Q3 2025 Arteris Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #3: Good afternoon , everyone , and welcome to the arteries . Third quarter 2025 Earnings Call . Please note this call is being recorded and simultaneously broadcast .
Speaker #3: All materials contained in the webcast is sold . Property and copyright of Arteris, Inc. , with all rights reserved . For opening remarks and introductions , I will now turn the call over to Erica Mannion of Sapphire Investor Relations .
Speaker #3: Please go ahead .
Speaker #4: Thank you and good afternoon . With me today from arteries are Charlie Janik , chief Executive officer , and Nick Hawkins , chief financial officer .
Speaker #4: Charlie will begin with a brief review of the business results for the third quarter ended September 30th , 2025 . Nick will review the financial results for the third quarter , followed by the company's outlook for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2025 .
Speaker #4: We will then open the call for questions . Before we begin , I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are statements within the meaning of federal securities laws .
Speaker #4: These statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions , and involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated .
Speaker #4: And you should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements . Additional information regarding these risks , uncertainties and factors that could cause results to differ appear in the press release forward looking issued today and in the documents and reports filed by arteries from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission .
Speaker #4: Please note during this call , we will cite certain non-GAAP measures , including , among others , non-GAAP net loss , non-GAAP net loss per share , and free cash flow , which are not measures prepared in accordance with US GAAP .
Speaker #4: The non-GAAP measures are presented as we believe they provide investors with a means of evaluating and understanding how the company's management evaluates the company's operating performance .
Speaker #4: These non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation from as substitutes for , or superior to financial measures prepared in accordance with US GAAP .
Speaker #4: A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure can be found in the press release for the quarter ended September 30th , 2025 .
Speaker #4: In addition , for a definition of the key performance indicators used in this presentation , such as annual contract value confirmed design starts and remaining performance obligations , please see the press release for the quarter ended September 30th , 2025 .
Speaker #4: These key performance indicators are presented for supplemental informational purposes only , should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP and may differ from similarly titled metrics or measures used by other companies .
Speaker #4: Security analysts or investors . Listeners who do not have a copy of the press release for the quarter ended September 30th , 2020 5th May obtain one by visiting the Investor Relations section of the company's website .
Speaker #4: At IRS . In addition , management will be referring to the third quarter 2025 earnings presentation , which can be found in the Investor Relations section of the company's website .
Speaker #4: Under the events and Presentations tab . Now , I will turn the call over to CEO Charlie Janick .
Speaker #5: Thank you . Erica , and thanks to everyone for joining us on our call today . In the third quarter of 2025 , we achieved yet another record annual contract value plus royalties of 74.9 million , resulting in 24% year over year growth .
Speaker #5: We saw increased product adoption in Chiplets and SoCs across multiple vertical markets . AI applications accounted for over half of our licensing dollars in the third quarter , reflecting the growing adoption of our technology from data centers to the smart edge , we continue to see growing adoption of our product portfolio by top technology companies .
Speaker #5: An example of this is Altera , which selected arteries , technology portfolio to streamline design workflows , optimize data movement , and enable intelligent computing across data center communications , vision , industrial applications , robotics , aerospace and defense applications .
Speaker #5: This includes our system IP and Flex Gen and the Magellan platform for IP block integration and hardware . Software integration . Automation , which Altera plans to use in designing their next generation of FPGA and SoC FPGA solutions .
Speaker #5: Speaking of flex gen , last quarter we announced that AMD licensed the smart NOC IP to provide high performance data transport in AI chiplets across AMD's broad portfolio , from data centers to edge devices .
Speaker #5: I'm happy to note that in the third quarter, AMD has ordered additional incremental licenses in addition to the Altera and AMD relationships.
Speaker #5: We added four other new flagship customers in the third quarter within the automotive sector , flex Gen was deployed by Dreamchip , a custom SoC design house for high end automotive semiconductor design .
Speaker #5: Additionally , a leading automotive OEM adopted flex gen for next generation EVs within the industrial sector . Nano explorer , a provider of radiation hardened silicon technology serving the aerospace defense , avionics , and industrial markets .
Speaker #5: Licensed fractions NOC , IP to address the demanding mission critical computing requirements in space , while supporting their product performance . Team productivity , device reliability , and meeting the underlying area and cost targets .
Speaker #5: This represents another example of our products being used not only for applications on Earth , but increasingly in terrestrial orbit , where performance , safety , reliability and security are essential .
Speaker #5: These examples illustrate the broad applicability of our new flagship and smart IP , helping design teams deliver on expanded needs of chiplets and SoCs .
Speaker #5: Additionally , we expect demand to scale with rising design complexity and the move to advance foundry nodes , particularly five nanometer , three nanometer , two .
Speaker #5: And as we head into the angstrom era of silicon, the semiconductor industry accelerates efforts to increase performance and efficiency, especially driven by AI workloads.
Speaker #5: And data centers . And the edge we are continuing to see a growing shift from traditional monolithic chips toward chiplets for Multi-die SoC architectures , particularly nanometer for AI infrastructure and data center applications .
Speaker #5: One of the key Chiplets is the I o hub chiplet , which controls data movement across heterogeneous multi-die SoCs to systems , license .
Speaker #5: Our Encore and Flex interconnect IPS to develop just such an IO hub . Chiplet , where our technology serves to control Multi-die data traffic meeting the high bandwidth , low latency , energy efficiency and total cost of ownership objectives .
Speaker #5: While meeting the needs of enterprise computing in data centers and cloud infrastructure in the quarter , we also saw increased adoption of Chiplets for high end automotive applications , including our recently expanded Multi-die solution .
Speaker #5: For example , one of our advanced automotive semiconductor customers shifted from a single chip to Multi-die SoC architectures for their next generation Adas design , leveraging encore and Flex knock IPS for underlying data movement .
Speaker #5: Aside from various automotive semiconductor companies , we also saw expanded adoption of our technology by automotive OEMs . Two of the top five EV automotive OEM companies expanding their use of silicon proven Arteris, Inc. technology with functional safety for their next generation vehicles , which increasingly include a wider array of advanced electronic functionality .
Speaker #5: Given the accelerating demand for increasingly advanced chiplets and chips from the AI surge in the high end to the growing needs of advanced microcontrollers , the needs for more specialized computing is becoming increasingly evident .
Speaker #5: This trend drives a broad range of specialized processors , or xpu , for a growing number of applications . By providers who increasingly rely on Arteris, Inc. technology for their underlying connectivity and data movement .
Speaker #5: With our growing ecosystem, we recently announced an expanded collaboration with Alibaba Damo Academy, enabling better integration and optimized performance between their RISC-V CPU cores and our data movement system, IPS.
Speaker #5: This collaboration is intended to further enable mutual customers to more efficiently design high-server communications and automotive chips. Such ecosystem collaborations help enhance support for end customers, enabling them to accelerate their pace of innovation.
Speaker #5: With recent examples being accelerate AI , a provider of purpose built hardware acceleration technology for AI inference . They recently expanded the use of our tariffs to help accelerate computer vision for edge devices using our technology to help achieve high bandwidth , low latency and scalability .
Speaker #5: Requires to optimize their next generation inference products . The need for ecosystem collaboration is also evident as industry standards continue to evolve . In particular , AI data center infrastructure needs are rapidly evolving , driving demand for purpose built solutions that can better support rapidly expanding AI workloads to better meet the associated demand from customers .
Speaker #5: Arteries joined the ultra accelerator link Consortium , or UA link . The goal of this organization is to establish an optimize scale up ecosystem across multiple AI accelerators with our IP serving as data movement transport in Chiplets and SoCs .
Speaker #5: We joined with other companies in the consortium , such as AMD , a labs , AWS , Cisco , Google , HP enterprise , Intel , meta , and Microsoft .
Speaker #5: All of whom deal with computing and some of whom are requesting related support in our products . Lastly , I'm proud that our terrorists continuous innovation was recognized with yet another award , this time as the winner of the most innovative technology Company of the year .
Speaker #5: By the 22nd Annual International Business Awards , while also being recognized for new flex gen Smart Lock IP and marjoram registers . Integration automation software , product .
Speaker #5: Both announced earlier this high end year . We believe the scale and scope of our opportunity remain robust , supported by our current products and strong pipeline of new data management system IP technologies .
Speaker #5: As well as growing relationships with the largest and most advanced electronics companies in the world . In collaboration with a broader ecosystem , our customers continue to innovate in exciting , high growth areas across multiple applications , from AI data centers to the edge autonomous driving , advanced communications , consumer and industrial use cases .
Speaker #5: Many of these customers are increasingly turning to our products and solutions to support their innovative designs . With that , I'll turn it over to Nick to discuss our financial results in more detail .
Speaker #6: Thank you , Charlie , and good afternoon , everyone . As I review our third quarter results today , please note that I'll be referring to GAAP as well as non-GAAP metrics .
Speaker #6: Reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financials is included in today's earnings release , which is available on our website . Also , as a reminder , I will be referring to the three 2025 earnings presentation , which can be found in the Investor Relations section of the company's website under the events and Presentations tab .
Speaker #6: We had a strong third quarter meeting or beating our guidance on all financial measures . Turning to slide five of the presentation . Total revenue for the third quarter was $17.4 million , up 5% sequentially .
Speaker #6: And 18% year over year . And above the top end of our guidance range . Notably , trailing 12 month variable royalties was 36% higher year over year .
Speaker #6: At the end of the third quarter . Annual contract value plus royalties was $74.9 million , up 24% year over year . Above the top end of our guidance range and at a new record high remaining performance obligations , which is our contracted future revenue at the end of the third quarter was $104.7 million , representing 34% year over year increase .
Speaker #6: A new high and exceeding the $100 million milestone for the first time . non-GAAP gross profit for the quarter was $15.9 million , representing a gross margin of 91% .
Speaker #6: GAAP gross profit for the quarter was $15.6 million , representing a gross margin of 90% . Now , turning to slide six . non-GAAP operating expense for the quarter was $19.5 million .
Speaker #6: We continued to reinvest a portion of our top line growth into technology innovations , solution support , and our global sales team . Total GAAP operating expense for the third quarter was $24.4 million .
Speaker #6: We believe that our ongoing investments will help accelerate our top line growth in the coming years . At the same time , we are delivering operating leverage by controlling G&A spending , which has now remained broadly flat on a non GAAP basis for over three years .
Speaker #6: This has resulted in a 15% improvement of non-GAAP operating expense as a percentage of revenue for the year to date , compared to the same period in 2023 .
Speaker #6: non-GAAP operating loss in the quarter was $3.5 million , in line with our guidance , GAAP operating loss for the third quarter was $8.7 million , compared to a loss of $7.9 million in the prior year period .
Speaker #6: non-GAAP net loss for the quarter was $3.8 million , or diluted net loss per share of $0.09 , based on approximately 42.7 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding .
Speaker #6: GAAP net loss in the quarter was $9 million , or diluted net loss per share of $0.21 . Moving to slide seven and turning to the balance sheet and cash flow .
Speaker #6: We ended the quarter with $56.2 million in cash . Cash equivalents and investments . And we have no financial debt free cash flow , which includes capital expenditure , was positive $2.5 million for the third quarter , above the midpoint of our guidance range .
Speaker #6: I would now like to turn to our outlook for the fourth quarter and the full year 2025 , and refer now to slide eight for the fourth quarter 2025 .
Speaker #6: We expect ACV plus royalties of $74 million to $78 million . Revenue of $18.4 million to $18.8 million with non-GAAP operating loss of $2.3 million to $3.3 million and non-GAAP free cash flow of $0.2 million to $3.2 million .
Speaker #6: For the full year 2025 . Our guidance is as follows ACV plus Royalties exit 2025 at $74 million to $78 million , an increase of $1 million compared to our prior guidance .
Speaker #6: Revenue of $68.8 million to $69.2 million , also an increase of $1 million compared to our prior guidance . non-GAAP operating loss of between $12.5 million to $13.5 million , and non-GAAP free cash flow of $2.5 million to $5.5 million .
Speaker #6: We remain encouraged by our strong deal execution , witnessed by the 34% year over year growth in RPO . At the end of the third quarter , we are seeing promising signs of accelerated interest by some major customers to increase their outsourcing of system IP products to our terrace , which we believe will help accelerate growth in our license and royalty revenue .
Speaker #6: ACV plus royalties , RPO and positive free cash flow . With that , I will turn the call back to operator for the Q&A portion of the call operator .
Speaker #3: Thank you . Ladies and gentlemen , we will now begin the question and answer session . Should you have a question , please press the star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone .
Speaker #3: You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised should you wish to decline from the polling process , please press the star , followed by the number two .
Speaker #3: If you are using a speakerphone , please lift the handset before pressing any keys . One moment please , for your first question .
Speaker #3: Your first question is from Kevin Garrison from . Please go ahead .
Speaker #7: Yeah . Hey , Charlie and Nick , congrats on the results . And the Altair announcement . Can can you just talk a little bit more about Altera ?
Speaker #7: Are they are they fully away from using internal interconnect teams , or is there still more opportunities for you guys to expand their .
Speaker #5: I think there's there's more opportunities . Basically the application is for FPGAs and FPGA SoCs . So Altara is using their own interconnect in the FPGA matrix .
Speaker #5: And then we are used essentially in the SoC part . But Altair business is going to continue to evolve and grow . And we believe that there's future opportunities .
Speaker #5: But this is a major milestone because Altera , as they spun out of Intel , chose to go with Arteris for their primary system IP requirements .
Speaker #5: But yes , there is more potential going down the road .
Speaker #7: Okay , perfect . And then since the initial discussions with AMD and the initial order announcement , it seems like it took about one quarter , maybe a little bit longer for them to expand the use of your product .
Speaker #7: So, what were they kind of most impressed with that led to increasing usage in such a short time frame?
Speaker #5: Yeah , I mean , AMD's a big company . The deal in the the second quarter was for their basically their central engineering group .
Speaker #5: And this the third quarter deal was basically for for another group . And Altara has I'm sorry AMD has many groups to for us to work with .
Speaker #5: And so there are also additional opportunities that Adamed and we're very much looking forward to helping them accelerate their their chip deliveries .
Speaker #7: Got it . Got it . Okay . And just one more . If I , if I can you talk a can you just talk a little bit more about the importance of reliability and safety when it comes to interconnects and the importance of it ?
Speaker #7: And you some end markets like space , as you guys mentioned , and you know , I think you guys have done a very good job on this front .
Speaker #7: But do you see this as this focus as really a competitive advantage for you guys ?
Speaker #5: O absolutely . I mean , basically all the important data goes through our , our network on chips and basically if that has problems or doesn't work , the chip doesn't work .
Speaker #5: So customers are very risk averse in in choosing system IP solutions because , you know , any problems there can cause major delays in in tape outs and , and field problems .
Speaker #5: So you know , we're being recognized as you know , very much a silicon proven company . I think now are installed base has shipped something like 3.9 billion SoCs and they all work and probably some of the stuff you use daily probably has arteries interconnecting it .
Speaker #5: So yes , we are very much focused on on reliability . We're very much focused on quality because if the system IP doesn't work , the chip doesn't work .
Speaker #7: Yep . Got it , got it . Okay . Perfect . I appreciate the color . Congrats again .
Speaker #8: Thank you .
Speaker #3: The next question is from Kevin Cassidy from Rosenblatt Securities . Please go ahead .
Speaker #9: Yeah . Thanks for taking my question . And congratulations on the great momentum just on the UA link consortium . What kind of timing can we expect for licenses to come out of that consortium ?
Speaker #9: And some of the players there ?
Speaker #8: Well , some of .
Speaker #5: The players are already customers , but basically the the objective of the UA link to essentially scale up data center solutions . And so we're we're basically developing technology to support that .
Speaker #5: And we already involved in some of those , some of those designs . But we're we're basically following that consortium's protocol in order to support the , the data center scale up efforts that that are pioneered by the companies that we mentioned .
Speaker #9: Okay , great . And and with the penetration you're getting within AMD and combining it with the Altaira announcement , is there opportunities for Xilinx or is that already included in your AMD discussion ?
Speaker #5: Well , Xilinx is a an important part of AMD . And in fact , Xilinx was the first customer that was involved with us prior to the the AMD acquisition .
Speaker #5: So Xilinx has been a long time user of Arteris .
Speaker #9: Okay . Thank you .
Speaker #3: Your next question is from Gus Richard from Northland . Please go ahead .
Speaker #10: Yes . Thanks for taking the question real quick . You know , you've had a number of design wins for a while and just wondering , you know , the royalty relative to most mature IP companies is is relatively low .
Speaker #10: Just wondering when when do you expect that to start to accelerate .
Speaker #5: Do you want to take that one .
Speaker #11: Yep I will yeah . So hi Gus . Welcome to the call . So .
Speaker #6: The the it's a great question because as you and I have discussed in the past . The an increasing rate of , of customer design starts is great .
Speaker #6: Indicator of future royalty growth because typically there's somewhere between a 3 to 6 year lag between start of a design and mass production and scale .
Speaker #6: And it can take even another couple of years to get to get up to full scale after the mass production starts . So so it is definitely a heavy link between the two .
Speaker #6: The we're already seeing that and we're already seeing the beginning of the inflection on on royalties . And there's one you'll see in our in our Investor deck at Q3 investor Deck , there's a new additional piece of information on royalties and what's very interesting is , number one , the growth of royalties is is quite variable , royalties is quite impressive .
Speaker #6: And in fact , the , the the growth year over year for the variable royalties in the trailing 12 months to the end of September compared to the prior 12 months ending September 30th , 2024 , was up 36% , which is in line with what we've been saying in terms of the royalties growing at roughly two x , the rate of licenses and what's particularly interesting in that chart , you'll see in in the investor deck is that we if you go back to 2020 , which is quite an interesting start point , because that's when we were dominated in royalties from HiSilicon , which is now , of course , gone to zero .
Speaker #6: We now have a higher rate of variable royalties . In fact , we have all year since the days of HiSilicon back in 2020 , and now , instead of being a one trick pony where we had one customer making up 90% of our variable royalties , we now have five customers who between them have a greater royalty stream than the than the one HiSilicon .
Speaker #6: So we've got more diversity . We've got more people who are now the the majors . So it's five majors and then another 50 smaller players .
Speaker #6: And so so it's all up and to the right and growing very nicely . So we are starting to see that . I do see there's a an increasing inflection point as we go through the next couple of years .
Speaker #6: So by by 2028 you'll see a an even faster rate of acceleration .
Speaker #10: Got it . That was super helpful . And then , Charlie , for you . You guys talk about the top tech companies that you've penetrated .
Speaker #10: I was wondering if , you know , just for everybody define what those companies are and then how many you've at this point penetrated and and then specifically in the AI , ASIC crowd , you know , are you starting to penetrate those both us and Taiwan .
Speaker #5: Yeah . I mean we you know , basically we define the large companies sort of top 20 semiconductors companies . And then basically another , you know , 20 of the largest system electronics companies , right ?
Speaker #5: So that's we're kind of jokingly referring to that as the Arteris index . And you know , we have I would say more than 50% of those companies as customers , but not all of them are huge customers .
Speaker #5: Right ? So there's still a long way to go in terms of expansion of our business . But , you know , obviously with the AMD and Altera announcement and there's a couple others who don't let us announce who they are , you know , one of which we also closed in the Q3 , we did our best to be able to announce them , but they did not let us .
Speaker #5: So I think our progress in the top 40 largest technology companies is quite good . But you know , there's a long ways to go .
Speaker #5: It's a it's about a 11. $2 billion market . And we're you know , we're about 68 million this year or something . Something like that .
Speaker #5: So there's a long way to go .
Speaker #10: Okay . Got it . And then the Lord Baltimore of questions , you know , when I go through cash flow and balance sheet , blah blah , and you know , it looks like bookings were in the zip code of 32 million in the quarter .
Speaker #10: Booked a bill about 1.8 . So , Nick , am I in the am I in the right zip code ?
Speaker #6: Yeah , I don't I don't want to comment on bookings . Otherwise we open up a Pandora's box of future future disclosure . So bookings as you know , fairly lumpy and and so because we have very large customers these days and so that can really create a false precedent .
Speaker #6: If we start if we start disclosing that . So I'll have to allow you to , to do your own math on , on , on bookings .
Speaker #6: Gus .
Speaker #10: Okay . Yeah . I figured thanks . I'll pass it on .
Speaker #3: Your next question is from Joshua Buchalter from TD Cowen . Please go ahead .
Speaker #12: Hey , guys . Thank you for taking my question , Charlie . I thought your comments in the prepared remarks about , you know , more seeing more traction from AI applications and specifically in the data center were interesting .
Speaker #12: Obviously , a lot's happened in the AI space over the last few months . Could you maybe level set us on ? You know , how much of your opportunity over time you see coming from actually in data center versus , you know , edge device , edge and embedded devices where I think , you know , that's been your bread and butter for a while .
Speaker #12: Thank you .
Speaker #5: Yeah . I mean , basically , you know , our thesis is that over time , pretty much all electronic endpoints or edge devices are going to be connected to the data center .
Speaker #5: And so for each endpoint or edge device , there is some ratio of blades in the data center . And as everything becomes connected to the data center , you know , these the the number of chips that's actually in these data centers goes to to a very large number .
Speaker #5: So we're sort of following customer demand . And we are . There's just a lot of attention on AI workloads in a data center .
Speaker #5: There's a lot of project starts . Obviously , you know , Nvidia is a is a very , very major player and will continue to be a major player .
Speaker #5: But some of these system houses are also designing some of their own chips for specific data . Acceleration of workloads . They're working on specific AI workloads and those kinds of things .
Speaker #5: So we see that as a as a major opportunity . we're working with those customers and we're increasingly starting to pivot our engineering to address the issues that are important to these data center companies .
Speaker #5: Hyperscaler companies And handling the , you know , high end AI workloads . So over time , I mean , I think data center will , you know , be somewhere between 25 to to 30% , maybe 35% of our business .
Speaker #5: But right now , AI is represents about 50% of all the design starts that were involved with . So right now there's a bit of a design start bonanza , but on a long specific basis , I would expect it to be about probably 35% or so .
Speaker #12: Good . Thank you for all the color there . Maybe . Nick , could you provide any comments or color on you know , it seems like you're getting a lot of good traction from flex gen , which comes with higher ASP on the royalty , and I'm guessing the licensing side as well .
Speaker #12: You know, when should we expect that to start being a sort of meaningful needle mover in the model? Thank you both, and congrats again.
Speaker #6: Josh , just to be clear , are you are you asking that question specifically regarding royalties or or more generally on license revenue ?
Speaker #12: I was more on the royalty side , yes .
Speaker #6: I mean , flex gen is accretive to both ASP and therefore license , but it's also accretive to royalties because it has more competence as a product than than it's the more junior the flex five that doesn't have the automation feature .
Speaker #6: So so yes , if you look at somebody for example , in who's who's just kicked off a flex gen cycle or flex gen deal with us , most of those have come from the mid of this year onwards .
Speaker #6: And now you saw we had another for in addition to Altair and AMD in the third quarter . So it very much depends on the the use case .
Speaker #6: There are some most of the use cases right now are more in the server and FPGA environment , which don't have huge volumes .
Speaker #6: As you know , there are some which are more involved in in higher volume . We're early stages , yet we do expect a lot more penetration from flex gen into some of the other areas that are perhaps higher volume .
Speaker #6: And of course , the the , the biggest royalty area for us , which is about half of our total royalties , is actually from the automotive market .
Speaker #6: And so from a if you if you use flex gen and automotive , for example , automotive design today and you start the design , it would be 2030 to 2031 .
Speaker #6: Before we started seeing the royalties from that . So there's a lot of pipe stoking going on in royalties from this .
Speaker #12: Thank you .
Speaker #3: There are no further questions at this time . Mr. Yanek . Please proceed with closing remarks .
Speaker #5: Well , thank you , everyone , for your interest in Arteris, Inc. . We're very excited about the the current quarter and we look forward to meeting you with you in the upcoming Non-deal road shows and investor conferences in the quarters ahead .
Speaker #5: And updating you on our business progress . Thank you very much .
Speaker #3: Ladies and gentlemen , this concludes our conference call for today . We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines .