Financial Review: Knightscope (NASDAQ:KSCP) vs. VU1 (OTCMKTS:VUOC)

VU1 (OTCMKTS:VUOC) and Knightscope (NASDAQ:KSCP) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, risk, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for VU1 and Knightscope, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
VU1	0	0	0	0	0.00
Knightscope	0	0	1	0	3.00

Knightscope has a consensus price target of $200.00, indicating a potential upside of 901.50%. Given Knightscope’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Knightscope is more favorable than VU1.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares VU1 and Knightscope”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
VU1	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Knightscope	$11.79 million	4.61	-$22.12 million	($13.58)	-1.47

VU1 has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Knightscope.

Profitability

This table compares VU1 and Knightscope’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
VU1	N/A	N/A	N/A
Knightscope	-243.68%	N/A	-119.05%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

14.6% of Knightscope shares are held by institutional investors. 15.4% of Knightscope shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Knightscope beats VU1 on 6 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About VU1

Vu1 Corp. designs, develops and sells mercury-free lighting products using its proprietary Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) technology. It’s ESL lights use a form of cathode-ray tube technology in which accelerated electrons stimulate phosphor to create light, making the surface of lights glow in a highly energy-efficient manner and with a warm natural light. The company was founded on August 30, 1996 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

About Knightscope

Knightscope, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, deploys, and supports autonomous security robots (ASR) in the United States. Its products include K3 and K5 ASRs designed to roam a geo-fenced area autonomously by utilizing numerous sensors and lasers, either on a random basis or based on a particular patrolling algorithm to navigate around people, vehicles, and objects in dynamic indoor or outdoor environments; K1, an ASR for used in indoors or outdoors and at ingress/egress points for both people and vehicles; and K7, a multi-terrain ASR. The company also develops and operates the Knightscope security operations center (KSOC), a browser-based interface, which allows real-time data access service to its clients for alert of an abnormal event; and Knightscope network operations center (KNOC), a custom set of tools that enables it to manage and monitor the network of ASRs with alerts related to critical indicators and statistics, including charging, software, navigation, and temperatures, as well as to execute over-the-air software upgrades, patches, and other related items. In addition, it offers Knightscope+, a virtual monitoring and response solution that provides an alternative for client sites. The company serves airports, commercial real estate, corporate campus, homeowner associations, hotels, universities, municipalities, rail, healthcare, public parks, schools, casinos, corporations, logistics, manufacturing, law enforcement, Parking areas, municipalities, universities, and property management companies, as well as the U.S. federal government. Knightscope, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.