Phase Space AI

Valuation

Clear Secure [YOU]

Clear Secure, Inc. [YOU] — Valuation

Two outputs, both required (valuation.md): a 12-month target and the implied-path test. Neither replaces the other.

Spot $56.435 (2026-07-29 close). Economic shares 133,546,442. Net cash $550,475k (cash $170,675 + marketable securities $629,401 + restricted $2,851 − TRA $252,452). TTM revenue $942,414k. TTM EBIT $211,097k (FY2025 $186,500k − Q1-2025 $37,404k + Q1-2026 $62,001k).

---

Part 1 — The implied-path test (the Valuation Criteria)

assets/reverse_dcf.py. Terminal value is 100% of modelled EV by construction, so the reverse DCF is mandatory as the primary long-horizon output and the forward DCF is not run as a verdict instrument.

The required parameter

Solved for: 5-year revenue CAGR. Held fixed and named: terminal EBIT margin 22.4% (= TTM realised, not an assumption about the future); exit multiple 23.4x EBIT; WACC 10.0%; horizon 5 years; net cash $550.5m; shares 133.546m.

EV implied by today's price      $6,986m   (7.41x TTM revenue)
>>> THE MARKET REQUIRES: revenue CAGR of 17.9%

The margin: demonstrated − required

The answer depends on which "demonstrated" is used, so all of them are stated rather than one being selected silently.

Primary margin: +1.8pp. The trailing 3-year CAGR is not the forward-relevant number on a business whose quarterly YoY has fallen monotonically from +46.2% (Q1-2023) to +15.5% (Q3-2025) before turning back up.

Reconciling to the screen's +17.3pp — the whole gap is inputs, and it decomposes cleanly

8.0 percentage points of the screen's 17.3pp margin were a stale, Class-A-only share count. A further 7.5pp came from the choice of demonstrated rate. The screen's ranking of this name was driven by a data artifact, not by the business.

Exit multiple and the implied compression, stated as a number

• Current EV/EBIT (TTM): 33.1x ($6,986m ÷ $211.1m).
• Exit multiple used: 23.4x.
• Implied compression: 9.7 turns, −29.3%. The price does require multiple compression, which is the correct direction for a maturing compounder and is not the aggressive assumption here.

Provenance caveat on 23.4x. This is inherited from the Tier-1 screen (exit_multiple_basis: GROWTH_MATCHED, exit_multiple_peer_n: 333). A 333-member "growth-matched" comparator set is implausibly wide, and I could not verify its composition or that its growth brackets YOU's growth at year 5. Per valuation.md the honest treatment is to run the sensitivity rather than defend the point estimate, which is what follows.

Sensitivity — run over the exit multiple, never over scenario probabilities

The answer flips at roughly 20.5x. Below that the price requires more than the business is currently delivering; above it, less. That is where the judgement on this name actually lives, and it is disclosed here rather than buried in a point estimate.

Net-cash sensitivity. At $802.9m net cash (TRA not treated as debt) the required CAGR falls to 17.0% — a 0.9pp effect. The TRA treatment is not the swing factor; the exit multiple is.

Terminal-margin cross-check. Holding growth at the trailing-4-quarter realised rate of 17.0%, the price requires a terminal EBIT margin of 23.3% against 22.4% realised — i.e. roughly one further point of margin expansion, which is modest against the +4.7pp delivered in FY2025 alone.

Result

PASS WITH ARGUMENT.

The price does not require acceleration beyond what the business has demonstrated, but the cushion is thin (+1.8pp) and it depends on an unverified exit multiple. The "specific, evidenced reason" required for a PASS WITH ARGUMENT is present and is not narrative: Total Bookings grew +40.8% YoY in Q1-2026 against +19.7% revenue, the fourth consecutive quarter of bookings running ahead of revenue, and the bookings/deferred-revenue identity is arithmetically exact in the filings. Because revenue is a ~12-month-lagged release of deferred bookings, that gap is a mechanical forward tailwind, and the company has guided Q2-2026 revenue to +22.8% — the first guided acceleration in three years.

The argument's weakness, stated: bookings growth of 40.8% is not decomposed by the company between price, new members, partner accruals and CLEAR1, and Active CLEAR+ members grew only 13.0% on a recast (unquantified) base. If most of the bookings surge is partner-billing timing rather than subscriber demand, the tailwind is one-off.

---

Part 2 — The 12-month target

Built per valuation.md: near-term estimates + named product events, on the name's own multiple history with the percentile stated. Not a DCF, not a peer median.

Step 1 — Near-term revenue base

No consensus was available (Alpha Vantage quota; Consensus Criteria INDETERMINATE). The base is built from company guidance plus a stated extrapolation, and is labelled as an estimate throughout — it is not consensus.

The 20% → 18% taper is deliberate: bookings support near-term acceleration, but the footprint is 79% covered and Active CLEAR+ growth is 13%. Extrapolating the guided +22.8% for four quarters would not be supported.

Step 2 — Named product events inside 12 months

Each appears in YOU_Catalyst_Calendar.md with a date where the filings give one: - eGates network-wide rollout, targeted 2026 — 43 airports live "as of today" (2026-05-06) against 60 CLEAR+ airports. Named and dated by the company. - TSA PreCheck enrolment location expansion, rolling, subject to TSA approval — 61 airports + 277 retail at Q1-2026, down from 340 retail at FY2025 (a decline in retail locations, unexplained in the filings). - American Express multi-year renewal, executed February 2026 — removes the single largest partner-renewal risk from the 12-month window. - CLEAR Concierge at 32 airports — no pricing disclosed, so no revenue effect can be modelled.

Step 3 — Multiple, anchored on YOU's own trading history, percentile stated

EV/TTM-Sales computed daily from Alpaca SIP closes over 866 sessions (2023-02-14 → 2026-07-29), using the economic share count interpolated between five filed balance-sheet dates and the net-cash timeline. (The share-count interpolation is an approximation and is flagged as such.)

No regime change is declared. The multiple has re-rated but the business is continuous — same product, same segment, no acquisitions, no accounting change. The trailing-12-month window is used as the anchor because it is the regime the current bookings acceleration belongs to.

Step 4 — The target

12-month target: $63 — +11.6% above spot.

Why P75 and not the median. The multiple is at the 88th percentile of its own year. Holding it there assumes no de-rating at all; reverting to the median assumes the market fully disbelieves the guided acceleration. P75 is the stated middle: a modest de-rate from the 88th to the 75th percentile while revenue grows ~20%. The choice is disclosed rather than embedded.

Sanity band. No external professional target was available for this name in this run, so the required external cross-check is not performed. Stated rather than skipped.

---

Part 3 — Multiples summary, screen vs verified