
Professional services and training
$12.3M
3.0%
Integrations and other
$7.0M
0.0%
The products that matter
security and intelligence software
Investigative Analytics Platform
87.5% of revenue
This platform drives 87.5% of total revenue, down from 88.9% last year. It is still the company. The question is whether that mix stabilizes before the market loses patience.
core engine
ai-driven analytics platform
NEXYTE Decision Intelligence
$10M+ recent expansion
Management tied recent momentum to this platform, including a $10M+ expansion announced in March 2026. Revenue contribution is not broken out here, so you should treat it as a growth signal, not a standalone segment.
newer bet
Key numbers
$351M
annual revenue
That is the base of the story. The company is real, but still small enough that one or two delayed contracts matter.
70.4%
gross margin
Gross margin → money left after delivering the software → so what: the product has value, even if overhead is still eating the profit.
2.5%
operating margin
Operating margin → what is left after running the business → so what: Cognyte is barely profitable at the operating level.
$0.17
FY2025 EPS
EPS → profit per share → so what: the company improved from -$0.22, but you are still not looking at a clean earnings story.
Financial health
n/a
strength
- balance sheet grade n/a
- risk rank 3 — safer than 50% of stocks
- price stability 10 / 100
n/a — functional but not a standout on the balance sheet.
Total return vs. market
Return history isn't available for CGNT right now.
source: institutional data · return history unavailable
What just happened
beat estimates
Revenue reached $351M for the year, but the real story is that Cognyte is still fighting to turn high gross margin into durable earnings.
EDGAR shows FY2025 revenue of $351M, up 11.9% vs. prior year, with a 70.4% gross margin. Value Line's quarterly history shows FY2025 EPS of -$0.17 versus -$0.22 a year earlier, so the business improved, but only by inches.
$351M
revenue
$0.17
eps
70.4%
gross margin
the number that mattered
2.5% operating margin is the number to watch because 70.4% gross margin looks great until overhead turns it into almost nothing.
source:; EDGAR annual filing, 2025
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What could go wrong
The #1 risk is SEC-linked fraud and internal-control scrutiny. In a government-facing software company trying to earn credibility, that is not a side issue.
med
SEC and control risk
A June 2024 SEC filing highlighted the risk of not detecting a material misstatement from fraud. For a company this size, trust matters almost as much as product performance.
Estimated exposure: $53M–$88M of revenue at risk based on the ranges already disclosed in this snapshot.
med
Litigation exposure
The source data flags litigation as material, but the disclosure detail here is thin. That is its own problem. When the facts are sparse, uncertainty gets priced like a risk premium.
Estimated exposure: $53M–$88M of revenue at risk in the disclosed range.
med
Government budgets and tariffs
Cognyte sells into government customers. That means budgets, procurement timing, and policy decisions can hit demand even when the product works.
Estimated exposure: $35M–$53M of revenue at risk in the disclosed range.
Put together, the disclosed high-severity risks reach roughly 25% of annual revenue. For a $351M business with a 2.5% operating margin, that is the difference between progress and setback.
source: institutional data · regulatory filings · risk analysis
Pay attention to
the number that mattered
Operating margin needs to move beyond 2.5%
The company already has 70.4% gross margins. If operating margin stays pinned near 2.5%, the problem is not the product. It is cost control and scale conversion.
calendar
Q4 and full-year FY26 results
The next report is the cleanest test of whether raised guidance was the start of a trend or just one good quarter.
mix shift
Software share after slipping from 88.9% to 87.5%
You want that number stable or moving up. If services keeps taking share, the software story gets a little less software-like.
risk
Whether contract wins keep outrunning legal and regulatory noise
A $10M+ expansion and a bigger buyback help the story. They do not erase SEC scrutiny, litigation exposure, or government-budget risk.
Analyst rankings
coverage depth
thin
There is not much ranked analyst data in this snapshot. In human-speak, you should not outsource the thesis to consensus because consensus barely exists here.
estimate direction
up
Q4 revenue estimates were revised upward by 1.83%. That is a positive signal, but one estimate move does not cancel out a thin margin structure.
source: institutional data
Institutional activity
institutional ownership data for CGNT is being compiled.
source: institutional data
Price targets
3-5 year target range
n/a
n/a
$10
current price
n/a
target midpoint · n/a from current
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