Spinnova H2'25: Technological development began to accelerate

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 2/12/2026 at 11:30 pm EET.

We reiterate our Reduce recommendation for Spinnova and our EUR 0.45 target price. We have not made any material changes to our forecasts for the commercialization progress of Spinnova's technology following the company's H2 report, even though the company appears to have advanced its strategy, particularly in reducing technology investment and production costs. However, the risk/reward ratio remains exceptionally difficult to assess, which is why we are maintaining a cautious stance on Spinnova for the time being. 

The report offered progress in technology development

With the H2 report and earnings webcast, Spinnova appears to have made clear progress in the second half of the year in reducing the production and investment costs of its technology. We consider the more than 50% reduction in energy consumption for MFC production to be particularly significant. In our view, the high energy consumption of MFC production has been one of the most significant obstacles to the techno-economic competitiveness of the technology from the perspective of players considering production investments, although this is, of course, a combination of numerous factors. In H2, the company continued to expand the international consortium being built around the fiber and also stated that it is currently negotiating with several parties who could invest in actual production facilities. However, even with the new information, it is very difficult to assess from outside the company the time remaining until a commercial breakthrough (i.e., an investment decision) and the challenges of overcoming obstacles along the way. For now, we maintain our estimate that the development work and the completion of partner negotiations are at least a year away, although the margin of error in this estimate is still large.

The report was positive regarding the cash position, as the company even increased its cash in H2, with Business Finland's grants and a 5 MEUR payment received from Suzano as part of the arrangements related to the dissolution of the cooperation more than covering operating expenses and investments. Lease liabilities transferred to the Group in the arrangements reduced net cash, but we believe their significance to the company's financial position is more limited. Spinnova's cash position at the end of 2025 was 44 MEUR. We estimate the company has 2-3 years to work on commercialization without immediate financing needs, although the company's strategic choices will also affect how long the cash lasts.

Forecastability is exceptionally poor

Given the wide tolerance for Spinnova's predictability, we have not made any changes to the company's forecast scenario beyond fine-tuning. We expect Spinnova's revenue to remain negligible for at least this year. According to our preliminary estimate, Spinnova could begin its first technology deliveries starting in 2027, but low revenue will keep the company's EBIT in the red until the early 2030s in our forecasts. In our projections, business operations will not begin to scale until the mid-2030s when more technology projects will be in delivery simultaneously and will be larger than those in the initial phase. The main risks to our forecasts are failure to reduce technology investment and operating costs, failure to find technology customers, a halt in the sustainability trend, and the terms of further financing that commercialization may require.

Gauging the risk/reward profile remains challenging

It is exceptionally difficult to assess the risk/reward ratio of Spinnova's shares, and a positive risk/reward ratio is not apparent in our base scenario (cf. the DCF value is at our target price level, and the EV/S for the coming years is high). The key driver for the share in the near future is the news flow, for which the risks are somewhat balanced, as the company needs progress, at least in consortium building, to offset cash burn (there may not be announcements regarding production and investment costs). Therefore, we maintain a cautious view of the stock for the time being.