Nauticus Robotics Inc. Q1 2023 Earnings Call
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Speaker 1: And very R? C.
Speaker 1: The AW.
Speaker 2: Good day and welcome to the Nautica's robotics earnings conference call for the first quarter of March 31, 2023.
Speaker 2: My name is Denae and I will be your operator today.
Speaker 2: Today's press release, including the financial tables, are available at the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.nauticusrobotics.com.
Speaker 2: The company also plans to file its Form 10-Q for the FCC later today.
Speaker 2: Joining us on today's call, a mortgages founder and CEO , Nick Radtrade, and its CFO , Dragon Patman Buns.
Speaker 2: Following Merrimox, we will open the call for questions.
Speaker 2: Before management begins their formal remarks, I would like to remind everyone that some statements we are making today may be considered forward-looking statements under securities law and involve a number of risks and uncertainties.
Speaker 2: As a result, we caution you that there are a number of factors, many of which are beyond the company's control, which could cause actual results and events to defile materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
Speaker 2: For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to the forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in the company's earnings release and public filings made with the SEC.
Speaker 2: Nauticus disclaimed any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law.
Speaker 2: This will also discuss non-GAF financial metrics and encourages you to read disclosures and the reconciliation tables to applicable GAF measures in the earnings relief carefully as you consider these metrics.
Speaker 2: Re-refy YouTube's filings with the SEC for detailed disclosures and descriptions of the business, as well as uncertainties and other variable circumstances, including, by top-level to risks and uncertainties identified under the caption, risk factors in the company's filings.
Speaker 2: You may get mortgages, FCC filings, hopefully by visiting the FCC website at www.fcc.gov.
Speaker 2: I would also like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded, and more these made available for replay via a link available in the investor relation section of the Mortica Seas website.
Speaker 2: Now, I will time the call over to Nordicaces, Fonda and CEO Nick Bradford. Please go ahead, sub.
Speaker 3: Thank you and hello everyone. And welcome to our first quarter, 2023 earnings call. The past quarter was a significant one for the company, representing a major inflection point noticus's history. As we officially began, the commissioning exercises for the next generation.
Speaker 3: of our commercial subsidy robot Aquinaut. This puts us one step closer to getting the Aquinauts in the field and to start doing work for our customers.
Speaker 3: We've also continued to progress the assembly of our second and third units and expect to have them in the water later this year. We've been working towards this goal for over the years, establishing manufacturing partners as well as undergoing testing trials, where we've been able to refine our technology to offer solutions that will transform the way industries operate in the blue economy.
Speaker 3: Customers from all over the world have expressed significant interest in working with our services and robots.
Speaker 3: And as these opportunities materialize, we will have significant revenue upside.
Speaker 3: In addition, we've also continued to make progress on the government side of our business.
Speaker 3: Starting with our contract with LITAS, we were awarded a $2.7 million contract extension for activities related to an aquanaut-derived subsidy platform.
Speaker 3: This extension allows us to further progress toward meaningful future revenue upside pending the successful result of the program.
Speaker 3: As previously announced, our proprietary software platform Toolkit was a key driver of two DIU contract wins. One for A2 RV and the other one for AEM RV.
Speaker 3: And our work to support the US Navy, not only has completed a live offshore demonstration of our AI-enhanced mine countermeasure vehicle.
Speaker 3: which led to the company's progression into the next phase of the IU's AEMRV program. In this, we're working to transform an existing mine countermeasures platform into an untethered autonomous drone. This allows the vehicle to remotely identify and neutralize substance mines and other targets of interest while taking
Speaker 3: US Navy EOD divers out of harm's way.
Speaker 3: As for A2RV, we successfully completed the first phase and have moved on to the next one. In this program, we are tasked to deliver another autonomous mine, countermeasure robot, known as Terranot, for use in both the surf zone and the beach areas to support the US Marine Corps during amphibious operations.
Speaker 3: Our ongoing collaborations with the IU in LIDA demonstrate the substantial value of our comprehensive solutions which will enable unprecedented autonomous capabilities for our government customers.
Speaker 3: The success of our government partnerships serves as validation as we look forward to providing future update on these projects as they become publicly available.
Speaker 3: With that, I will now turn the call over to Rankin.
Speaker 3: Padman Abin to discuss our financials. Rangan.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Nick, and hello, everyone. For the first quarter of 2023, we generated revenue of $2.8 million compared to $2.2 million in the year ago comparable period.
Speaker 4: The 26% increase in revenue is primarily due to one new contract, as well as the continuation and increased performance on existing contracts from the prior year.
Speaker 4: Our net loss for the quarter was $0.26 per share compared to a net loss of $0.36 per share in the prior year period. Excluding non-recurring items, our adjusted net loss per share for the quarter was $0.17 compared to $0.36 in the prior year period.
Speaker 4: Our adjusted net loss excludes a $2.2 million non-cash charge for the change in the fair value of warrant liability associated with our convertible debt, and a $1.2 million non-cash charge associated with the preliminary sales tax assessment related to prior years.
Speaker 4: We currently expect to significantly mitigate this assessment.
Speaker 4: Moving onto our balance sheet and capitalization.
Speaker 4: As of quarter end, we had $12.7 million cash and cash equivalents, including our restricted CD.
Speaker 4: Our networking capital position at the end of the quarter was $25.5 million.
Speaker 4: As of March 31st, 2023, we had approximately 47.3 million shares outstanding.
Speaker 4: As we've mentioned before, this includes 7.5 million shares in an escrow account that won't best unless the stock price reaches at least $15 a share.
Speaker 4: Per gap rules, these shares are not included in our weighted average number of shares used to calculate earnings per share.
Speaker 4: While Q1 revenue exceeded our forecast, some of this was due to revenue on our government contract being pulled forward from Q2. As a result, we're expecting revenue to dip in Q2 before bouncing back to a more normal range in Q3.
Speaker 4: That completes my financial summary. Now I'll turn the call back to Nick.
Speaker 4: That completes my financial summary. Now I'll turn the call back to Nick. Thanks, Rangin.
Speaker 3: Looking ahead, we're as optimistic as ever for the future of Nautica.
Speaker 3: Over the past several months, we've achieved significant milestones for our government contracts and moved one step closer to generating commercial service revenue from the Nanakas fleet.
Speaker 3: Our countless hours of hard work over the years are starting to pay off, and we're approaching a pivotal moment in Nanakas' history.
Speaker 3: Our government contracts continue to move forward and we're getting closer to the stage where we can see a step function increase in revenue.
Speaker 3: And as we move through the commissioning and pilot contracts with our potential commercial customers, we expect to be able to deliver strong revenue growth. Remember, each Nauticus fleet pair has the potential to generate between $30,000 and $50,000 a day of revenue, or roughly $6 to $10 million annually, assuming industry average utilization rates.
Speaker 3: Given this, it's hard for us not to be excited about the potential for Nauticus right now. In closing, I'd like to thank the people behind the scenes who have made this all possible. The employees of Nauticus, their unwavering commitment and passion towards our mission, has been an instrumental part of the company's success and I couldn't be more grateful for their contribution. I'd also like to thank our capital partners and shareholders for their continued belief in the next stage of our business.
Speaker 3: This completes our prepared remarks. And we're now ready to take our questions. Operator. This completely discharged…
Speaker 3: This completes our prepared remarks. And we're now ready to take our questions, your questions. Operator. so
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Again, if you would like to ask a question.
Speaker 2: please press star and then one now.
Speaker 2: The first question we have is from Craig Owen from Ross MKM Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5: Good evening and thank you for taking my questions. So Nick with the splashdown of the unit just a couple of weeks ago and I think you've got another one coming very soon. Can you talk about the timeline to revenue production of these units? Is there a shakedown phase?
Speaker 5: where you need to have these units in the water and operating to calibrate them and demonstrate them before they start actually generating revenue and grow smart and put P&L, or is this something that could come on fairly quickly? And what sort of utilization would you expect on these units?
Speaker 5: given that you know you got lots of customers that are looking for them right now.
Speaker 3: Hey Craig, it's awesome to hear from you and love the question. We were equally and everybody here was just super excited when we first hit the splash down with the first unit getting in the water. So naturally we start and progress it through, hey, does it leak all the way to, is everything working well? And so...
Speaker 3: There is a period of commissioning where the robot hits the water and goes through progressive stages where we trial it out. So that's all internal just making sure that everything is as expected. And then we have already, you know, so our job is essentially to shorten the amount of time between it comes off the assembly line.
and gets underway. As we say, it's always hard to order an Uber before it's off the assembly line. But we've done a lot of work paving and priming the pump, so to speak, on which customers are going to accept that into not only a pilot program, but then also into service days. And we have...
We've got a great visibility and to where these units are going. So we're exceptionally confident that by the year's end, and I'll call it early, late Q3 or the Q4, that the first one will be in a revenue generating capacity. And the following year, we have visibility into near full utilization for the unit.
That's very good news. Thank you. So, some questions I want to ask is this contract expansion with LIDOS. So, it's nice to see existing customers coming back for more. Can you maybe just give us a little color on?
how this came together. And is this kind of contract expansion something that can continue to happen on existing contracts? Does it require more equipment or is this man hours? Any other color that you can give us to understand how this impacts the investment? Sure. We've had a good relationship over the years with this particular
a performer. So, yes, we're working with lightest and have for quite some time and I think we disclosed the overall value and where that's heading. Yes, it's good news when it expands and I also feel like it's probably...
We'll probably have more of that to come so far so good on what we've been doing.
So like I mentioned in the call, we have a derivative platform that we've been investigating the usage of. And.
It's connected to a particular customer set and things are going well.
Excellent, excellent, that's really good to hear. So then...
Excellent, excellent, that's really good to hear. So then last question if I may, the
The capital needed for the next couple of splash downs, right? This is going to be on top of mind for investors. You know, you had a very healthy working capital position and obviously your cash is in a strong position exiting the quarter. Can you maybe update us on what the cash payments would be?
At the time of splashdown, I know a lot of the costs have already been covered, but can you maybe just sketch that out for us a little bit so we can understand the necessity of this working capital flowing for you?
in the past on the best way to handle this. But you know, we're always evaluating what expanding looks like and the best way to finance that. So it's something that's always top of mind. Right now, as we're entering the tail end of our production of these units, a lot of the costs, as you mentioned, have been incurred. And so we're going to enjoy a little bit of that trailing off.
bigger than the three units we're producing and we've got ambition to go away beyond that. And so I feel like we're looking at a couple of different options on how that expansion could be financed. But I think it's gonna come off the back of showing good success and what we already have.
Thanks, Ellen. Well, thank you. I'm sure there's lots of other questions from the other analyst. I'll hop back in the queue and look forward to catching up with you on the call back. Thanks.
I'm sure there's lots of other questions from the other analyst. I'll hop back in the queue and look forward to catching up with you on the callback. Thanks. Thanks, Greg.
Thank you. I have even gentlemen. Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please pick staff and then one now.
On the phone, we can see if we have any further questions.
I'll pause a moment to see if we have any further questions.
We have a question from Brian Johnson. Apologies. Thank you.
from Brian Johnson. Apologies. We have a follow-up question from Craig Owen.
Excellent, so thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to just talk a little bit about the sales pipeline, right? So you have a number of customers that have shown significant interest in the equipment. Some of the automation technology you bring to SUB-C and some of the communications potential you have.
for possible integration and other platforms. Can you maybe update us on the threats of opportunities that you're looking at there? And how this would potentially come together commercially for novice? Sure. So.
Our product offerings.
exist, stratified in a couple different ways. So in our government centered markets, that offering it looks a little bit more like a sale.
And in the commercial side, as we've mentioned in the past, we have a robotics as a service where we own and operate our own devices that we are producing. So since we're in the beginning stage of the expansion of that fleet, as we've mentioned, we think we'll start generating revenue with that fleet toward the end of the year as the first one.
gets underway. However, there are additional technologies, so to speak, that we've created in this engineering moonshot endeavor as we've created Aquinot. We find those standalone products that might help the already existing ROV products and services industry like standalone manipulators all the way to Toolkit, which is our software platform, which runs.
and serves as the foundation of everything that we do. So I think it's not too much of a stretch that that software could find its way into other platforms. And as people want to increase the capability of that, I think a good weather vein, so to speak, is how D.I.U. is already interested in that.
where they have an existing fleet of ROVs and they've desired them to go untethered and increased their capabilities. So just the same way the toolkit is serving to advance those systems, there's a lot of commercial analogues, whether it's an aquaculture or other segments where we're seeing similar technology thrusts where they're trying to up.
technology level of other style platforms and that's where toolkit will serve service well
Excellent. And then, you know, I appreciated the update on the defense innovation unit, but one customer I was kind of hoping you were going to have a little bit more to say about his shell. You know, I know you're sort of bound by certain non-disclosure agreements sometimes, but
Is there any update there as far as the activity was shell and how she trials and early interaction is gone with these guys?
Unfortunately, nothing that we've publicly stated, but as we look toward the end of the year, I think that you'll now have lots to talk about there, but nothing that I think we can disclose at the moment.
I understood. Well, thanks again for taking my questions. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you.
At this time, let's conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to the story outside. Please go ahead.
Thanks for joining us today and for your interest in Nauticus and our vision for the future. Our commitment to transforming the blue economy through our cutting edge autonomous robotics technology is stronger than ever.
And we are excited to share our progress with you all along the way as we can and have a wonderful day.
Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.