Operator
Good morning, and welcome to BioKey International third quarter 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the line for a question-and-answer session. Please note that today's call, Friday, November 13, 2026, is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Collins of BioKey Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me today are BioKeys Chairman and CEO, Mike DiCosquale, and its CFO, CeCe Welch. Please note that today's call and webcast, as well as answers to investor questions, include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Words like anticipate, believe, expect, plan, project, target, and similar words identify and express forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based on the beliefs, assumptions, and information currently available to management pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. For a more complete description of the risks and uncertainties that affect future performance, please see risk factors in the company's annual report on Form 10-K as amended and latest Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements made as of today, and the company makes no obligation to revise or disclose revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events occurring after this call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with an overview of the quarter and our business. Cece will then take you through the financials. And we'll close by taking your questions. Our third quarter results reflect the strength of our core software business. License fee revenue grew 39% year over year, and that high margin recurring revenue lifted our gross margin to 90% from 77% a year ago, and helped reduce our operating loss by 8%. Our gross margin has improved every quarter since the second quarter of last year, and license fee revenue has now grown by double digits on a year-over-year basis for the past three consecutive quarters. Total revenue for the quarter was down 4% from last year's third quarter, as strong license growth largely offset lower hardware sales. The third quarter is typically our slowest period of the year due to summer vacation schedules, and the first quarter tends to benefit from license renewal activity. For the first nine months of 2026, total revenue rose 14%, and our net loss has improved by 42%, a solid step in the right direction. I want to spend a moment on why we're seeing growing new business wins and how they relate to our core biometric expertise built over decades, which is gaining recognition as a real differentiator where identity assurance matters most. Areas such as government, defense, and financial services, the regulated industries, these customers know. How, with uncertainty, that a person, the actual individual, accessing a critical system is who they claim to be. That's what our identity-bound biometrics deliver, tying access to the individual rather than to a device, a phone, a token, or a password that can be shared, stolen, or phished. Regulators are increasingly pushing in this direction. In response to growing incidents of systems compromise, in the UAE, for example, the Central Bank directed banks and other licensed financial institutions to phase out SMS and email one-time passwords earlier this year in favor of stronger methods, including biometrics and pass keys. Policies like these are important tailwinds for the value our solutions provide. That backdrop is showing up in who's choosing BioKey and in the size of the opportunities. Our international team is increasingly winning larger, high-profile deals in highly regulated sectors, as I mentioned before, such as government and banking. In the third quarter, the Central Bank of Jordan selected BioKey for a national biometric authentication initiative. To modernize how clients access digital services across the financial sector, which serves roughly 11.6 million people. We're working closely with the central bank as the initiative moves towards developed deployment. And in Portugal, a national security agency selected BioKey and our partner Visual Forma to secure access to its administrative systems. Privileged accounts and critical applications. We are seeing incredible, incredible upside in the international markets, in particular in the Middle East and in Europe. And these awards bring us to eight new Middle East region customers in roughly seven months. These are among the most security-conscious organizations anywhere. And each deployment becomes an important proof of concept and reference for the next, and that's what we're seeing now. This traction is built on strong local distribution and integration partners with strong connections and understanding of each customer's needs. And we continue to expand our partner network, such as our recent partnership with Ayal Majilis Group, to extend our reach across the Arabian Gulf. We have also begun establishing a Bayouki subsidiary in Saudi Arabia to support our growing government business there that will also be staffed with Bayouki resources. Overall, the opportunity is very large, and Gartner forecasts end-user information security spending in the Middle East and North Africa will reach approximately $4 billion in 2026. And it's starting to be reflected in our results as the third quarter revenue from our Europe, Middle East, and South America region grew 39% with license fees more than doubling. In Europe, we recently launched a technology integration with Cypher, the cybersecurity division of global security group Prosegur, bringing our IAM biometric and password technologies into their portfolio. Starting in Portugal, with plans to explore other markets where they operate, such as in Spain, the U.S., and in Brazil. In the U.S., our focus is on PortalGuard, our flexible IAM platform supporting 16 factors of authentication, including fingerprint face and palm biometrics. We continue to roll out our latest version, PortalGuard 7, across our customer base. And in October, we recruited cybersecurity veteran Steve Morrow as president of PortalGuard to accelerate adoption. We are sharpening our U.S. go-to-market efforts through our DLT partnership, which is focused on the public sector, as well as with other channel partners on the commercial side. Benefits for these efforts are already taking shape. Earlier this week, we announced that a major U.S. casino resort selected Portal Guard and our identity-bound biometrics to secure workforce access across its 24-7 operations, marking our entry into the gaming and hospitality industry. This enterprise-wide prepaid three-year agreement was one against much larger competitors who were unable to provide the functionality we have. Most of the resort's highest-value employees can't carry phones on the gaming floor, making our efficient, biometric-driven solution a natural fit. And in the REMO of AI, our new, internally-developed PassKeyU authenticator received full FIDO Alliance certification this September. It is now in final testing ahead of its major launch, which will allow us to leapfrog the capabilities of our earlier outsourced solution. Our passkey use solution lets employees sign in with a fingerprint scanner or badge rather than a phone or a token, and it positions us for one of the most important emerging identity challenge, AI agents. Machine identities, including AI agents, now outnumber human identities by over 100 to 1. It's an amazing statistics. And that's according to industry research. And this year, the FIDO Alliance formed a working group to develop standards for trusted AI agent interactions. We believe that for the highest risk actions, the answer has to be verified human, not password or device acknowledgement. Our identity-bound biometrics can tie approval of sensitive AI-driven actions to the actual person accountable. This agentic AI authentication and authorization is an important aspect of the integrated offering of our new cipher relationship. Steve Morrow, as I mentioned, the president of our PortalGuard group, is leading the development of the product plans in this area. We see this as a meaningful new market opportunity alongside our core workforce and customer authentication business. On the financial side, we strengthened our balance sheet considerably in the third quarter. We retired our remaining note and debt, leaving us effectively debt-free. And we currently have a solid cash and working capital position to fund our business. Looking ahead, our recent wins, growing base of recurring license revenue, and a solid pipeline of regulated industry opportunities across EMEA position us for a solid finish to 2026 and a really strong start to 2027. Supported by the annual license renewal of our largest customer, which exceeds $1 million. We expect roughly $1.2 million in annual license fee renewals in the first quarter alone, and we are targeting profitability as we approach that time frame. Our deep biometric expertise, marquee government and financial customers, growing high margin software revenue, streamlined cost. Now, I'll hand the call over to CeCe to take you through the financials in more detail. CeCe?
Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. We issued our third quarter results this morning via the press release, and we expect to file our Form 10-Q either later today or on Monday. I'll review some of the key items. Total revenue for our Q326 was $1.48 million compared to $1.55 million in Q325. License fee revenue increased 39% to $1.28 million, reflecting several new customer license deployments and representing 86% of total revenue versus 59% a year ago. Hardware revenue was $12,000 compared to $364,000 in Q325, as our Q325 included a large hardware deployment for a long-term customer. Sales maintenance and other revenue decreased 27% to $195,000 due to the timing of our agreement renewals as well as the impact of our partner-led sales model. Virtually all of our integrated business is sold for channel partners who typically provide implementation and sales support themselves. For the first nine months, revenue increased 14% to $5.55 million, again driven by the 37% increase in license fee revenue. Gross profit increased 12% to $1.34 million, and gross margin improved 90% from 77% in Q325, reflecting a greater portion of license fee revenue as a percentage of total revenue. Gross margin has improved sequentially in each quarter of this year from 83% in Q1 to 87% in Q2 and 90% in Q3, and for the first nine months, it improved 86% from 77%. Operating expenses increased 4% year over year, but decreased 2% sequentially from Q2. And SG&A increased 9 percent, reflecting higher administrative personnel costs and annual meeting costs, while research, development, and engineering expenses decreased 7 percent for the first nine months. Operating expense decreased 1 percent to $6.29 million. Our Q326 operating loss improved to 820. From $892,000 for our net loss, improved $886,000 from $965,000 in Q325. Including a non-cash-deemed dividend of $4.5 million related to the August warrant inducement net loss available to common stockholders was $5.9 million, or $4 per share, compared to $965,000, or $1.44 per share in Q3-25. The deemed dividend is an accounting entry with no impact on our operating loss, cash, or stockholders' equity. For the first nine months, our net loss improved 42% to $1.67 million from $2.87 million. Including the deemed dividend, net losses available to common stockholders was $6.77 million. $11 million, or $5.37 per share, compared to $2.87 million, or $4.87 per share. Her share results reflect the April 30th 1 for 10 reverse split, as well as the warrant exercises and other financial activities, financing activities. Turning to the balance sheet, stockholders' equity increased to $6.5 million at September 30th from $4.3 million at June 30th. We ended the quarter with $5.3 million of current assets, including $2.2 million of cash and $2.4 million of accounts receivable and $367,000 of net inventory. Working capital improved to $3.1 million at the close of the third quarter, 2016. From $0.8 million in June 30, 2026. During the quarter, we retired the remaining balance of our note payable, leaving us free of our note debt. And only remaining is a small euro-based loan of approximately $12,000 that will be paid off by the end of the year. And in August, we raised gross proceeds of $2.5 million through the Warren inducement transaction. As Mike outlined, we expect a solid finish in 2026 and a strong start to 2027. That concludes our prepared marks. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Jack Vander Art with Maxim Group. Please go ahead.
Okay, great. Good morning. I appreciate the update, and thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. Good morning, Mike. I'll start with a question on the third quarter revenues. So good to see the strong license growth, and that's been consistent. I'm wondering for the hardware line, sometimes you have some orders and timing of delays that get some slippage. Were we expecting a big hardware order in 3Q, or did anything get pushed into 4Q?
Yeah, we had, I think, starting in Q2, we had a larger hardware order that we were expecting for an international customer that, you know, we had been... We've been working for quite some time. That's just been pushed, and that's the nature of these large kind of civil ID government programs. They sometimes get deployed on time, sometimes they get extended, and so that... The larger hardware order has been pushed. And so, you know, again, given that that happened, obviously, our revenue would have been much, much higher. And that's also hardware product that, as you know, we fully own and has been in our inventory for a considerable period of time. So it's also all margin and cash and profit for us. We are selling the hardware. But it's just happening in smaller tranches, and so it's dribbling. So we expect we'll continue to sell that hardware through the end of this year and certainly into the beginning of next year.
Okay. I appreciate the color there. It sounds like that it's not a lost opportunity, just smaller batches and will be recognized over time. And the gross margin is very strong here. Um, it's actually... I think on a blended overall basis, it's one of the strongest quarters in your history.
That's good to see it. It is, and for sure, what we're seeing is, again, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we're seeing very, very strong license revenue, and there's hardware as well in this. Sometimes it happens before, sometimes it happens after the sale in our EMEA group in the regulated space.
As a follow-up to that, Mike, you're clearly having some great success in the Middle East. It's really ramping up. I think you've mentioned eight new material customers out there. I imagine this plays a role in shaping 2027. Do you feel like you're going to be entering 2027 and even 4Q26 on the licensing front? How do these new customer wins? I guess if you could quantify or just directionally, how does this set you up for, I guess, entering 27?
Well, it kind of sets us up, number one, to be profitable, number two, to be consistently profitable, and number three, to potentially be cash flow positive and remain cash flow positive. Again, when you're doing high-end six-figure and seven-figure deals. The cash flow is wonderful, and when it's all software, the margins are incredible. Even again, we're going to see some larger hardware orders come along with this because typically these larger entities, when they deploy our technology, they're deploying biometrics, and so they need not only to enroll all of their employees or customers, but they need to have the facility to be able to identify them, and so our finger scanners get pulled along. So, I mean, I just think we're in an incredible position. We've never been in this position before where we're sitting on enough cash and receivables to really fund our business for a couple of years and with a pipeline of, you know, seven-figure opportunities that, you know, we obviously will be working in the next six months. So, it's just entirely different. You know, opportunity for us today. And it's because of the dynamics that we're seeing in the world, right? The, you know, we've always had a very strong business, as you know, in the defense sector, international defense sector, we have a very large customer support over 60,000 of our devices and enrolled hundreds of thousands of their, you know, their folks. And so this is now traveling to All of the other, right, sensitive government and financial services institutions on an international basis. And I don't want to discount also our domestic business, you know, that casino win. Which, again, was a Q4. That's a Q4 opportunity that was not recognized in Q3, so it'll be recognized this quarter. It's really kind of a resurgence and a reinvigoration of our domestic business with partners. We are really going full bore, similar in nature to the way we operate in EMEA, partner, partner, partner-centric. And I think that's going to have a huge impact on our domestic business as well.
Great, and I'm glad you mentioned the casino win again. I want to just kind of follow up with that and just your thoughts on, I guess, the overall casino gaming hospitality space for BioKey, bigger picture, and then. Also, just touching on, obviously, the agentic AI update that you mentioned, how does the agentic AI space and opportunity in this new casino space, just how does this compare relative to, I guess, the upside you're seeing in defense, your other core verticals that are large?
Yeah, so just a couple of questions there. So let's go and answer the gaming one first. It's interesting because in gaming, they're struggling with a very typical security issue or problem that most enterprises are. Where you can't use a phone or a token, you have a very serious... Security issue and problem because you need multi-factor authentication in order to meet your compliance hurdles. And so being able to just place your finger and automatically authenticate and not have to have a phone or a token or a card, right, which can be shared and used by anyone, you know, we have the perfect solution. And so this was our first entry. We did this deal. From start to finish, this was a web lead that came in to us, right? So it was an inbound lead from inception to close was less than 60 days because they have a serious issue. Also, this customer, and this is a six-figure deal, multiple number six. But this customer is also taking us to an event in the first quarter where we'll have the opportunity to share what we're doing for them with other potential prospects. So, you know, gaming is a big business. Local casinos and resorts in almost every state in the country. That's the gaming question. You know, how does that relate against the EMEA scenario? Well, clearly, the deals in defense and banking are, you know, some of them are seven-figure. Many of them are seven-figure deals, so they're bigger deals, right? Those are much bigger deals than even enterprise opportunities. So, you know, again, there's a balance. Do I think on the domestic side we can get to that point? I do. I think it's going to take us some time, but I think we can. As it relates to agentic AI. Look, it's intuitive. You're hearing it all over. Agents are wonderful. They're incredible in terms of the efficiency and productivity that they can provide to enterprise and government agencies. The problem is if they operate on their own without any human intervention, there's always a danger and a risk that they go rogue or you can't meet your compliance requirements and or you put your customers at risk. And so in the real world of agentic AI, you want a human to acknowledge and to validate and authenticate that agent to do very specific tasks on behalf of you or the company. Validating that with a biometric, ensuring that the individual who authorizes that, who says, yes, this agent can go out and do X, Y, Z, knowing who they are. And when they validated and authenticated, that process is critical and important. So we see that as a really, really big opportunity because AI is dominating, you know, the space in enterprise and government, and securing AI agents is a real issue, and human innovation is not an option, it's required. And I suspect with the new legislative changes, past election year, last week, we're going to see a lot more pressure. To reel that in and ensure that we're securing and locking down agents so they don't go rogue.
Got it. I appreciate all the color there. I know that was a loaded question. That's encouraging to hear, Mike. My last question, and then I'll hop into Q, is just on the outlook and kind of relative to last quarter's outlook. I think you were targeting profitability in the back half of this year. Now, that's probably not quite on track now, but third quarter was close to breakeven operating income. I'm wondering if you could just share more of an update on your, I guess, more of a precise update on your outlook for 27. Has anything changed? Are you expecting growth and profitability? Just any other color would be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah, I'm really expecting significant growth, and I still think even in the fourth quarter here, we're going to see a very strong finish, and I'd like, obviously, we're targeting profitability, and we're targeting to be cash flow positive, but certainly as we go into the strongest quarter for our company, the first quarter, With the kind of pipeline we have and the opportunities that we're working right now, I'm highly encouraged we're going to see significant growth. We're certainly – it's going to be profitable growth. And, again, we're not in the market from a cash perspective to have to raise capital or to do anything from a financial perspective to support the company. We have enough resource right now to be able to do that.
Okay, great. I appreciate the call, Mike. Thank you.
Operator
Again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. The next question comes from Dan Kamas, private investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Morning, Dan. Along with the gross margins, your account receivables have been on a significant upward trend, now up to $2.35 million from $0.96 million a year ago. That's about 245%. While your payables and accrued expenses have been fine in this period. It's also interesting that in the weak third quarter, the AR was up significantly. I'm wondering if that increase is fairly distributed, or is it coming? Did it come from one or two customers, such as that bank renewal you mentioned?
Well, it didn't come from a bank renewal. It came from new customers. I think in my prepared remarks, I mentioned that we were Kind of on a tear, right, in terms of closing new business, especially in the Middle East. So a couple of those deals are pretty large. So, you know, it's a balance, but it's definitely a reflection of the opportunities that we – the new business opportunities that we closed in Q3.
Okay. With that kind of collectible, I mean – Couldn't that result in break-even cash flow by itself in the fourth quarter?
Yeah, we hope it will. You know, it's timing of collections, right? Keep in mind, all this business comes through partners, and so, you know, we're always cautious about collections and staying on top of things. But, yeah, it certainly can.
What about this trend in AR? Do you consider that, I mean, it sounds like you consider it's either going to continue, or do you think it's peaked? Will it stay at this level? Just a dollar on what you see in AR.
I think it can continue if we close larger deals, right? I mean, it depends on how much business we close. And I think we're very encouraged by what we have in front of us for Q4 and Q1, and we have insight into Q2. That trend should continue. Look, I would be happy if it dipped a little bit and we collected more, and so the receivables were down, but our cash collections were up. But, you know, that's a dynamic that we'll see how that unfolds.
Solid fourth quarter. I looked at some of your past results on the fourth quarter. They've been, I don't know, they average about 1.2. I think last year was $1.24 million. By solid, do you mean comparable to the results of the last quarters or these last fourth quarters? It sounds like you think solid might be even.
Oh, well, okay. So, first of all, I don't have in my head last year's fourth quarter revenue number. CC, I don't know if you have that available because I don't have a mark to measure again.
Yeah, let me look real quick.
Okay. So, Dan, you know, once CC comes back with the number, I'll be able to articulate do I think it's going to be significantly over that or whatever. I don't want to just throw numbers out. But, um...
Yeah, last year was $1.188 million. The year before that was $1.286 million. The year before that was $1.593 million.
Got it, and that was fourth quarter, correct? Fourth quarter numbers.
Yeah, we'll have significant growth over that in this fourth quarter. Yes, and it will be significant.
That's great. The agentic AI authentication market, could that be a killer app for you that actually opens up the U.S. market?
Absolutely. In fact, it's funny. Internally, we're calling it a killer app. I don't like to introduce it in our, but we're calling it a killer app because we do believe it's something that First of all, including our passkey, it can attach anywhere. It doesn't matter what IDP, in other words, what maybe security infrastructure you're using. So, for example, even if you're using Okta or you're using, you know, Ping or SailPoint, whatever you're using, you can attach our, you know, our biometric agentic solution, right, on top of that without having to load, you know, tremendous amounts of software and infrastructure. So we do see that as a killer app, and we'll be deploying that to customers this quarter. So into 2027, we think this is going to be a really, really big partner-centric, right, solution where these partners have existing customers. They can take this as an upsell and an add-on, which they love, right, because they always want to add services and support. And technology is for their existing base. That's how they make money. So, yeah, we think it's a killer app.
Yeah, and you're talking about the U.S. market, right?
U.S. and international. I don't think there's much of a differentiation in the context of where that can apply.
You open up the U.S. market, that's...
Yeah, and look, our U.S. business has been basically flat. Um, we haven't seen, you know, as many exciting opportunities as we've seen internationally, but now I'm starting to see that resurgence, uh, first in the new leadership that we brought on board, but secondly, uh, with the partner network. Uh, you know, when you bring someone like DLT on board and they have a huge presence in public sector, they have a huge presence in, in enterprise. Uh, you know, once that starts going, it's the gift that keeps giving, right? They continue to bring you to their customer base. And we've got to close the first handful, and we've got to hold their hand through it, and we do that. But at some point when they get productive, it's going to be very powerful. And the products that we're developing, we're developing for partners to be able to go out, manage, demo, manage, and sell on their own without our intervention. So that's what these partners want. They want something that's really simple, straightforward. They can demo it. They have a dashboard to be able to, you know, market the licenses and sell it, and then sell any hardware if that's required beyond that.
Got it. Should we expect increasing R&D expenditures in this area, then, over the next 12 months?
You know, I think we're solid here. I think Cece mentioned that our R&D expenses were pretty stable, if not declining. We think we have the resources to be able to do most of what we need. You may see some additional resource and support as sales climb, right, just to support our existing base. Thank you. We're pretty stable at this point.
Great. You mentioned a multiple six-figure deal on the casino. Was that for a single resort, or is it a whole chain?
No, no. It's for a single entity. Yeah. It's for a single entity. So the opportunity there is pretty significant, right? If you think about, as I mentioned, you know, these local, tribal, you know, regional, state-based institutions. Some are just gaming, some are resort and gaming. It's a pretty big opportunity.
Yeah, and are you seeing other interest or interest from other casinos based on this?
We are, and as I mentioned, we're attending an event that's sponsored with our existing installed customer here, and they're going to be helping us referencing a new opportunity. So it's pretty powerful for us. That event is... Early Q1. I want to say it's in January.
On some of these other deals in the Middle East and Portugal, I know that I have a feel for the actual size or potential.
They range from $500,000 to millions. They're larger deals. The Middle East banking and government deals, specifically.
On Portugal, have you had enough time to see whether it's spreading through the public sector and municipal sector the way you thought it would, or is it too early?
Yes. Yes, we're very happy with what we're seeing there. And again, when it happens in Spain, it happens in Portugal, and it happens in other countries. But our focus right now, because we have an office in Madrid and we have an office in Lisbon, has been really those two countries. But I'm not sure that the public really understands. The opportunity with Proseguer, I don't know if you know anything about Proseguer, but they are a very, very large physical security company. So they own, you know, Brinks-like companies that pick up cash. They provide security guards, armed and otherwise. And they have a cybersecurity division. They're a multi-multi-multi-billion-dollar company. They happen to be headquartered in Spain. That cybersecurity division is a global entity. The majority of their business is in... You know, in Europe and South America, so that's where the bulk of it is, but they operate here in the U.S. as well. And bringing our solutions into their portfolio is really powerful. That has tremendous opportunity and upside for us because they're big.
Wow. That's great. Just to clarify on the hardware sale, you said it's pushed. Does that mean it's basically on hold or not happening in the next couple quarters?
No, I think it'll happen. We're getting, you know, we're just getting smaller. We shipped 60 units a couple weeks ago. We're shipping 100 here, 100 there. So we're going to get to the ultimate volume. It's just taking more time. And we're charging more for the lower quantity units as well. So it's good for us.
You mean to this customer that was going to buy the big amount or?
Correct. They're a partner, so they have multiple contracts, right? So they don't, it's not one end-user customer, it's multiple customers of theirs.
Okay. Got a couple questions on the balance sheet, if that's okay. The boomerang asset was, I think, written down, the 10K. What's the probability that there's going to be additional write-downs on that?
None at this point. Nothing that we're aware of.
We have been following their public filings, and now they have one of the big reasons for the write-down last year was because they were not getting revenue yet, and they now have a contract where they're getting revenue. So some improvements there along with the next one. Yeah, it's in their public filing.
Okay, great. That's good news then. Maybe you'll have to write it up. Okay. On the warrants, I noticed the shareholders approved the $4 warrants. I guess you're kind of indicating there's no real chance that you'll need to sell additional shares and create even additional warrants or reduce the price of those warrants at this point. Clarify that, I guess, one more time.
No reason at all, but as you know, they have the ability to exercise those warrants if they so choose, and if the stock goes to $20 a share, they may do that. On the other hand, if it, you know, hangs in the $5, $6, $7 range, maybe they won't, but we have no intention of doing anything in the context of another inducement or We don't really need the cash, and we don't have the need to do that right now, so I don't see that. But if they do exercise, it brings cash into the company. They're priced at $4.02 or $0.10, CeCe?
It's $4.06, yeah, $4.06, $4.06.
Yeah, so $4.06, so we'll see what happens.
Yeah. Speaking of stock price, I noticed the short interest was at $10K shares during the summer, and it shot up to a million shares on the 30th, about half the share count. Actually, it's down to maybe $270K. I'm wondering if this increase in the short interest, whether you consider it has anything to do with these days where we trade 10, 40, 80 times the flow?
Yeah, it's hard to say, Dan. You know, we don't really understand that dynamic. Look, I've been dealing with this now for two years, and I talk to a lot of people, advisors, so forth and so on, and it's hard to say, right? We know it's bots. We know it's machine trading. It's algorithmic trading. Unfortunately, in fact, our IR guys were saying this this morning. The volatility is creating... You know, big upside for traders, right? They love volatility because you make it on the upside and you make it on the downside. And so, you know, when we have an announcement and the stock runs and we trade 100 or 200 million shares, it's just people, not people, it's institutions, entities, whatever, making money in and out, right? 200-and-something thousand shares short is about 10% of the outstanding, right? We have 2,035,000 shares outstanding, so if there's 200-and-something thousand shares shorted, it's 10%, not out of the realm of reality. You can borrow the shares in certain Schwab and, you know, Fidelity will loan shares, but there just aren't that many to loan, so. I think we have to deal with that, but 200,000 shares on $2,035,000 outstanding is not what I would consider material.
Yeah, no, not when you're trading 100 million shares. Okay, last question. If we take the cash and the AR minus the payables and crude liabilities, that's about $3 million. Price of $2.20 right now times one. Well, your float or your stated share count, I think, in your current document is $1.35 million. That's about $3 million also. So it seems to me your company is currently trading essentially for cash. Considering your buying window opens in a couple of days for a month, should we expect to see insider buying in the near future?
Okay, that's the answer I'd like to hear. Okay, I appreciate all the time, and hopefully the coming quarters will be good. Thank you.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mike DiPasquale for any closing remarks.
Thank you all for joining us today and for your continued support of BioKey. We look forward to sharing our progress with you on our next call in Q1, and in January, we will be presenting and holding one-on-one meetings at the DealFlow Discovery Conference in Atlantic City on January 27th and 28th, and we hope to see some of you there. In the meantime, we will continue to update investors via press releases on significant developments. And if you have any questions, please reach out to our IR team whose contact information is in today's press release. Thank you and have a great weekend.
Operator
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
