Conference Transcript - PRSO 2026-04-14

Blake Roberts, Analyst — Century

Good morning, everyone. I appreciate everyone coming to our conference. My name is Blake Roberts, a partner at Century at a New York office. I'm happy to introduce Ron Glibri, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Peraza, and I appreciate you guys being here today. Thank you.

Ron Glibbery, CEO

All right. Thank you, everyone, for attending this morning. As Blake mentioned, my name is Ron Glibri. I'm the CEO of Perazzo, and I would like to thank you for coming to our presentation today. So, Perazzo is a semiconductor company. We do wireless chips in high frequency. We call it 60 gigahertz millimeter wave. We're the global leaders in this technology. So, basically, we've really kind of outperformed our competitors, if you will, and really the dominant player in this space. We've sold over 2 million chips, and we've put a lot of effort into our patent process. So we've got over 60 patents issued and pending, and, you know, we continue, you know, to actively secure and expand design ones across a diverse set of markets, which I'll tell you about. So, you know, really kind of our first pillar is what we call fixed wireless access. This is high-speed access, Internet access. This is actually getting a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, press these days because basically, you know, fiber, people talk about fiber, but as it turns out, fiber is very expensive and it takes a long time. So we provide a very, very strong, it's really fiber-like speeds, kind of in a multi-gigabit range. So that's really kind of our anchor market, if you will. But that market, we really are the dominant player and there's really nobody left to really go after. So we've done a very good job of kind of blanketing that market. So the market that we're focused on now is what we call tactical communications. We did a press release this morning, for example, specifically for drones. And so, you know, that's a very hot topic. Our claim to fame there, and I'll get into more detail, is that we can't be detected in a battlefield environment where we're stealthy. And so, you know, militaries around the world are recognizing this capability. And the idea there is, and you can see on the drones, the idea is to control these drones using our wireless technology, But it, again, can be detected with traditional, if you've seen the videos out of Russia where they're using fiber optic cable to kind of control their drones, that's the way they're solving the, you know, the jamming problem now. So we avoid the jamming with our technology. And then lastly, we're actually starting to see some nice traction on what we call high bandwidth AI. And that's a little more in the future. And the idea there is, you know, robotics, like Optimus Robotics, you know, robo-taxis, like even video on the edge of the Internet, actually needs very high data rates. And so one characteristic of our technology is very high data rates and secure data rates, so that's a third market. So these are really the main pillars of our market. So just a quick engineering lesson. So basically what we do is we operate in these high frequencies. What we do really well is we beam for them, and so this is why we're stealthy. So, basically, the idea is that because we have a very narrow beam, it can't be detected on the battlefield and it can't be jammed. So, again, anti-detection and anti-jamming. And then also in the fixed wireless space, you know, what that allows us to do is actually have very, very high-density networks, very high-speed networks as well. So, you know, we do this because we've actually got this capability to create these very narrow beams. That's the thing to, you know, I guess a characteristic to keep in mind throughout the presentation. So that's kind of the technology behind what we're doing. Like in terms of growth, millimeter wave is, you know, really the thesis of the company originally was, you know, we're going to run out of spectrum at, you know, at these lower frequencies. And that, indeed, is what happened. Actually, I just read a report this morning that even in America, for 5G, it's taken a long time. But now they are running out of spectrum at the 3 gigahertz band. And so they're starting to move over to, you know, our frequency bands, if you will, called millimeter wave. So the growth for, you know, the broad market is about 25% annualized. And, you know, specifically for defense, I'm sorry, we're putting a lot of effort into that market specifically because of this stealth capability of our chips. So, you know, we started off, our lead customer was a company called Ubiquity. It's an OEM. So in terms of the signal chain, so basically we are a semiconductor company, so we sell to OEMs. And so really the gorilla in the room of OEMs in this marketplace is a company called Ubiquiti. And so we've got eight or ten products that they're selling in the marketplace. They're really kind of the main guy. But their really focus was what we call rural America, where the big carriers couldn't really address those market opportunities because there was low density. So that's how we got started, but they're a very strong company, So it allowed us to pipe clean our process, our technology, and our operations. But because of the beamforming that I, you know, that I talked about, basically what that's allowed us to do is to go to what we call urban markets. So much more volume, much higher density markets, so we can get multiple access points into those marketplaces because of our beamforming capability. It allows us to get many, many, you know, networks in a small, dense area. And so now we've really rolled our products with partners, of course, in Los Angeles. We've got a partner called WeLink there that we started to roll out about two years ago. South Africa, so in the townships of South Africa, as it turns out, those are probably the most high-dense, you know, urban places in the world. So we've got partners there that we're shipping into and even places like Kenya. So we call this technology DUNE for dense urban network environment. And so basically, again, the idea there is that we've got, you know, very, very strict beamforming, very high data rates. So, again, competing with fiber in terms of our data rates. And, you know, a characteristic that's becoming more popular is low latency. So for gaming, for example, when you're doing gaming, you can't have a lot of latency, of course, in that transaction. So we have a low latency technology. So we started shipping into this market about two years ago. So for tactical communications, basically, again, the idea there is that we have these very narrow beams that A, have a low, we call it low probability of detection, but it's essentially zero. I would call it zero probability of detection because you can imagine you've got a beam the size of my finger, you know, two square miles. How are you going to find that beam? So it's very, very, almost impossible for the enemy to find those beams. And once they do, you know, it's more or less impossible to jam it. So, again, we're starting to see real traction in this marketplace because of those characteristics. So we've got a variety of applications, but basically the net-net there is that what we're really seeing is just those simple communication links on the battlefield using our technology so that they have secure communications and they can't be jammed. So we actually just did a press release this morning, so if you go to our website, you can see that. But, you know, basically, it's with this company. So our lead customer, well, actually, our lead customer is actually in the States with the U.S. military. But that's really more prototypes at this point. The first press release that we did was in March. And basically, the idea there was, you know, in this situation. So one of the, this is a solution for the IDF in Israel. And it's basically the idea there was that, as it turns out, 30% of casualties in the IDF were from friendly fire. Okay, so the idea there is that, well, it's obviously a situation that has to get fixed because a lot of the casualties are from their own soldiers. So if you look at this situation, what they would do is they would put one of our radios on the rifle and put a receiver on the helmet. And then basically, before you take the shot, you actually make sure you send a signal out, make sure that it's not your guy, and then you can engage. But if it is your guy, obviously, you're not going to engage. So this is, you know, we've sold about 1,000 systems to the IDF so far. So the technology, per se, is called identification from your phone. So that's really the first kind of volume production that we have in this marketplace. But again, you know, what the IDF was looking for, like, obviously, you know, the main thing is that, you know, the main thing is for safety and kind of a communications protocol, but obviously, you know, it's got to, again, stealthy. You don't want people knowing where you are. And just to kind of put that in perspective, like, the idea there is, like, there was, for example, a group of Russian, in the Ukraine war, there was a group of Russian soldiers who actually were using their cell phones, and, you know, the Ukrainians immediately triangulated to their position and, you know, send ordinance in that direction. So it's a real problem. And so where we're really seeing the, you know, I would call it, you know, the fallout of that is that if you look carefully in Ukraine or even Israel, you know, the drone part of the marketplace historically has been controlled by traditional wireless technology that can be detected in the marketplace. So now what you're finding, for example, even, you know, as we speak in the, you know, Iran war, the Shahed drones that Iran is using actually doesn't use any wireless. They just actually hope for the best. We've got some guidance system. And the Russians are actually using fiber optic cable. So we're starting to do tests now with various militaries, including the IDF, using our chips to replace existing wireless in those circumstances. So we think that's a very, very important that's really so I would say like, you know, in summary You know, we we we've been very successful in the in the high-speed internet market But for starting in 2026 this is the market that we're really going after and we've already I mean We've been engaged with these guys for a couple years now. So it's not not like, you know, we're starting from scratch And basically the two scenarios are like Like, in the drone situation, so what, if you have a swarm of drones, for example, the military wants to know who's friendly. So it's the same concept. Before you take a shot and you shoot down that drone, you have to make sure that it's not your own drone. Alternatively, on the drone, you actually want to send a beam down to, you know, to Earth. And, you know, if it's a friendly entity, you don't want to shoot him either. So it kind of works both ways. So that's really where our focus is. And our press release this morning actually spoke to our ability to go into production. And so we've started that. Basically, that was important for us because it basically shows, you know, we actually took our original products that were designated for high-speed Internet. And so they needed two things. One was, you know, make it much smaller so it could actually fit on a drone. And the other was power consumption. And you can imagine all of these applications are very, very dependent on batteries. Like, you know, you're in the battlefield, the drones are battery-operated, but the soldiers have battery-packed as well, and they need to last a long time. So we spent about a year and a half actually modifying our main products so that, A, they were much smaller, and, B, they were much less power-hungry, like one-tenth power, so that was a significant milestone for engineers. And then the last thing I'll talk about in terms of applications this morning is what we call edge AI. So the idea here is that we've all heard about AI, of course, and the issue with AI in general is just the high speed it needs to the memory in the data centers. So basically the issue with that is that you just need very, very high data rates. So that's fine in the data centers, and they're using fiber to kind of address that. But the problem is a lot of the AI applications, particularly with regards to video, are actually at the edge of the Internet. So if you take one of our main, I guess it's still early, but we're working with a robotics company for manufacturing. And the idea is that the entire factory will be robotics driven, and they want each of those robots to have access to very, very high data rate wireless. The problem with traditional wireless, and believe me, they've tried, And when I say traditional wireless, what I mean by that is Wi-Fi. The problem with Wi-Fi is, you know, why it works so well in here is that you've got, it lights this room up like a light bulb. Okay, so it goes everywhere, and that's great. But when you get into a factory environment, if you have a dozen of those, they cancel each other out, and so you have a very limited bandwidth. Again, so I go back to our beamforming capability. And that allows us to get into very high density environments. So in the example of the, you know, robotic control and manufacturing, you know, we can have many, many access points existing in that same room. So we get into that high-density concept again. So we're really seeing some nice traction here. Robo-taxis as well, we've done a press release on that. The idea there is that, you know, the robo-taxis actually gather terabytes of information throughout the day, and they want to get that back to the data center, process the model, we rejig their models and send them back to the cars. The problem is, in an hour, they've got an hour to recharge, they need to get a terabyte of data off the car in that time. So basically, it's a very, very high data rate application. And again, the problem is when you get back to the staging center, where you've got, let's say, 100 robo-taxis, you know, basically, again, you'll have congestion. So we avoid that congestion. And that's really kind of, you know, the hallmark of our technology. We actually did a press release with a company in California called Fireworks. And we're actually working with a very large client now who's a large robotaxi manufacturer. You can kind of guess who that is. But basically, it looks very promising in terms of, you know, that application and moving forward with that application because they've tried all wireless technologies. And, again, traditional wireless has this kind of light bulb effect, if you will, and they interfere with each other. So in our situation, with our technology, we can get to the very high-density applications. Really the main thing here is, you know, again, on video delivery, again, very high data rates, you know, at the edge. So we're actually working with a large customer there who has, like, you know, they do, they've got like a half a million delivery drivers. And basically, you know, they want to get video, again, back to the data center. And the only way they can get it off their headsets fast enough is in our technology. So we think video is another good application for us as well. But I would say the three pillars of our business today that we, you know, that we should, we want to focus on our high speed internet, military, and the robotaxi kind of robotic applications. And you know, I think that we need to keep in mind. And so again, we're, I would stress, we're a semiconductor company, so we sell to OEMs. We probably got in the order of, you know, 30 customers shipping. We have about almost 60, I think this is up to 60 products in the market now. You know, so basically it's actually kind of interesting to see because when these customers go into production you can see that there's a lot of effort they have to get to go through to get those products in production. So we're a real company in terms of just really shipping these parts. And a lot of it is military, so it's really complex operations to kind of get these guys to market. So I would also stress that, you know, we're quite a mature company. We've actually been around since 2008. But this technology, you know, the other thing I would stress is that our moat is significant. It's very, very difficult, almost impossible for anyone to compete now. We've done such a great job of capturing these market opportunities. So the eight minutes is including questions? Okay. So I've got eight minutes. So we're a global pioneer in this technology, it's called millimeter wave. We're really focused on current and future applications. The original thesis, as I mentioned, is that there was spectrum limitations on the bandwidth. And that's the problem we're solving. It really is becoming, we see it every day now in terms of our customer base. The problem they have is that existing technologies can't handle the density that's required for these applications. So it really is playing into our favor. And then, of course, the idea that we're stealth. And when we started this company 15 years ago, nobody was saying, well, you know what? Nobody can jam you in on the battlefield, so that's going to be a great application for you. So it's just amazing how these applications have kind of evolved over the years. Yeah, so there's a very, very high barrier to entry. Like, I didn't go into technology at all, but the ability, you know, this ability to make these beams, you know, from a technology perspective, is very, very difficult to do well, and we continue to evolve that. And so we think over 26, the military application, 26, 27, is going to be really the growth opportunity, but also edge AI. And so we have a robust pipeline of diverse customers in all these applications, and so really that's the main focus of our technology over the last two years. So that's a good summary of who we are and what we do. So I'm going to, our CFO ran into logistical problems this morning, so I'm going to attempt to do some of the, yeah. So our revenue in 24 was 14.6, and we went to 12.2 in fiscal 25, but the reason is because we had a legacy business. We came into this market, we merged with a company that was already on the NASDAQ, And so we lost about $2 million of revenue there. So we ran last year about $12.2 and Q4 was $2.9. So we really are targeting, I think, 50% growth or I would call 30% to 50% growth. That's really what we're looking at in terms of our growth opportunities. So fiscal 24, we lost $5.1 million, in 25 we lost $4.3 million. And that was because even though our revenue was down, you know, we actually put a lot of effort into, you know, cutting expenses. That's a really important thing to keep in mind about our company as well is, like, a semiconductor company is a very expensive, capital-intensive thing to run. So we've actually trimmed all that until we get profitable. So that's another thing to keep in mind about our company is that, you know, right now we're focused on eliminating the cash burden, get the cash generating. So that's really, you know, the plan over the next couple of years. This is our income statements for non-gap income statements for Q4. We're doing Q1 on May, sometime in May. Yeah, so you can see our revenue is about $2.8 million. Our margins are like over 50% as per kind of standard semiconductor margins, if you will. Yeah, our operating expense was $2.7. So that's like our core operating expense is about $2.7 million per quarter. So, you know, pretty reasonable, and we think a real path to get the profitability. Yeah, so from a cash perspective, like we actually, you know, it's kind of interesting, like right now we're, and in fact this morning we announced a new ATM. So basically we've been focused on using our ATM, and it's been a good way to kind of, you know, shore up our cash. So we don't have a lot of cash, but we actually have continuous, you know, a nice stream of cash. So that's been working well for us. So we haven't really done like a huge financing for quite some time now, right, because we've been able to raise money on the ATM. And that's about it. So thank you very much for joining us today. Do you have any questions, comments, concerns? Going once? I'll ask you one more time. Well, that's a great question. So we don't make the end product, of course. Our partner does, like they're called Intact in Israel. So like our chips themselves, they would weigh like maybe four ounces, right? So I think the primary weight would be the battery, right? And so it would be, the battery that they're using would be actually, Franklin and a soldier would be, I'd say a quarter of the size of the battery on your phone. That's the metric. So it's about, this is maybe 5,000 milliamp hours. So I think the IDF wants a quarter of that, and they want it to last a month. So I don't know, I would say, how much does a battery weigh? I think maybe, it's a good question, maybe eight ounces total, that would add to your helmet and your air rifle. Like, yeah, less than 16 ounces. I'd say about eight to 10 ounces. But it's a good question, I will. I could circle back with our customer and see what the total weighs. Very good question from an expert.

Operator

Do you suggest when you'll be canceled out?

Ron Glibbery, CEO

We, you know, obliquely, like we're hoping this year, but early into 27, so that kind of time frame, yeah. Well, you know, actually our large customer was Qualcomm, and two things happened. Like, Qualcomm's product had several problems, and so they were winning. You know, we were kind of splitting the market, but now we've kind of taken over every single customer because their product didn't work, and they didn't revise it. So actually, there were several competitors, but as I said at the start of the presentation, we've actually beat them out, and so, well, there's a lot of them are small. I mean, Qualcomm's obviously not small, but basically they just didn't have a product, they didn't execute, and then they didn't want to spend the money to kind of catch us. So, you know, they actually use our chips in some situations actually, but, yeah, that's the main reason is because no one is, there's no other competitors in the marketplace that have this, so that's the main reason. All right, thank you very much for coming and seeing our presentation. I appreciate it.