WISeQey Corp. (WSKEF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience, and welcome to WiseKey International Holdings Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference contains forward-looking statements. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievement of YKEI International Holding Limited to be materially different from any future result. Performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. YKEI is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, a brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Carlos Moreira, founder and chief executive officer of WiseKey. Thank you, sir.

You may begin. good morning thank you very much to every and we wanted to everybody so 2025 was a defining year for wise key and the early weeks of 2026 have already validated the strategy decision we made over the last uh 24 months we deliver outdated full year revenue of 19.3 million representing a 62 percent growth year over year with a subsidiary clsq contributing 18.3 million and growing 66 percent over the prior year q4 alone produced eight millions of that revenue more importantly we ended 2025 with a fundamentally transformed balance sheet we have over 429 million in cash and short-term investment at year-end growing to more than 535 million as of April 30 following or March capital raise for CLSQ. This strong and well capitalized balance should give us the ability to execute our strategy without compromise. I want to frame today discussions around three important messages. First, the transition from sampling to commercial revenue is now underway and the data points are concrete second or a strategy architecture what we call the year of convergence is integrating five technology pillars into a single vertical integrated quantum secure platform and third the regulatory and geopolitical environment is moving decisively in our favor so we're starting with commercial inflation at clsq the 66 revenue growth clsq deliver in 2025 reflects two distinct things happening simultaneously. One hand or legacy semiconductor and PKI product line saw a renewed demand cycle as customers work through their inventory positions. On the other hand, we generated our first revenue from sampling or post-quantum products, which is the leading indicator that matters more for what comes next. Today, our commercial pipeline at CLSQ exceeds $200 million, covering potential revenue opportunities from 2026 through 2029. With that, more than $60 million is directly tied to QS7001 and QVOL TPM programs, growing more than five-fold year-over-year from approximately $11 million. On the certification side, QS7001 has now passed full injection on side channel attack resistance evaluation at the EAL 5-plus level, and we have completed the NIST validation. First production revenues are on track for 2026, late in 2026. This is the gating event that converts pipeline into recurring hardware revenue and we are tracking on its schedule. Moving the year of conversion for WiseKey. We are calling 2010-26 our year of conversion because our five technology pillars, CLSQ, WISEAD, CLCOIN, WISEID, INES, and WISEART are now operating as a single integrated stack rather than as a gentle business as it was the case until now. What that means in practice is that our team in sharing knowledge and resources to create virtually integrated solutions for our customers. Or CLSQ, which develops a quantum secure chip designed to generate ASIC design services revenue, hardware revenue, and recurring income through outsourced semiconductor personalization and test OSPT center has now entered in commercial acceleration phase. Or WISEAD, we have made significant progress. We have launched 21 satellites to date with 14 currently operational in low Earth orbit, and we remain on track towards the 100 satellite constellation. The definitive business combination agreement we signed in November with Columbus Acquisition Corporation is expected to close in the second half of 2026, very likely around the month of September, which will result in YSAT space holding listing on the NASDAQ with a YSCE and CLSQ together receiving 25 million shares at $10 per share, representing a $250 million of equity value while retaining maturity ownership. This listing is the structure enabler of a quantum spatial orbital cloud, what we call the QSOC initiative. Under the QSOC, YSAT operates the space infrastructure and CLSQ owns and operates the quantum cloud as a managed subscription service. The full operational capability target is 2033 and YSAT is expected to operate a constellation provided a dedicated QSOP capability for CLSQ and CLSQ is aiming to deliver a contractual guarantee 99.9% uptime service agreement to its customer. The CLSQ Quantum Fund, I want to spend a moment on capital deployment to date. The CLSQ Quantum Fund grew from $20 million at launch in 2025 to $200 million of available capital resources as of April 30, 2026. Though the end of April, we have deployed approximately 23.2 million across five portfolio positions, which are, we invested 14 million in IC Alps, the acquisition added more than 100 ASIC engineers in Grenoble in France, and we are now developing or quantum resistance secure element optimized for crystal as kyber which are the standards for post-quantum technology we deploy 4.2 million in quantics at security project in murcia spain which is building one of the european first sovereign post-quantum semiconductor personalization center and test center co-founded by the spanish s-e-t-t dot e-s which is the government agency in charge of investment in critical infrastructure in Spain, programmed with $20 million that has been contributed by the Spanish government. We invest another $4 million in WECAN, which integrates our PQC-secured digital identity into financial KYC. We made two rounds of investment, EROC, or ANCOR U.S. quantum hardware investment in a company in Chicago, which brings electrons on helium quantum architecture, which is C-MOS compatible with our chip processes. So CMOS is the technology that we are investing on because it totally is aligned and fits with our semiconductor capabilities. We plan to demonstrate a joint quantum security stack at our Geneva Quantum Center of Excellence, currently in preparation to be inaugurated in October this year. Additionally, we made an initial small investment in Colibri TD, our French quantum solver partner, which is working on improving sub-7nm wafer yields from 50% to 80%, which directly reduces on-chip or chip manufacturing costs. Each of these investments reinforce the underlying business. They are not agency debts. They are vertical integration required to move the company technology to the next level. Finally, on the regulatory environment, the U.S. NSA CNSA 2.0 mandate by the U.S. government requires CNSA 2.0 compliant for all new national security system acquisitions by 1 January 2027 in the United States. This is now eight months away. Federal agencies in the U.S. are required to identify and remediate quantum vulnerable system and the PQC standards were finalized in 2024. Our products are designed to comply with all these standards and we are seeing this translate directly into pipeline activity in areas such as defense, smart meters, ecosystem through the white sun and u.s federal procurement through the or trusted semiconductor solution alliance partner with that strategic context let me hand the call over to john to walk you through the financials in details john the floor is yours thank you carlos and good morning everyone so fully at revenue for 2025 as carlos has said was 19.3 million an increase of 62 versus 11.9 million

in 2024. Fourth quarter revenue was 8 million which doubled from 4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Approximately 3.5 million of the full year increase relates to five months of revenue contribution from IC Alps which we acquired through CLSQ on August 4th 2025 and consolidated from that date forward. Organic growth was driven by recovery in our core secure microcontroller and PKI product families plus initial sampling revenue from our post-quantum platforms. I want to be transparent about how to think about 2025. As Carl has already said, it is the year that paved the way for our convergence strategy. The 2025 numbers continue to reflect the transitional period between the traditional product offerings and next generation post-quantum semiconductor platforms and included the first revenues from sampling and with the transitions expected to enter its commercialization phase with the first production revenues anticipated in the latter part of 2026. The full year 2025 net loss was $38.2 million, which was due in a large part to $8.3 million of non-cash share-based compensations, consolidation following the acquisition of IC Alps, the materially increased R&D investment we made to accelerate the post-quantum semiconductor product range, and the expanded sales and marketing-related expenses made to support the expected commercial ramp, which then were partially offset by a one-off credit on the settlement of the ex-works loan and by interest income of cash deposits. On the balance sheet side, as of December 31st, 2025, Weiske had $429 million in cash and short-term investments, up from $91 million at the end of 2024, an increase of 370%. This was achieved while deploying $23 million during the year towards strategic investments in WeCan, ICAPs, Quantix edge security and others as carlos has already touched on in march 2026 clfq raised a further 125 million in additional capital out of april 30th the wise key group had over 535 million in cash and short-term investments this strong cash position allows us to fund post quantum r d scale our manufacturing capacity pursue selective m a and continue to deploy through the clfq quantum and fund moving on to guidance we are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance which calls for growth of 50 to 100 percent year over year driven primarily by clsq we have some significant projects in relatively advanced phases of negotiation and we therefore hope to be able to positively reinforce and and upgrade our guidance in the coming months the drivers of this our full year consolidation of icy alps broader entry into the trusted platform module market via qvault tpm the launch of qasic quasic custom post-quantum asic engagements initial qs 7001 production revenues following the ea l5 plus certification in late 2026 initial revenue is expected from the quantix edge security personalization center development in spain and continued expansion of recurring pki subscription and ospt personalization revenues

with that i'll hand back to carles for closing remarks before we open the line for questions so thank you john and before we move into our q a let me close with a brief view on what we expect to see through the remaining of 2026 that has not been yet disclosed during the first part of this meeting so as we say the QS7001 the EAL 5 plus certification is on track and we expect to generate the first production revenue in the latest part of this year it is important to note that this is the first type of chip then they are certified with that level of security and although this is not a requirement to sell because we can sell them without that certification that certification will help to increase the revenue especially in government contracts and critical infrastructure projects second we expect the ysad business combination of columbus acquisition corporation to close in the second half of 2026 creating an independent listed company in wise sad poise dot space holding corporation as you all know with the uh ipo of spacex space is becoming a very important uh infrastructure as many of the current earth-based infrastructure such as data centers nodes are moving to the space and it's critical for a company like wise key via its subsidiary YSAT to have an early present in that ecosystem which will be a very important growth ecosystem in the future as everything is moving to what we call quantum the internet and we're having assets related to satellite launching capabilities in cooperation with the SpaceX cryptographic capabilities to store at the satellite And the future possibility to do a quantum key distribution for our space are strategic components for companies like WiseKey and YSAT. There we expect continued capital deployment from the CLSQ Quantum Fund into vertical integrated R&D partnership. As the company is sitting in a very important cash position, it is essential that we use this unique opportunity to build up infrastructure both in the United States and Europe. And that will include investments, important investments in areas such as personalization center, which are capital intensive. And this is one of the main reasons why the company has raised important funding during 2020, last year and this year, with a total incremental cash position of 500 million, over 500 million, which 200 million are allocated for this quantum fund. Four, we expect to report concrete commercial milestones from several partnerships we have established with reputable customer and business partners that will accelerate the revenue, particularly in the United States, in announcements that will be made during the second half of And fifth, the reallocation of YSQ and CLSQ to Pont Rouge Lansing facility in Geneva should be completed in the second half of 2026, which is a much larger facility than the one we have now, and will allow us to establish the Geneva Quantum Center of Excellency in cooperation with leading organizations in Geneva, such as CERN, the United Nations, the Geneva government, and others, that they are all working in accelerating the adaptation of quantum technologies into sectors such as financial sectors and others. The quantum threat to today's encrypted infrastructure is mathematically certain and approaching rapidly as the latest announcements made by Google and other NVIDIA and others that they are confirming that Q-Day could be as near as 2028-2030. The companies that will lead the post-quantum era will be those that combine sovereign silicon trusted identity, secure satellite key distribution, and quantum-resistant transaction infrastructure into a single integrated platform.

That is what WISEKE is building and it's all about. that is what we are now monetizing so I give now the operator to open the Q&A part of this call thank you very much for your attention thank you if you would like to ask a question please press star 1 on your telephone keypad a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue you may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue and for participants using speaker equipment it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys our first question is from matthew golingo with maxim group please proceed hey thanks

for taking my questions maybe just start with of the pipeline you're seeing um for quantum chips I think you said it's about $60 million from $26 million to $29 million. How much of that would you say is driven by regulation, and how much is just independent of regulatory-driven requirements?

So maybe I'll let it jump too far to explain. But thank you, Matt, by the way, and I should talk to you again. So the regulation, obviously, the CNSA 2.0 is of concern to anyone that is conducting critical infrastructure. Imagine hyperscaler, imagine data centers, imagine a space satellite. I mean, everything will be compromisable in terms of security because quantum computer will be breaking RSA keys. Obviously, we are not yet there. Quantum computers will need something like 10 million qubits to do that. But the new is a lot of R&D and a lot of innovation in the quantum arena where companies are already in the process of being able to generate 10 qubits. And the new thing is that you can put those qubits also in a serial process so you can combine qubits from different companies and bring them into a data center and use them in a scaling process to generate enough kubits to make a substantial usage of those decentralized quantum computers. It's something like we call quantum as a service. So that growth of compute capability and possibility of using quantum computers to break RSA, obviously that's not the main focus of quantum computers. Quantum computers can do many good things, but this is a bad thing that they could do, right? So this is making a lot of companies conscious about the risk. This is also increasing their potential insurance policies so they know that they need to be ready to that day. So we are working with integrators, for instance, that they are now adding PQC security as part of the contracts that they have with thousands of companies and they want to expand the current security services than they get from those professional service companies to add both PQC defense capability and also in some cases also space security as many of these companies are now launching satellites and they want to use satellite constellations to access their data. So there is a trend that is moved both by innovation in the market. It also moves by government regulatory and this is not only in America. We have the similar regulations now in Europe, and also going to be the same thing in Asia, in Singapore, and India. And I think by the year 2030, anyone that runs a critical infrastructure will be PQC compliant. So they will have to buy those chips that allow them at the object level to defend a quantum attack. There's also PQC software, which is at the back-end level. So those are how we are working also with partners to provide a technology that will allow, for instance, to assess the vulnerabilities of a financial institution if a quantum computer arrives. So those are also partnership with a professional services company that they will work with us to teach potential risk to those companies if they don't apply post-quantum capabilities as soon as possible. So it is a trend. I mean, it's like putting the air back in the car, right? You needed a time. Now it's compulsory. Nobody thinks about it. That's happening the same from the year 2030. You will not conceive the possibility of developing anything which is potentially breakable through a quantum attack.

Thanks. That's great, Collar. And I think you sort of started on this. But maybe beyond kind of the regulation you referenced, where else regionally are you seeing movement towards those sorts of requirements for quantum, you know, our PQC-capable, you know, chips and security?

So, sorry, if you don't mind answering the question again? I didn't go to the first bar.

Sure. So I'm curious where else, you know, in the world that you're seeing regulation emerge to mandate quantum secure technology on critical infrastructure.

So as I mentioned, the CNSA 2.0 is the reference. This is a U.S. government that says that in 2028 you need to be protected against a quantum attack through a post-quantum capability. Otherwise, your technology might be considered a legacy. So imagine anyone selling anything to the U.S. government. They will need to be PQC compliant. Otherwise, they will not just buy your product. That will also affect import products. So imagine video cameras, imagine cars, imagine drones, imagine satellite equipment, imagine Cisco routers. All that without PQC capabilities will not be able to be deployed on critical infrastructure. And critical infrastructure, obviously, airports, smart cities, government entities are the first one that needs to be secure. So this is a must-have type of first line of defense. Then you have, obviously, the commercial opportunities. of this. I mean, if you have a, you know, we just announced a deal with Parrot. Parrot is one of the leading drone companies in the world, one of the first one, by the way. And Parrot is being used now in many battlefield type of activities. As you know, the drone industry has evolved enormously. And the founder of Parrot recognized that he wanted to be the first drone company to have all QS7001 installed physically into the drone. So we did it, and obviously we announced it, and this is now being used as a case study on any other drone company that they want to have their drone PQC compliant. Imagine the consequences of having a drone that is not secure to that level, right? So that will be in industries like the health industry, you know, where we have, for instance, PQC deployments with connected devices that they are using hospital. So you can ensure that your pump insulin that connects to the Internet cannot be breakable through an external attack. So quantum computers are so powerful that they could make a massive attack into billions of devices in one shot. And they will detect the vulnerability of those devices, as it is the case now with AI, right? I mean, there's a lot of discussions about what is happening with some AI companies without mentioning then that they have now capabilities to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities very easily. And imagine if that is used in the wrong hands, right? So we are in a very similar situation with quantum computers. So PQC is the line of defense of quantum, but also the company because we are investing in quantum companies like we invested in EROC, which is a Chicago-based company where we are working very closely with them to develop semiconductors and they will be able to basically create a quantum computer. So we are also learning from innovation in quantum in order to create basically what we call a super-end quantum computer, a quantum computer that will be able not to be used to destroy the security of critical infrastructure, but it could be used to solve major problems like discovering a new medical product. For instance, with less than 10 qubits, we can now work with pharmaceutical companies to develop a new drug and put that into the market much faster without having that compute capability. So it is a very emerging market where you will see a combination between quantum security, quantum computer deployment, hybrid combinations where you are using quantum computers and supercomputers at the same time, but supercomputers are not going to disappear, right? It will take a time between now and maybe 10 years where quantum computers will totally display supercomputers, but we have still a few years to go where you might have a hybrid platform solution. So the big opportunity of WISE-KEY is that WISE-KEY has all those critical assets through CLSQ, what concerns chips, in YSAT, in what concerns the space constellation with operational satellite, in WISE-ID, what concerns identity management and the possibility of injecting digital identity into the silicon directly with a with a cryptographic route of trust so all these ecosystem of companies that have been created under the wise key is making ways here a very unique company very hard to replicate it and extraordinarily important for the next generation of quantum computing that is going to emerge as you will need to have an end to end and then at the same time you need to provide a sovereign structure another important aspect here is that many companies will prefer to buy a solution of CLSQ in the USA because they don't want to buy a Chinese quantum computer, for instance, because they will be concerned about what is the process of that quantum computer and who has done it and what is the cryptographic capabilities, what is the trust model, and so on. So quantum computing industry is becoming sovereign, and this is a big opportunity for us.

Thanks, Carlos. And just one final question for me, particularly on the satellite business, I'm wondering if you could share anything about, you know, where you're hearing or seeing demand for, you know, services delivered through the Constellation that, you know, you're building. Is there a pull on, you know, the services that you're demonstrating now, or is it a push, or kind of talk about how that is developing commercially?

Yeah, so the constellation we use, WANESAT, which is a company owned by WANESKI, initially invested in sending with a SpaceX 2021 satellites, those are PICO satellites, the 3U satellite, that's the measure, you know, that basically were tested to IoT projects. So let the satellite track and trace anything on Earth that has a chip, not necessarily a PQC chip, can be a traditional Voltaic secure element. So you can track and trace from the space object. And this is a big market, right, because 90% on Earth is not connectable. So you cannot track an object in the middle of the sea or in the middle of the desert or in rural areas where connectivity is not available. So there is a very big demand on companies and they are running logistics, cargo companies and they are trucks, companies and they are containers in the middle of the sea, military applications. They need to have that connectivity. And that's what we proved during the first 21 launches. This was obviously an important investment because of the company, those launches are expensive. One satellite is a $300,000 to $500,000 to launch and produce. But we were one of the first ever PQC compliant constellation in the space with a satellite than they are in orbit. Now we are moving into the next level of that with the last launch of the satellite we did in June included already the latest version of the QS7001. So we started to test. We also added new things like a crypto wallet for SealCoin, which is another company of the group. WiseQ owns 80% of SealCoin in cooperation with Hedera. Hedera Hashgraph is one of the largest blockchain companies in the world. And with them, what we did is to embed a wallet into the satellite itself so the satellite can exchange crypto tokens with another satellite or with an Earth station or with an object that will require a payment. So imagine one satellite collecting pictures for another satellite and paying for that service with tokens, and those tokens are automatically exchanged between the wallets and they are located in each of the satellites. So this is a breakthrough technology. We are now working on this. I cannot say names now because we are still in the process of finalization, but you will see agreements with a strategic professional service company and others, and they will resell that capability that we have already to their clients because their clients are, as I mentioned before, they want to add space into the cybersecurity contracts that they have with those professional integrators. So we are launching the space with the SpaceX IPO. It is going to boom because SpaceX has already announced that they cannot even cope with the demand on sending rockets. So we will need to send rockets all over the world with different companies. We have established relations with ISRO in India, with PLD Space in Spain. Those are new companies, and they are sending rockets. Our preference, obviously, is to do it as much as we can with SpaceX, and we have a very good relation with them. And I'm sure that something there will be very soon possible in a more integrated way because as we need to send more satellites, the objective is to send 100 satellites in the next month. We will need, obviously, to be able to scale up the launching capability. So the final objective of those satellites is to act as nodes in the space. So let's say that SpaceX SANS creates a data center, and that data center needs to be connected to Earth Station. Those Earth Station, by the way, we have already two operational Earth Station, one in the southern part of Spain and another in Switzerland, in Lausanne. Those Earth Station, they are now triangulated with the nodes in the space, encrypting the data using PQC chips on it on both ends and that that data then is made it available to data centers both in the space in the future data centers then SpaceX is very focused to build but also data centers on Earth so end users can get a combination a hybrid combination of access to data centers in space using those nodes without the node the communication is not secure I mean a Starlink is not a secure satellite they need that layer of security to talking to a non Starlink or SpaceX assets and this is where YSAT position it's an interconnector of existing constellations using those very sophisticated high secure satellites that we are manufacturing and launch into the space so it's a very I mean the clients are there we are working out has been announced with the Swiss Army is one important client we are working with several financial institutions and they are saying we will actually prefer to connect to the space to even to connect to the internet as what they call the quantum internet a space internet and CLSQ has launched an initiative we call QSOC which is mentioned that on my brief it's a quantum space constellation cloud so in the future you will be asking the space like you access Amazon cloud or any of those clouds and and this is the positioning of the company The fact that we own the critical infrastructure is a very strategic asset for Weiski, not only on terms of the valuation, because obviously the listing of the company on the NASDAQ is going to increase substantially the value because we are aiming at $250 million initial listing. And, you know, this company, Weiski, is the majority shareholder. So all that hopefully will be reflected on the increased valuation of Weiske, plus the fact that Weiske, and that has been also announced, is planning, hopefully by the end of this year, to move directly to the NASDAQ as a way to simplify the processes. So currently we are listed in Switzerland, which is a very small market, not at all specialized in this type of technology. And this is obviously detrimental to the valuation of the company. Great.

Thanks, Carlos. And good luck with the convergence.

Thank you very much, Matt.

As a reminder, it is star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to ask a question, we will pause for a brief moment to see if there's any final questions. With no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Carlos for closing remarks.

So thank you very much for your attention to this call. The company obviously is available. This information will be provided to the investor side. The company, myself and John, we are fully available for any further questions. I'd like to thank the moderator for organizing to Lina, the IR company, and also for the questions and the analysts present on this call. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time, and thank you for your patience.