KULR Technology Group, Inc. (KULR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Alright, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am your host, Stuart Smith. And before this call can begin, I need to read some statements for you that can be found at the bottom of every press release using the ticker symbol for the company, KULR. That’s also the same way you find this information at the Securities and Exchange Commission using the company’s name KULR Technology Group, K-U-L-R. Statements made on this call do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of offers to buy any securities of any entity. This call may contain certain forward-looking statements based on KULR’s current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements made on this call are based on the information available to the company as of the date hereof. The company’s actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with KULR’s business, which include the risk factors disclosed in KULR’s Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 22, 2022. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the company’s expectations, beliefs, intentions, or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, intend, may, should, and would or similar words. All forecasts provided by management on this call are based on the information available at this time, and management expects that internal projections and expectations may change over time. In addition, the forecasts are entirely based on management’s best estimate of their future financial performance. Given their current contracts, current backlog of opportunities, and conversations with new and existing customers about their products and services, KULR assumes no obligation to update the information included on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Joining me on the call today from the KULR management team will be CEO, Michael Mo; President and COO, Keith Cochran; as well as Chief Financial Officer, Simon Westbrook. After the opening comments are completed by the management team of KULR Technology Group, we will be joined on the call by Howard Halpern from Taglich Brothers; Theodore O’Neill from Litchfield Hills Research; and Jake Sekelsky from Alliance Global Partners for their questions. I will turn the call over now to Chief Executive Officer, Michael Mo. Michael, the call is yours.

Thank you, Stuart. This is Michael Mo. Thank you everybody for joining our call today. KULR’s mission is to develop a world-leading energy management platform to accelerate the global transition to a sustainable electrification economy. We provide the hardware and software solutions for renewable energy and advanced mobility applications. We achieve our mission by helping our customers to use less energy, to use energy more efficiently, to make energy consumption safer and cooler, to use less material to achieve these goals, and to complete the circuit economy through recycling. The following are Q4 and full year 2022 financial highlights. Our Q4 ’22 revenue was $1.81 million, an increase of 137% over Q4 of 2021. Gross margin was 92% in Q4 ’22 compared to 70% in Q4 ’21. Revenue for 2022 full year was $3.99 million, an increase of 66% from 2021. Gross margin for 2022 was 59% compared to 54% in 2021. The strong revenue growth in Q3 and Q4 of 2022 and the gross margin expansion was the result of KULR’s long-term investment in our technology portfolio to complete our holistic approach to lithium-ion battery safety. As we gain more traction with large OEM customers, we expect revenue growth momentum to accelerate in 2023. Speaking of KULR’s long-term investment, we will be investing in our people, our infrastructure, our technology portfolio, and our brand. Keith Cochran will update you on all the important milestones we have accomplished in building our team and infrastructure in North America. I am particularly proud of our ISO 9001 certification and the completion of the automated cell screening line for NASA Work Instruction 37 and other DoD customers. At the end of 2022, we had $3.19 million in equipment and properties compared to $375,000 in 2021. We have been working on onshoring our manufacturing capabilities in North America in ’22. We had $3.5 million in equipment deposits at the end of ’22 compared to $2.5 million in ’21. We believe that we have done our heavy investments in capital equipment for us to solidly grow our business in 2023. At the end of year ’22, we have $1.9 million in inventory compared to $191,000 in 2021, nearly a tenfold increase in inventory as we prepare for the revenue growth acceleration in 2023. In 2023, we are entering into the monetization phase of the investments we have made to build out our key technology platforms. We introduced an all-new margin energy platform called KULR ONE at this year’s CES. KULR ONE is a family of revolutionary battery packs, accelerating the global transition to a sustainable electrification economy. These new and innovative designs bring a combination of safety, performance, intelligence, modularity, and reliability for the world’s most demanding applications. Since the launch of the product in January, KULR ONE has half a dozen development engagements with electrical vehicles, DoD applications, electric aviation, and charging infrastructure customers. We expect KULR ONE to have the revenue opportunity of over $200 million by 2026. KULR ONE design solutions is the suite of products and services that comprise a holistic approach to battery safety. This approach that we adopted from the NASA methodology and design flow addresses some of the most critical battery safety concerns. It starts from deep analysis of the battery cell from the time it’s made, understanding how it behaves when it goes into thermal runaway through the FTRC test that takes all that data and designs the battery pack. It runs through thermal and mechanical analysis before building and testing the battery pack. It provides real-time monitoring analysis through CellCheck. Our safe case suite of products enables large-format batteries to be stored, transported, and recycled safely. Embedded in this process is a lot of proprietary IP patents and know-how that we have gained over the last 10 years, including 12 granted patents and many more pending patents. Energy storage is by far the largest market opportunity for us. This market is set to reach over $400 billion by 2030. We believe our solution is the fundamental enabling technology that ensures batteries are safe and compliant with government regulations. Our energy storage customers include Lockheed Martin for Phase 2 battery testing, ISC testing for the largest automotive manufacturer in the U.S., and safe case production orders for top-tier power manufacturers. We expect to achieve over $100 million in revenue for KULR ONE design solutions over the next 3 years as we continue to gain traction with large OEM customers and their products begin to ramp in volume. I am very excited about the next phase of our technology and product development to integrate all these functions together with AI-powered software and solutions. Our CellCheck technology provides real-time monitoring on batteries to provide state of health data to our customers. We have recently acquired KULR VIBE, which is a software technology that identifies and eliminates vibration-related loss of energy in motors. By incorporating KULR VIBE into our suite of tools, we will provide the capabilities for efficient energy sourcing and energy usage. The features integrate AI tools, such as GPT, into our engineering flow to increase productivity and also into KULR ONE design solutions to provide more intelligence and data analysis capabilities. Next, Keith Cochran will provide operational updates. Keith, please.

Thank you, Michael. Appreciate that. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. 2022 has been an incredible year for KULR. Let’s take a look back at some important milestones that leave us very well positioned for our future. In Q1, we shared with you Dr. William Walker, former NASA Johnson Space Center senior leader in thermal analysis, was hired as Director of Engineering to build out our suite of battery thermal management and safety products as well as our next-generation high-performance computing thermal management initiatives. It became quickly apparent that Dr. Walker should take the helm of our technological vision and was moved into the CTO role. He and his team have delivered on the initial charter but rapidly expanded the KULR capabilities to include advanced offerings such as FTRC, which is fractional thermal runaway calorimetry, bomb calorimetry, and multiphysics modeling. Additionally, with the strategic hires of former NASA battery engineers, the team was able to develop and deliver at CES this January our first KULR ONE battery. The product is highly configurable with a broad range of applications from e-bikes, eVTOLs, CubeSat, and much more. We are now engaged in development work with multiple customers with the goal of delivering in volume starting in the second half of this year. Also in Q1, we noted our impact by COVID lockdowns in China. At that time, we said we were moving quickly to reduce supply chain risk. We delivered on that commitment in Q2 ’22 by moving our safe case and safe sleeve production to Mexico. While we still have some risk remaining in China, we now have a dual source for our TRS manufacturing materials in Mexico. Furthermore, we have placed on order fully automated equipment for our TRS manufacturing that is scheduled for delivery this June. The equipment will be put into operation in the U.S. during Q3 of ’23 as we seek to provide even more stability to the supply chain and significantly reduce our risk to China exposure. As we moved into Q2, our focus remained strong on operational excellence. Accordingly, the team worked very closely to achieve ISO 9001 certification. The audit found zero non-conformances demonstrating KULR’s dedication in the pursuit of manufacturing excellence and operational controls. This was a significant milestone delivered by our entire organization. As noted in the Q2 call, KULR continued to expand our workforce in the area of sales, supply chain, and engineering. The hires have been critical to delivering the growth in our service offerings and the increase in our customer engagements. Moving on to Q3, I shared we have begun to install our automated lithium-ion 18650 and 21700 battery cell testing capability, which meets the performance required in National Work Construction 37 and that KULR would have the only fully end-to-end automated test system capable of meeting Work Construction 37. This system allows for volume testing of battery cells required for all manned missions by NASA and many other DoD branches. We can confirm on the call that the system would launch operations in December and KULR would begin shipping fully tested cells in January ’23. While our system was fully operational in January, we did incur a slight delay due to final permitting. Accordingly, the team completed the first fully screened cells in February and had delivered them to NASA in the first week of March. This was a major milestone delivered by our dedicated ops organization. KULR also announced in Q3 the introduction of KULR VIBE. We are very pleased to say the response has been extremely positive. KULR previously announced that we have signed a long-term service agreement to support a major helicopter operation. We have also had numerous favorable engagements with the Marine Corps industrial drone operators and commercial flight operators. We are very pleased with the progress the team has made to develop a significant sales funnel and align customer demonstrations for the superior balancing and vibration reduction technology. We do expect to see numerous new customer wins very soon. Moving on to Q4, the focus remained on operational efficiency, the delivery of the various platforms and services noted previously, and the startup of our Texas facilities for advanced testing of battery cells and pack development. We are pleased to say that both locations in Texas are fully operational and have already begun to contribute to KULR’s top-line growth. We have also continued to hire strategic personnel, specifically in the area of battery technology. KULR currently has 72 employees and has been able to attract and retain our strategic hires. With that said, our hiring in ’23 will slow to a few strategic engineering hires and replacement hires as we are moving our team to focus on the top-line growth of the company for the platforms developed over the past 2 years. We are currently well-staffed to deliver in ‘23, and we have a plan for only minor capital outlays this year compared to the last two. We stand well poised to deliver our FY ’23 vision. At this moment, I would like to say a big thank you to our employees; their dedication and enthusiasm for where KULR is going is simply incredible. I also want to recognize our valued shareholders. We appreciate you. While I know the current market is tough, KULR has positioned the company for solid growth and has delivered on the vision presented as far back as Q2 ’21 with multiple platform developments deployed. These developments take capital investment in time, but they have also now delivered and are poised for significant top-line growth in ’23. Our KULR team is committed to delivering for you. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Simon Westbrook, who will share KULR’s financial highlights.

This is Simon Westbrook, CFO. We reported revenue of $1.8 million in the current quarter compared to $766,000 in the quarter ended December 31, 2021; that was an increase of 137% as a result of increased product shipments following the improvement in our supply constraint issues. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased to $4.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 from $3.8 million in the corresponding quarter of 2021. The 16% increase in SG&A expenses was due to additional marketing and advertising expenses, consulting fees, and non-cash stock-based compensation expense paid to employees and consultants, as well as the expansion and kicking out of new production facilities. R&D expenses increased 68% from $705,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, reflecting a combination of headcount and new automated test and production equipment, continuing our investment in in-house manufacturing and assembly facilities that began in the last quarter of 2021. Our loss from operations decreased by 0.6% from just over $4 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $3.9 million in the fourth quarter of the current year. The $25,000 increase in the operating loss included an increase in revenue, offset by increases in payroll and research and development projects. Our net loss decreased by 9%, from just over $4 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $4.4 million in the fourth quarter of this year. Our net loss per share for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $0.04 compared to $0.06 for the comparable period in 2021. Finance-related costs increased by $411,000, largely due to changes in prepaid advances. On the cash side, at December 31, 2022, the company reported cash balances of $10.3 million compared with $14.9 million as of December 31 last year. Taking into account our capacity to draw further advances under the terms of financing agreements, we believe we are well positioned to expand operations, support new business, and consolidate our manufacturing operations in the U.S. to ensure greater control over logistics in the face of continuing worldwide uncertainties. Thank you. And now I’ll turn the call back to Michael.

Thank you, Simon. Stuart, I’ll turn the call to you to answer questions from our analysts.

Alright. Very good. As stated at the beginning of the call, we’re joined by several different analysts, and I will let the members of the KULR management team decide which one of them will answer each question. With that, let me first introduce Howard Halpern from Taglich Brothers. Howard, the call is now yours. You have a few questions for the company.

Thank you. And congratulations, great building of the momentum for this year and into next. I do want to clarify what I think I heard on the call. You said over the next 3 years, you anticipate generating cumulatively $100 million in revenue?

Yes. This is – Howard, this is Michael Mo. Yes, this is our aspiration for the KULR ONE platform. With what we think is the current engagement and future engagement could be for this product as we start launching them. We think that $200 million by 2026 is our aspiration.

Okay. And in terms of – if you could just, I guess, give an example with VIBE and this just brand-new customer you have, how long does it take to materialize? And then how long is it going to take to deploy it across their whole fleet?

Yes, hey, I’ll take that one, Michael. So with our current customer, we’ve actually already deployed that across the entire fleet. So that particular customer that we announced has a universal system for track and balance in their helicopters. And so our technology was already completely ready to support their entire fleet.

And are you seeing that with similar customers that it will be a very quick deployment? Or does it just depend on the customer on how complex their systems are?

For the major helicopter deployments that are out there, there is really just a handful of base helicopters that are used in mass service. For all of those particular helicopters, we already have our solutions in place to support them 100%. You must understand one thing about most of these helicopter services: the hardware that they use already has sensors in place, so they can provide data rapidly to us, which we will use to help eliminate their vibrations and improve their track imbalance.

Okay. And just, I guess, one last one because you have so many different platforms to sell to different types of customers. Is there any one that we should focus on as being the big driver for at least for this current fiscal year?

Yes, Keith, maybe I’ll take this one, and you can kind of add on top of that. I think the KULR ONE design solutions package power is what is gaining the most traction for 2023. This is where we see a lot of momentum, including some of the customer announcements that we recently had. So that’s incorporating all the capabilities into that solutions package. The showcase product of that package is KULR ONE, the unit that we announced in CES – and like Keith and I talked about, we already have many customer engagements on this. So, in the second half of 2023 leading to 2024, KULR VIBE is actually in a kind of parallel track on this one. So, but yes, yes. When you get into the later half of the year, as all these platforms start getting traction, especially in the e-mobility like eVTOL customers, high-performance e-mobility customers, we see the opportunity to cross-sell and upsell KULR VIBE into those customers who are already using our battery solution. And then the drivetrain for that will be motors, and to make the entire system more efficient, those will be higher value engagement for us.

Okay, guys. Thanks, and keep up the great work.

Yes. Thank you, Howard. Appreciate it.

Alright. Thank you, Howard. Now we will move on to Theodore O’Neill from Litchfield Hills Research. Theodore, are you with us?

Yes and congratulations on the good quarter.

Thank you.

Yes. So, on the 13th, you announced the opening of an R&D center in Webster, Texas. It’s going to be outfitted with state-of-the-art prototyping equipment, and that leads me to three questions. One, could you talk about the demand you are seeing for prototypes and how these fit within the sales process? And when you do get production type orders like the $2.68 million you got last month, where will production runs occur?

Yes. Hey Michael, I will take that one, and thanks for the question. So, the demand for prototype battery systems is huge, given the push for electrification across many industries. Supporting the development of these systems under the umbrella of our K1 design services is one of the major focuses of our engineers. It’s going to facilitate the internal growth projections that we have for ’23 and to a much larger scale in ’24, based on the projections Michael has already shared with you. We are already engaged in prototype designs for high reliability battery packs for companies in automotive, defense, aviation, energy storage, and space markets. We are also in collaboration with a major car manufacturer, some large retailers, and marine vessels, as well as energy storage and mobility applications, all looking for our K1 design services. There is a tremendous amount of interest in the engineering team that we have been able to assemble and the capabilities that team has brought to the table.

Great. And when you do get production orders, where are those going to get built?

Well, it depends upon the size of the order. If it’s a small lot, that order would actually be built within our own laboratories. If it’s a large order in mass production, we intend to outsource the production.

Okay. And following up on that $2.68 million order, the press release says it's partly about heavy construction and other mobile applications. Is this product being designed specifically for electric power construction equipment?

No, not...

Yes. It’s not specifically just for that. We can also support critical systems, including medical equipment, emergency services, financial institutions that need backup power, data centers, etcetera.

Okay. And my last question is, I went on to the website to try to understand how KULR VIBE works. I wanted to know a little more about it. Is it a combination of sensors and voltage or current modulation software that controls motors, or is this something else?

Not really. KULR VIBE is a multifaceted platform and it can serve many industries. The technology can balance and remove vibration from pretty much almost anything that spins. For helicopters, for example, the sensors are already in place as part of the track and balance system that’s on board. So, we just used the information already coming from those sensors. When we have other products or technology that we need to remove vibrations, we also have our own sensors that we can use in those environments, along with our software to perform the anti-vibration and balancing of those products.

Does that mean you have to add – so I understand the sensors, and I understand in some cases, the sensors are already there for obviously, for stabilizing how the product sits in the air, but does that mean that there are other components that have to get added as well beyond sensors?

Early the sensors, but in certain applications, we will actually build fixtures for our customers. So, we are able to not only perform the track and balance of that; we are able to use in certain cases lasers, for example, to remove materials. We can show them the exact placement of where weights should be placed in order to balance the system, and we can do that with a visual representation for them. The product is certainly in the helicopter business is very straightforward for us. In other businesses, it can be more complex, but we have the team inside that can build the hardware and place the sensors properly, so we can do the adjustments. What we're trying to get down to is 0.0x steps of vibration.

Okay. Great. Thanks very much.

So yes, Ted, if I may add on top of that, what Keith is saying, I think a lot of people want to dig deeper into KULR VIBE. So, I think that it’s fair to say that KULR VIBE will work with existing equipment and sensors already built into some of the helicopters and applications that Keith just talked about. But what's also exciting is that going forward, new applications like EVs that are coming online in 2025, 2026, industrial applications like wind farms, and other applications. There is an opportunity to develop very low-cost sensors to be embedded into these new applications and then embed our KULR VIBE software onto the vehicle itself, either integrated into the computer that's on board, or KULR VIBE can fit inside our KULR ONE battery unit to do the monitoring as well. We see an opportunity going forward where the KULR ONE becomes the power source and the intelligence unit of these vehicles, and then by becoming the sensor part of it, they work together to provide maximum benefit for keeping the batteries cool and safe as well as keeping the rotors and motors running smoothly and more energy efficient; that would be really a cool package.

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. We are going to be joined now by Jake Sekelsky. Jake is with Alliance Global Partners. Jake, are you with us?

Yes. Hey Michael and team. Thanks for taking my questions.

Hi Jake.

So just looking at the onshoring of your supply chain, which I think is important in looking at the facility in Texas. There has been a lot of government funding across the battery supply chain that’s becoming available. Are there any programs either out there around the horizon that you think KULR might qualify for down the road?

Yes. This is something that, frankly, we haven’t put a lot of focus on in 2022, but we are putting a lot more focus on in 2023 and going forward. A couple of programs, I mean I think the biggest one is the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, which is somewhere around $350 billion. There are multiple phases. I know last year, a bunch of companies got sizable chunks of that. Now, we have our domestic North America supply chain in place. I think we can start that initiative in applying for that government financing or funding source. There’s also additional DOE, ARPA, and DoD financing available. As we really start showcasing the North America, U.S. supply chain and manufacturing base, we will be very actively going after those government support.

Yes. Just to add to that, we are currently engaged with three third-party bases that specialize in being able to get those opportunities out of the DOE and some of this government funding that’s freed up now. So, we have been working with them for about the last month on different opportunities and narrowing down the list that we are going to pursue. Each of those opportunities takes quite a bit of engineering hours to be able to address and put them through the system, but there is solid money behind that. We are trying to make sure that we put our best proposals out there. But yes, it is on our radar and is something we are working on.

Okay. That’s good to hear. And then just looking at the $2.7 million follow-on order you announced earlier in Q1, it seems like demand from that customer is starting to ramp up a bit. Do you have any visibility on what demand might look like in the second half or going into 2024? Is it possible you see additional follow-on orders here later this year or next?

Yes. I will say that we don’t want to steal the thunder from certain customers. So, I will let them speak for themselves. But I think just as with this customer and others, it takes quite a while to design, test, and certify these systems and ensure compliance with regulations and certifications. Once it’s designed in, the stickiness is very high, and it’s going to be a long cycle product to run its life. So, I would not be surprised if we have follow-on orders for the second half of this year. It’s definitely one of those products that has a lot of market acceptance, and we have high expectations or high hopes. And the customer has very high hope for their product.

Fair enough. Okay. That’s all for me. Thanks again, guys.

Alright. Thank you, Theodore and Jake. Thank you, Michael and Keith for handling these questions. And of course, thank you for all who have joined us on the call today that does conclude this call. So at this time, we will ask the operator to end the call, and thank you so much once again.

Appreciate everyone. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference call and webcast. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.