Needham & Company LLC Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Stock

Key Points

• Needham & Company LLC raised its price target on Backblaze to $8.50 and kept a "buy" rating, implying roughly an 83% upside from the prior close.
• Backblaze reported a Q1 beat with $0.04 EPS and $38.67M revenue, raised Q2 and FY2026 revenue guidance, and said B2 cloud storage grew 24% year-over-year with traction among AI-related customers.
• However, the company remains unprofitable (negative net margin and ROE), with sell-side forecasts around -$0.43 EPS for the year and a consensus "Moderate Buy" target of $7.57.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) had its price objective boosted by stock analysts at Needham & Company LLC from $6.00 to $8.50 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a "buy" rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC's price objective would suggest a potential upside of 83.19% from the company's previous close.

A number of other research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. Weiss Ratings reissued a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Lake Street Capital restated a "buy" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. B. Riley Financial raised Backblaze to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 2nd. Citigroup reissued a "market outperform" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Oppenheimer reduced their target price on Backblaze from $9.50 to $8.50 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $7.57.

Backblaze Trading Up 4.3%

Shares of NASDAQ:BLZE opened at $4.64 on Tuesday. Backblaze has a 12-month low of $3.26 and a 12-month high of $10.86. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $3.80 and a two-hundred day moving average of $4.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The firm has a market capitalization of $278.86 million, a P/E ratio of -10.09 and a beta of 1.41.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 27.38% and a negative net margin of 17.56%.The firm had revenue of $38.67 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $37.78 million. On average, equities analysts expect that Backblaze will post -0.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BLZE. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 95.9% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 351,657 shares of the company's stock worth $3,263,000 after buying an additional 172,165 shares in the last quarter. Shannon River Fund Management LLC acquired a new position in Backblaze during the third quarter worth $2,129,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new position in Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at $712,000. Quantbot Technologies LP increased its position in shares of Backblaze by 162.0% during the 3rd quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 45,119 shares of the company's stock worth $419,000 after purchasing an additional 27,895 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Accredited Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Backblaze during the third quarter worth $209,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Backblaze News

Here are the key news stories impacting Backblaze this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q1 beat — Backblaze reported $0.04 EPS (vs. Zacks breakeven) and $38.67M revenue (above consensus $37.78M), reversing a year-ago loss and showing operating improvement. Backblaze, Inc. (BLZE) Tops Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Raised revenue guidance — Company updated Q2 revenue guidance to about $39.8M–$40.2M and FY2026 revenue to $161.5M–$163.5M, both above street expectations, signaling confidence in continued growth. Backblaze Q1 press materials and guidance
• Positive Sentiment: Product and customer traction — B2 cloud storage grew 24% YoY and management said it’s winning AI-related customers (AI training data and generative video), which supports the company’s positioning for AI-driven storage demand. Backblaze Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results
• Neutral Sentiment: Investor materials and call available — Management released a slide deck and held a conference call (transcripts available) discussing network traffic trends and geo-data insights; useful for due diligence but not a direct catalyst. Backblaze, Inc. (BLZE) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
• Neutral Sentiment: Operational highlights published — Additional transcript on network traffic and geo data may inform revenue mix analysis but impact on near-term profits is unclear. Backblaze, Inc. (BLZE) Discusses Quarterly Network Traffic Highlights and New Geo Data Insights Transcript
• Negative Sentiment: Still unprofitable — Company has a negative net margin and negative return on equity; sell-side still projects FY EPS around -$0.43, so profitability risks remain. MarketBeat BLZE profile
• Negative Sentiment: EPS guidance ambiguity — public filings and summaries show revenue guidance but EPS guidance details were unclear/missing in initial releases, which could leave some investors seeking clearer margin/profitability targets. Backblaze Q1 2026 report (PDF)

About Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc, a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things.

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