Technoprobe, 10% owned by Teradyne, guides 2026 revenue up nearly 70% with no bank debt

Stefano Felici runs the company every AI chip must pass through before it ships. His Technoprobe▲+3.36% — His Technoprobe, up 3.36 percent today, founded in 1993 in a garage in the Lecco area of Italy, makes the probe cards used to test wafers for Nvidia▼−0.25% — Nvidia, down 0.25 percent today, Intel▲+0.19% — Intel, up 0.19 percent today, Apple▼−0.28% — Apple, down 0.28 percent today, Samsung and, above all, TSMC▲+0.44% — TSMC, up 0.44 percent today ¹. In an interview published on October 27↗, the CEO put his own market share at an average 60 to 70 percent and said the group is "ready to face even the bursting of the AI bubble": no bank debt, all investments funded from cash ¹.

The confidence rests on the fastest guidance in the sector. Technoprobe expects 2026 revenue of €1.05 to 1.10 billion, up almost 70 percent, with an EBITDA margin of 46 to 48 percent, revised upwards twice in a year ¹. A $350 million budget for R&D and capacity runs to the first half of 2027 ¹.

There is also a geopolitical bet. A $35 million China deal raises a local partner's stake in its DIS subsidiary to 30 percent, an attempt to become "a strategic supplier" in a country where Technoprobe was "not a priority" under US-China trade tensions ¹.

The shareholder testing its own thesis

Here is the wrinkle. Teradyne▼−4.18% — Teradyne, down 4.18 percent today, the US tester maker that holds 10 percent of Technoprobe ¹, reported its own record AI quarter on October 27↗: $1.306 billion of revenue, up 70 percent year on year, with record memory and integrated-systems test revenue. Yet its fourth-quarter guide of $1.250 to 1.350 billion merely straddles the third quarter, no repeat of the jump ³.

The same release shows the cost of the boom: $336 million of cash absorbed into inventories and prepayments in one quarter, against modest asset builds a year earlier ³.

The bull case Felici himself cites

The counterweight is demand, and it is dated. The same Milan trading session that put Technoprobe in the spotlight ran on SK hynix results↗ confirming DRAM and HBM volumes virtually sold out until 2029, with a memory shortage expected to persist to 2030; analysts at Banca Akros read the whole test-equipment chain as favored ². Teradyne also agreed on October 12 to invest $300 million in FormFactor↗, the other probe-card leader, a consolidation of the consumable layer its own flat guidance quietly questions ⁴.

Felici splits both camps: client announcements from Nvidia to AMD▲+1.56% — AMD, up 1.56 percent today are "very bullish", yet "it is impossible for the market to keep growing at this rate forever", and a pause would be a chance to push R&D harder ¹. Shareholders who bought at the September FTSE MIB-promotion high of €38.10 have already given back a third of the price at around €25; whoever buys the dip is betting the man with no debt priced the correction correctly ¹.