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Strata Critical Medical (NASDAQ: SRTA), formerly Blade Air Mobility (BLDE), has quietly transformed itself from an “urban air taxi” story into a focused, time-critical transplant logistics and clinical services platform.

With the sale of its Passenger business to Joby Aviation complete and a rebrand in place, the remaining company is now a pure-play on organ transport and related clinical services. According to the company’s latest 10-Q (2025), p.27, SRTA offers an integrated “one call” solution covering air and ground transport, surgical organ recovery, organ placement, and perfusion/NRP staffing and equipment.

We think the next 6–9 months will determine whether SRTA deserves to be valued as a scalable healthcare platform—or as a small, capital-intensive air logistics operator with thin margins.

At about $4.73 per share (market cap roughly $386 million on 81.7 million shares), the stock embeds a sharp fundamentals inflection that isn’t yet visible in the cash-flow statement. Our team’s rating is POTENTIAL BUY, with an attractive entry zone near $4.40 and a trim zone above $6.50. The key is whether 2026 guidance and the Keystone acquisition earn-out math translate into hard cash.

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Let’s break down how SRTA makes money, where the upside and downside live, and what investors should watch quarter by quarter.

The new SRTA: from Blade eVTOL hype to transplant workhorse

The strategic reset here is major. Blade exited its Passenger division via a sale to Joby that closed on August 29, 2025, classified as a “strategic shift” and presented as discontinued operations in the financials. According to the 10-Q (2025), pp.32–33, this cleared the deck for a pure-play medical logistics and services business, rebranded as Strata Critical Medical and trading under SRTA.

At the same time, the company leaned into capital intensity. As described in the 10-K (2025), p.5, SRTA has acquired dedicated fixed-wing aircraft for the Medical segment, moving away from the old “asset-light” air-mobility narrative. More owned aircraft mean more operating leverage when utilization is high—but also more exposure to fuel, pilots, maintenance, and parts inflation when it’s not.

The big swing is Keystone Perfusion. In September 2025, SRTA acquired Keystone to add normothermic regional perfusion (NRP), perfusion staffing, and organ recovery services. As outlined in the Q3 10-Q (2025), p.31 and Strata’s Keystone acquisition press release (Sep 16, 2025), the deal brings:

Upfront cash of $110 million plus stock
A purchase price adjustment of up to $12.4 million based on 2025 adjusted EBITDA (finalized by March 2026)
Earn-outs up to $23 million if gross profit targets are met in 2026–2028

Keystone represented roughly 39.9% of SRTA’s total assets as of September 30, 2025, per the SEC 10-Q (2025), Nov 10 2025. This isn’t a bolt-on; it’s a bet-the-company integration.

The “one call” transplant model

SRTA’s core proposition is simple to explain and operationally complex to execute. As the 10-Q (2025), p.27 describes it, the company offers a single point of contact for:

Air logistics (fixed-wing aircraft)
Ground transport
Surgical organ recovery
Organ placement services
NRP and perfusion staffing and equipment

For organ procurement organizations and transplant centers, the promise is fewer vendors, more reliability, and shorter end-to-end cycle times from donor to recipient. For SRTA, the goal is to capture more spend per case and raise attach rates of higher-margin clinical services—without losing control of costs.

Key numbers: what 2026 is supposed to look like

At its November 2025 Investor Day, management laid out a very explicit 2026 scoreboard. According to Strata’s Investor Day press release (Nov 17, 2025), the company is targeting:

2025 guidance:

Revenue: $185–$195 million
Adjusted EBITDA: $13–$14 million

2026 targets:

Revenue: $255–$270 million
Adjusted EBITDA: $28–$32 million
Free cash flow: $15–$22 million (before aircraft and engine acquisitions)

That’s a big step-up in a short period. For context, Q3 2025 numbers from the earnings release (Q3 2025) showed:

Revenue: $49.3 million (+36.7% year over year)
Medical segment adjusted EBITDA: $7.6 million (+93.5% year over year)
Management raised full-year 2025 guidance, which suggests confidence in momentum

So the top line is moving. The question we care about as value-focused investors is: does this translate into durable margins and real free cash flow, or just revenue growth with working-capital drag?

How SRTA actually makes money

Revenue mechanics and unit economics

SRTA’s core logistics business runs on contracts that can include “first call” provisions, with pricing primarily based on:

Fixed price per flight hour
Fuel surcharge above a benchmark
Pass-through of ancillary costs like de-icing and landing fees

That structure is detailed in the 10-Q (2025), p.31. Clinical services are billed fee-for-service and sometimes via retainers, with those retainer revenues recognized over the contract term per the 10-Q (2025), p.32.

On the cost side, SRTA has two big levers:

Aircraft economics:

Costs under capacity purchase agreements (CPAs), some with volume guarantees
Owned aircraft, where higher utilization improves flight margins
Q3 2025 saw better flight margins thanks to improved owned-fleet utilization and ground-services leverage, as noted in the 10-Q (2025), p.39

Clinician and staff costs:

Specialized NRP/perfusion clinicians
Surgical recovery teams and staffing intensity
These costs scale with organ case volume and complexity

What we like structurally: if SRTA can keep “first call” relationships and utilization high, the owned aircraft and fixed infrastructure should produce operating leverage. What gives us pause: the same fixed base bites hard if volumes soften or big customers churn.

Customer concentration and organ supply risk

SRTA is not selling to millions of small customers; it’s deeply embedded with a relatively small set of critical medical clients.

The 10-K (2025), p.18 makes this explicit: losing a key Medical customer, seeing reduced activity from them, or a change in their transportation preferences would directly hit revenue and profitability.

Layer onto that:

Demand is tied to donor organ supply, which the company calls volatile and seasonal in the 10-Q (2025), p.31
The 10-K (2025), p.18 warns that shortages of human organs can impair SRTA’s performance under operator contracts

On the positive side, management has touted a “100% contracted customer retention rate over the last twelve months,” as highlighted in the GlobeNewswire announcement of the Passenger sale (Aug 4, 2025). That’s consistent with the idea that once embedded, SRTA’s integrated service is sticky.

For investors, that means two things:

1. This is a binary-feeling risk: either you keep the core customers and volumes, or a single loss can dent the thesis.

2. Industry growth in transplants matters, but share of wallet and renewal dynamics at a handful of customers matter more.

Liquidity, leverage, and margin of safety

Cash, revolver, and covenant structure

As of September 30, 2025, SRTA reported total liquidity of $75.9 million: $22.8 million in cash, $53.2 million in short-term investments, and $0.3 million in restricted cash, per the 10-Q (2025), p.42. Management guided that no additional capital would be needed over the next 12 months.

On February 5, 2026, SRTA further de-risked the near-term balance sheet by closing a JPMorgan asset-based revolving credit facility. The 8-K (Feb 5, 2026) and GlobeNewswire release (Feb 5, 2026) spell out the terms:

Initial size: $30 million ABL, with an accordion feature up to $50 million
Pricing: SOFR + 2.00%
Undrawn at closing
Springing fixed charge coverage ratio (FCCR) of 1.05x that only applies if availability falls below the greater of $5 million or 20% of commitments

We view this as a double-edged sword. As long as availability stays well above the trigger, SRTA has flexible growth capital without a heavy covenant burden. If working capital or integration stumbles pull availability toward that threshold, the covenant turns on right when management would most want flexibility.

Cash flow reality vs. the story

The other side of the liquidity coin is cash generation.

The Q3 10-Q (2025), p.42 shows:

Nine-month operating cash flow usage: $40.6 million (cash burn)
Drivers:
$44.3 million of payments related to closing the Keystone acquisition, classified in operating cash flow
Growth in accounts receivable tied to higher revenue and consolidation of Keystone

Some of this is clearly one-off, but the message is clear: SRTA is not a free-cash-flow story yet. At today’s valuation, you’re not paying bargain multiples of current earnings or cash. You’re paying for the company to make good on its 2026 and 2029 targets.

Our margin-of-safety section in the underlying report is blunt: there is no classic value margin of safety here based on earnings or free cash flow. The main buffer is liquidity and relatively low leverage—combined with a very specific, near-term scoreboard for execution.

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Is SRTA stock a buy in 2026?

We currently rate SRTA as a POTENTIAL BUY with a 3.5/5 conviction level and a 3–6 month reassessment window.

Scenario framework: base, bear, bull

Our valuation work centers on three 2026 scenarios:

Base case (50% probability, implied value $5.75):

2026 revenue hits $255 million
Adjusted EBITDA reaches $29 million
Free cash flow reaches $15 million
Keystone integration works “well enough”: attach rates for perfusion and recovery services improve per case, and aircraft utilization remains solid

Bear case (25% probability, implied value $3.50):

2026 revenue reaches $235 million
Adjusted EBITDA stalls near $20 million
Operating cash flow stays negative
Working-capital drag and accounts receivable growth tighten liquidity, slowing the ability to add case capacity and constraining growth

Bull case (25% probability, implied value $7.25):

2026 revenue climbs to $270 million
Adjusted EBITDA hits $32 million
Free cash flow reaches $22 million
Transplant logistics demand remains strong, owned-aircraft utilization stays high, and flight margins expand

At a share price near $4.73 when we ran the work, the market is implicitly giving some weight to the base-to-bull outcomes, but not fully pricing them in. The upside if SRTA can deliver on the $28–$32 million adjusted EBITDA and mid-teens margins is real.

What would make us more bullish?

We’d consider increasing our conviction if, by Q2 2026:

Management reaffirms the 2026 targets (revenue $255–$270 million, adjusted EBITDA $28–$32 million, FCF $15–$22 million), as outlined in the Investor Day press release (Nov 17, 2025)
Operating cash flow turns positive or clearly trends toward neutral, once Keystone close-related payments wash out
ABL availability remains comfortably above the springing FCCR trigger, confirming that working capital is under control
We see at least one quarter of clear progress where growth from “demand strength extending into October,” as referenced on the Q3 2025 earnings call transcript (Investing.com, Nov 2025), translates into better margins and not just higher receivables

What would break the thesis?

On the flip side, we’d likely reduce or exit if:

By the FY2025 10-K or early 2026 updates, management rolls back or stops reaffirming 2026 guidance, per the thresholds we laid out using the Investor Day framework
The March 2026 Keystone purchase price adjustment comes in near the maximum $12.4 million and commentary ties it to underperformance in core drivers like cross-sell and utilization, based on the structures described in the Q3 10-Q (2025), p.31
Disclosures show a material loss of a key Medical customer, echoing the concentration risk described in the 10-K (2025), p.18
ABL availability trends close to the “greater of $5 million or 20% of commitments” threshold, forcing the FCCR covenant to spring and restricting flexibility as outlined in the 8-K (2026)

We’d frame SRTA as appropriate for investors comfortable with execution risk and capital structure monitoring, not as a set-and-forget “cheap compounder” at this stage.

Will Strata Critical Medical deliver long‑term growth?

Beyond 2026, management has sketched a 2027–2029 roadmap that looks attractive on paper.

According to the 2025 Investor Day presentation summary (Nov 17, 2025), the company is targeting:

Low double-digit organic revenue CAGR through 2029
Adjusted EBITDA margins around 13% by 2029
Free-cash-flow conversion of 60–70% of adjusted EBITDA
Roughly $200 million of additional capital deployment for acquisitions through 2029, ideally funded without diluting equity holders

There’s a clear “healthcare roll-up” playbook here: use the ABL and internal cash generation to fund 1–2 tuck-in acquisitions per year, stitching together more clinical capabilities and geography around the core “one call” transplant logistics platform.

But the durability of that story depends on three real-world tests:

1. Proving Keystone was the right anchor deal

If Keystone hits its earn-out gross profit targets in 2026–2028 (up to $23 million total), as described in the Q3 10-Q (2025), p.31, it will validate the cross-sell and cost-control thesis. If it chronically drags margins or requires material control remediation—recall that Keystone was initially excluded from internal controls testing per the SEC 10-Q (Nov 10, 2025)—the roll-up narrative weakens.

2. Maintaining service reliability and pricing power

The competitive moat SRTA claims is workflow integration and “first call” contractual positions, as detailed in the 10-Q (2025), pp.27, 31. That moat erodes if:

Pilot, fuel, insurance, and maintenance inflation outpace pricing
Specialized clinicians become scarce or more expensive
Service failures push customers to re-open RFPs or consider alternatives

3. Using the ABL responsibly for M&A

The revolver described in the 8-K (2026) gives SRTA room to buy, but every acquisition consumes attention and balance-sheet capacity. We’ll be watching whether management sequences deals so that integration and cash conversion stay ahead of debt drawdowns.

For long-term investors, the question isn’t just whether SRTA grows; it’s whether incremental dollar of revenue in 2028–2029 earns a better margin and cash profile than in 2025–2026. Hitting the 13% EBITDA and 60–70% FCF conversion targets would be strong evidence that the platform is working.

Execution, governance, and incentives: can management deliver?

Track record and control environment

To management’s credit, they have already made one very non-trivial call: selling the Passenger business and accepting a complete narrative reset. The 10-Q (2025), pp.32–33 and Joby deal press release (Aug 29, 2025) show a clean break from the eVTOL hype cycle that dominated Blade’s early life.

On acquisitions, the Keystone deal is a high-stakes test of operating discipline. Integration has already created P&L noise via contingent consideration remeasurement, as noted in the Q3 10-Q (2025), p.14 and the pro forma 8-K exhibit (Sep 16, 2025).

We are watching one particular red flag closely: Keystone was excluded from internal controls over financial reporting and disclosure controls testing in Q3 2025, despite being nearly 40% of assets, per the SEC 10-Q (Nov 10, 2025). That’s not unusual in the immediate aftermath of a big acquisition, but it does mean there is elevated risk of control issues or restatements until management explicitly folds Keystone into its Sarbanes–Oxley testing.

Incentive alignment

SRTA’s long-term equity compensation uses performance stock units tied to adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow on a trailing four-quarter basis, as outlined in the DEF 14A (2025), p.26. The compensation committee has discretion to adjust for “unusual or nonrecurring events,” including M&A and financing.

We see this as a mixed bag:

Positive: at least part of compensation is anchored to profitability and cash metrics rather than pure revenue.
Negative: broad adjustment discretion can weaken the teeth of those targets in an acquisition-heavy phase.

The DEF 14A notes that management met its first adjusted EBITDA performance condition in 2024 with $1.205 million of adjusted EBITDA. That’s a small absolute number, reinforcing the idea that SRTA is still in “prove it” mode from a cash perspective.

How we’d practically research and monitor SRTA

SRTA is a good example of a name where traditional headline-driven research falls short. Most mainstream coverage still talks about Blade, Joby, and eVTOLs, while the actual public company is now a healthcare logistics consolidator. Sources we found most useful include:

The 10-K (2025) for risk factors and capital intensity
The 10-Q (Q3 2025) for Keystone mechanics, liquidity, and revenue mix
The Investor Day press release (Nov 17, 2025) for the 2026 and 2029 scorecards
The 8-K (Feb 5, 2026) for ABL details
Niche sources like HeliHub’s Investor Day recap (Nov 2025) and GuruFocus’s note on the credit agreement (Feb 2026) to triangulate narrative shifts

This is exactly the sort of fragmented information environment where using an AI research agent can compress hours of reading into minutes, especially if you’re cross-comparing multiple small/mid-cap roll-ups. Read our AI-powered value investing guide to see how tools like DeepValue automate the grunt work of parsing filings and industry sources while keeping every claim fully cited.

Our bottom line on SRTA

From our perspective, SRTA is a high-variance but analyzable opportunity:

The business model—integrated “one call” logistics plus clinical services for organ recovery—makes strategic sense and is starting to show traction in revenue and segment margins.
The financial roadmap is clear: 2026 guidance and longer-term 2029 targets give investors concrete milestones to judge management against.
The risks are real: customer concentration, organ volume volatility, negative operating cash flow, and Keystone integration/control risk, all sitting on top of a newly established ABL structure.

We see SRTA as suitable for investors who:

Can size the position modestly, accepting capital impairment risk if liquidity tightens
Are willing to monitor quarterly filings and covenant headroom closely
Want exposure to a niche, time-critical healthcare services vertical rather than broad hospital or payer exposure

At current levels, we think the risk/reward tilts slightly positive, with our base case implying some upside and the bull case offering more, if SRTA can hit or approach its 2026 adj. EBITDA and FCF goals. But this is not a “sleep well at night” compounder yet—it’s a scoreboard stock, and the clock is already running.

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Strata Critical Medical (SRTA) Deep Research Report: High-Risk Healthcare Roll-Up or Underpriced Cash Machine by 2027?