Amprius Technologies, Inc. (AMPX) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Amprius Technologies Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us for today's presentation are the company's CEO, Tom Stepien; and CFO, Ricardo Rodriguez. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our financial and business performance, our business strategy, future product development or commercialization, new customer adoption and new applications, our growth and the growth of the markets in which we operate, and the timing and ability of Amprius to expand its manufacturing capacity, scale its business and achieve a sustainable cost structure. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Amprius' results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to Amprius' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This presentation includes a non-GAAP financial measure, which is adjusted EBITDA. This non-GAAP financial measure does not replace the presentation of Amprius' GAAP financial results, and should only be used as a supplement to, not a substitute for Amprius' financial results presented in accordance with GAAP, and may not be comparable to calculations of similarly titled measures by other companies. A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, is included in our press release, a copy of which is filed with the SEC and posted on our website. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcasted, and a recording will be made available for replay on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.amprius.com. In addition to the webcast, the company has posted a press release that accompanies these results, which can also be found on the Investor Relations website. I'll now turn the call over to Amprius Technology's CEO, Tom Stepien, for his comments. Sir, please proceed.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. Let's start with Slide 2. 2025 was a landmark year for Amprius. Our second-generation SiCore silicon anode batteries gained broad adoption with many unmanned aerial vehicle customers. One recent win I'd like to highlight is Nokia Drone Networks, whose commercial drone-in-a-box system is one of the most capable platforms on the market. Amprius' balanced cells provide Nokia drones with the burst power it needed for takeoff and the sustained energy required for extended flight, ensuring obstacle avoidance, return to home and other safety critical subsystems remain powered throughout the mission. Our technology enables drones to fly longer, carry more and operate in conditions once considered impractical, helping customers improve safety, reduce downtime and increase mission value. In early January, we were honored to receive a Best of Innovation award at CES. Our silicon anode lithium-ion battery was selected from the thousands of entrants for delivering an industry-leading 520 watt hours per kilogram. For perspective, that is nearly twice the energy density of conventional graphite-based lithium-ion cells. Our cells are lighter, longer and stronger. In December 2025, the U.S. updated the National Defense Authorization Act. Under the revised NDAA, batteries used in Department of War UAVs must meet 2 key sourcing requirements. First, final battery assembly must be conducted by a non-foreign entity of concern, typically located in the United States or in an allied nation. Second, functional cell components must not be sourced from or produced by an FEOC. For new DOW acquisition programs, both of these requirements must be met by January 1, 2028, approximately 22 months from now. NDAA is important in the context of our contract with the Department of Wars Defense Innovation Unit awarded in July 2025 through a competitive solicitation from the winter of 2024. The contract was recently increased and now totals $14.8 million. The DIU contract provides prototyping funds for Amprius to accelerate production of NDAA-compliant SiCore pouch cells used in military unmanned autonomous systems. The contract includes milestones for supply chain diversification, pilot line expansion in Fremont, California and the selection of NDAA-compliant contract manufacturing partners. Amprius is ahead of schedule on NDAA compliance. One of our South Korean contract manufacturing partners has been delivering sales to customers since September 2025. We have expanded the Amprius Korea Battery Alliance to 3 contract manufacturing partners. And in early January, we announced our first U.S.-based partner, Nanotech Energy, located in Northern California. I'm happy to report that our scorecard for the battery component sourcing is 11 out of 11. All internal SiCore components: anode, cathode, electrolyte, separator, and 7 additional elements are now sourced from primary and secondary suppliers in NDAA-compliant countries. We are prepared to supply domestic cells to customers such as L3Harris Technologies, which delivers integrated solutions across space, air, land, sea and cyber in support of national security. On the financial front, we completed our at-the-market financing facility during the fourth quarter. We also fully exited our Colorado facility and settled the remaining lease and expense obligations. Fourth quarter revenue reached a record $25.2 million, representing an 18% quarter-over-quarter improvement and a 137% year-over-year increase. Gross margin improved to 24%, a 9 percentage point increase quarter-over-quarter and a 45 percentage point increase year-over-year. Full year 2025 revenue reached $73 million, 3x our 2024 level. Gross margin for the year was 11%, up significantly from the minus 76% in 2024. Later in this call, Ricardo will share additional financial details and color. Now turning to Slide 3. Amprius' customers choose our batteries because they materially improve the performance of their products. By replacing standard graphite-based cells with our silicon-based cells, customer drones achieved significantly longer flight times. One way to think about our batteries is through the analogy of espresso. Espresso delivers the same amount of caffeine, energy as a standard cup of drip coffee, but in a much smaller volume. And if you match the volume and weight of the 2, espresso gives you roughly twice the energy. Drone customers tell us this consistently. Amprius batteries extend their flight time. In many cases, flight times double. Amprius espresso batteries give customers the extra energy they need to elevate system performance. We elevate without compromise. The Amprius silicon anode platform spans 22 cell designs across multiple chemistries, pouch and cylindrical formats and a range of sizes. We have tuned and optimized cells for specific customer duty cycles, giving us the precision to deliver ideal solutions for energy-focused missions, the takeoff power required by air taxis and applications demanding high cycle life. This tunability is a significant differentiator for Amprius. Slide 4 looks at our market segments. We serve 5 principal end markets. The first is UAVs, including drones used for defense, public safety, security and logistics. Defense platforms that require high energy density typically support long LIDAR missions and are primarily ISR: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Public safety drones are typically DFR, Drone-as-First-Responders. Systems integrated directly into 911 emergency workflows. In the U.S., more than 1,500 emergency departments now operate DFR programs as a part of real-time response operations. Drones are prepositioned in fixed launch stations across the city and are dispatched automatically or semiautomatically. the moment a 911 call is received. The objective is to get a camera over the scene in under 2 minutes, well before police, fire or EMS units can arrive. Market segment number two is satellites and space. Satellite launch providers charge customers by the gram, making our ability to deliver the same energy at roughly half the weight, our espresso advantage, extremely valuable. AALTO, a division of Airbus is a long-standing customer in this segment. Its Zephyr high-altitude pseudo satellites are solar-powered aircraft that operated 70,000 feet for months at a time. The persistent ISR capability that Zephyr provides is strategically important for both defense and commercial applications. Amprius cells are also gaining strong traction in light electric vehicles, including e-motorcycles, scooters and e-bikes. Wins in this segment typically align with the launch of new models, so revenue tends to be lumpier than in other markets. This category also includes a healthy replacement and range extender subsegment, an area we are beginning to explore. Robotics is our fourth market segment. And while it's still early, it is developing quickly. Robot performance is closely tied to battery capability, and Amprius' tunable cells can deliver both the high power needed for task like lifting and the energy required to maximize time between charges. With strong growth rates and expanding use cases, this segment is highly promising. The final segment that depends heavily on our industry-leading energy density is the electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. eVTOL and other advanced air mobility customers are developing autonomous point-to-point regional transport for both passengers and cargo. Several companies are currently testing ourselves, and we have a customer funded joint development program underway with one leading company. In this program, we are tuning our chemistry to meet the specific power and energy requirements of their aircraft. Turning to Slide 5. Amprius captures customer interest through our flexibility. We work closely with customers to understand their energy, power and cycle life requirements, then select internal components that meet those needs while aligning with country of origin constraints. Because SiCore cells are produced on standard lithium-ion equipment, we can secure early design wins from our California pilot line and seamlessly transfer cell recipes and process steps to our contract manufacturing partners as volumes scale. During Q4 2025, we introduced 3 new cells to our silicon anode platform and retired one. The portfolio now stands at 22 designs spanning energy, power and balanced cells in both pouch and cylindrical formats. We continue to offer the tunability, speed and flexibility our customers rely on. Now turning to Slide 6. Increasingly, customers care about the country of origin for both battery cells and internal components. Much of this is driven by the NDAA requirements discussed earlier, and the impact now extends to nondefense customers as well. Avoiding foreign entities of concern has become a compliance mandate, not just in marketing detail. Procurement teams are asking detailed questions about where cells are manufactured, where anodes and cathodes are processed and where critical minerals originate. Fortunately, we anticipated this shift and began executing more than a year ago. In 2025, we announced our first NDAA-compliant contract manufacturer in South Korea, which delivers sales to customers just one quarter later. Last week, I was in South Korea with several of my Amprius' colleagues, visiting component suppliers, checking in with current contract manufacturing partners, supporting new partners coming online and meeting customers at the booth at Drone Show Korea. We still have work ahead on the NDAA supply front, with multiple contract manufacturers, 22 cell models and 11 internal components, aligning every variable is operationally intensive. But we got an early start, we invested wisely, and we consistently share our progress with customers. They understand our road map for both cell manufacturing and for cell content sourcing, and to respect our ability to deliver the right cell from the right location at the right time. On Slide 7, we present our high-level cell road map. The Amprius road map highlights our industry-leading energy density on the vertical axis over the next 18 months. It organizes our portfolio into 3 cell types. High energy cells where long uptime drives range and usability. Key segments here include drones, robotics and LEVs. Number two, high power cells which deliver short, intense power burst. Applications include power tools, data center backup systems and aviation platforms such as eVTOLs and drones that require power pulses for takeoff and landing. And long life balance cells designed for applications that demand both power and energy, along with extended cycle life, including eVTOL, satellite and metal device applications. We've routinely shared this high-level road map and the detailed cell information behind it with customers. We listen closely to their needs, incorporate their feedback and adjust the road map as required. Now let me turn the call over to Ricardo Rodriguez, Amprius' CFO.

Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to be reporting another record-breaking quarter on behalf of our team starting on Slide 8. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we delivered $25.2 million of revenue. This translates into 18% growth over the third quarter, and it's over 2.3x higher than the same quarter last year. I'm particularly excited about crossing the $100 million annual revenue run rate mark, which positions us to deliver over $1 million of revenue per employee, joining a very selective and unique group of companies. Echoing Tom's remarks, our clearly demonstrable technical edge has continued driving demand for our products as we broaden the portfolio and expanded our capacity in close collaboration with our manufacturing partners. For the year, our revenues were $73 million, in line with our expectations, and just over 3x higher than 2024. Our Q4 cost of goods sold at $19.3 million did not increase at the same rate as our revenue, thanks to a favorable product mix and higher volumes. This enabled gross profit margins of 24%, a significant improvement over our Q3 gross margin of 15%. Our lower SiMaxx line mix was now below 60% of revenues, providing a powerful driver of our gross margin improvements. For the year, our gross margins were 11%, reflecting a step change improvement over negative 76% gross margins in 2024 as our revenue from SiCore increased around the world. Our resourceful culture enabled the team to only spend $8.9 million of OpEx, which excludes a onetime charge of $22.5 million linked with our decision to not develop a facility in Colorado, and the decommissioning of some equipment in Fremont. The quarter-over-quarter increase in OpEx of $900,000 was driven by a targeted investment in our sales and go-to-market efforts, along with the reallocation of some R&D expenses from cost of goods sold, to OpEx as development services agreements are completed. These expenses, including the onetime charge of $22.5 million that I mentioned earlier, bring our Q4 operating loss to $25.4 million compared to an operating loss of $4.7 million in the prior quarter. Without the onetime charge, our operating loss would have been $2.9 million, which would have reduced our operating loss by 37% quarter-over-quarter. Similar dynamic applies to our annual operating loss of $46.6 million, which would have been $24.1 million without the same onetime charge and the 48% reduction of the operating loss of $46.2 million from 2024. Our GAAP net loss for the third quarter was $24.3 million or negative $0.18 per share based on 132.1 million weighted average shares outstanding. Without the onetime charge, our loss would have been only $1.9 million or $0.01 per share. In Q4, we recorded adjusted EBITDA of $1.8 million compared to negative $1.4 million in the prior quarter. With a $1.6 million in operating costs from Colorado, we would have actually had positive adjusted EBITDA of $177,000 in Q3 of 2025. As a reminder, we define adjusted EBITDA as net income or loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation and other items that we do not believe are indicative of our core operating performance. In Q4, these adjustments included $1.2 million of depreciation, $1.9 million of stock-based compensation, $1.1 million of interest and other income, along with $1.6 million of quarterly operating costs linked to the Colorado facility. If we adjust our EBITDA for the cost that we will now not be incurring in Colorado, our adjusted EBITDA in 2025 would have been negative $5.3 million, reducing our EBITDA loss by 77% year-over-year and putting us on a path to have positive adjusted EBITDA above our current revenue run rate. As of the end of 2025, we had 134.5 million shares outstanding, which was up by 4.1 million from the prior quarter. The change includes approximately 2.3 million shares issued from option exercises and RSU vesting, along with 1.8 million shares issued under our at-the-market offering program. Now turning over to cash flow and the balance sheet. We ended the third quarter with $90.5 million in cash and no debt. The main drivers of cash flow in the quarter were the following: one, $3.5 million used in operating cash flow, which was mainly driven by a near-term $1.8 million increase in accounts receivable and a $2.1 million increase of inventory; two, $2.4 million of Q4 investments that are being funded by the Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU, as part of our project to stand up NDAA-compliant pilot and manufacturing lines. This brought our total CapEx in 2025 to $4.4 million. And lastly, $23.1 million from financing activities consisting of $19.6 million from the issuance of common stock under our at-the-market sales agreement and $3.5 million of proceeds from warrants and option exercises. As we announced on January 12, we have now terminated our at-the-market offering program. Before I turn the call back to Tom, I'd like to take a moment to frame out our outlook for 2026 and the North Star beyond that, using Slide 9 as the backdrop. With what we know today, we believe that by leveraging our platform and existing relationships, we can deliver at least $125 million of revenue in 2026, which would enable us to have our first full year of adjusted positive EBITDA of at least $4 million. This baseline level of profitability would translate into a net loss of $8 million for the year or $0.06 per share, assuming 134.5 million shares. When we say at least, we mean that we believe that while we're positioned to deliver additional upside, we would rather size this incremental opportunity as it happens, then commit to delivering it as we work our way through what can be a great year for Amprius. Our CapEx for the year will be less than $10 million as we have made a decision to strategically invest in diversifying our supply chain and expanding manufacturing capacity within our Fremont facility to include electrode manufacturing. As noted earlier, we're doing this in collaboration with the U.S. Government Defense Innovation Unit, and have secured a contract for $14.8 million. With what we know today, we expect this funding to cover most of our capital investment over the next several quarters as we work to develop a growing and resilient source of supply in a dynamic trade environment. Last month, alongside the announcement of our agreement to produce sales with Nanotech Energy in the U.S., we also reported that we eliminated a lease and related expense obligation over -- of over $110 million in Colorado by settling it for $20 million. As a result, you can expect our cash position in Q1 to decrease by that amount, along with the reduction of $13.4 million in right-of-use assets and the $33.2 million reduction in near-term liabilities in our balance sheet. In forecasting our cash burn, we believe that our current revenue level, and even slight improvements from these can put us on a path to mainly consuming cash for working capital versus funding operating expenses in the near term. Looking further ahead, we believe that as we work through 2026, it will become increasingly clear that our plans to build an efficiently scaled multi-market leader that sets the technical pace in high energy and density power cells are realistic. As we close out the decade, we are targeting making the most of over $600 million of contracted capacity by enabling our customers most mission-critical duty cycles and positioning us to deliver over 30% gross margins. By maintaining our resourceful culture and low-cost structure, we can then translate that into at least 20% EBITDA margins. Most importantly, the capabilities in go-to-market, product development, quality assurance and enabling scale that we'd have by then would position us for additional growth beyond 2030. That opportunity has our team energized and motivated to work together to meet and hopefully even surpass these goals by improving ourselves and how we work. And with that, I'm happy to turn the call over back to Tom for his closing remarks. Thank you very much for your attention and continued support.

2025 was a very strong year. We delivered consistent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, expanded our customer base to more than 550, demonstrated state-of-the-art technical performance and achieved 3 consecutive quarters of positive and growing gross margin. The lithium ion battery market is intensely competitive, and we embrace those challenges. In 2026, we remain focused on delivering a next-generation silicon anode performance that raises the bar for energy density and sustained power without compromising safety or reliability. We are equally committed to meeting the cell manufacturing and content country origin requirements our customers expect. We will broaden our product portfolio to unlock new market opportunities and convert a growing number of customer engagements into formal qualifications and deployments, particularly across mobility-centric platforms. We are starting 2026 in a financially clean position, having completed our ATM program, fully exited the Colorado facility and transitioned all legacy SiMaxx Generation 1 customers to our Generation 2 SiCore platform. We are incredibly bullish by the opportunities in front of us. We look forward to meeting and reconnecting with many of you as we participate in a number of upcoming investor conferences. Thank you for your continued interest and support of Amprius. With that, I will turn it back to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is coming from the line of Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum.

So curious maybe if we could start -- just with the selection of the 11 components, I mean, obviously, a quite significant step. But just curious, you talked about it a little bit, Tom, but just maybe a little bit more in depth about what you need to do now, what some of the milestones might be in 2026? Obviously, you've got a head start, but those steps, as you work towards gaining that full compliance, and I would assume you're trying to do that well in advance of the Jan. 1 '28 date.

Yes. Good question. So we have technically selected anode cathode electrolyte separator and that make up the internals of our battery and give us the performance that we talked about. We have primary vendors and secondary vendors. It went through a pretty rigorous testing process. This all started with the DIU project back when it started in July 2025. So we've had 6, 8 months to turn the knobs here. So we're happy with the performance of the cells with the different internal components in fact, in some cases, we see slightly improved performance compared to the legacy components. So that is where we are today. The work that remains includes productizing and getting all of those new suppliers under multiyear agreements. Part of what I was doing in South Korea last week is talking to some of those suppliers because Korea is -- outside of China is probably the second largest country in terms of suppliers. There's ones in Japan, there are suppliers here in the U.S., et cetera. So we need to put those agreements in place, make sure that we can operationalize it, get it to deliver their components to our contract manufacturing. So there's some operational work. There's a supply chain work that is still on our plate to complete to finally deliver full sales at the quantities that our customers are demanding.

Got it. But you -- I mean so it sounds like you're really through all the technical or the engineering side of it. It is now more about just making sure that, yes, you've qualified those sources, but can you -- do you have those locked down to be able to incorporate those in your products for obviously, much larger volumes?

That's a good way to summarize it. The heavy lifting on the technical side is done. And now it turns over to our operational flows who need to do exactly that and get the supplies, yes.

Okay. Yes. Appreciate that. And then just maybe for my follow-up. I saw the first gauntlet awards under the drone dominance plan, and I know there were 25 awardees. I don't know if you're able to give specifics or any color around this. But of those 25 awardees, just kind of curious how many of those are your customers? What do you -- how do you view that as an opportunity? And then obviously, just your outlook for the next steps under the executive order.

Yes. The gauntlet one of the Drone Dominance program had 25 invitees. We should see here in the next couple of days, the results of the actual fly-off that has completed. Our understanding is that it was done last week and there's a down select going up. We are all over that in terms of understanding where is Amprius inside in each of the 25. We are looking forward to understanding the official down select list that, again, as I mentioned, should be. So that's where we are. Stay tuned on specifics. I think as a list is published, we may be able to talk about it. Understand, there's a second, third and fourth gauntlet. So this will happen over the next 18 months or so. This is early, but we feel good about where we are today.

Our next question is from the line of Austin Bohlig with Needham & Company.

Congrats on the great results. I just wanted to dive into the new customer wins. Historically, this was a metric you guys were giving. In the deck, it says that you're working with 550 customers. So my question is, is it fair to assume you guys added over 100 new customers in the quarter? And then just trying to get a sense of where they are in like volume production. Like are we still kind of in the early design phase for the majority of these? And like when do we get to those high-volume production?

It is fair, Austin, to assume that it's more than 100. It was 444 in the last call in November, we said 550. So yes, we continue to add to that. We have both repeat customers, of course, which is an interesting -- that we've earned the trust and continue to grow that. And we continue to expand the funnel with over 100 new. In general, the 100 new ones are new, right? Some of these are a couple of hundred cells for testing, come from the pilot line, which is set up for exactly the win the design. So we keep track of those because we're planting seeds first. The average PO, we looked at that just the other day. The average PO during Q4 increased relative to the key customers are purchasing larger volumes of that. But it is still early days here in terms of -- try to provide some -- you can obviously do the math on our revenue single-digit market share in these markets growing, of course. So it's early. We have a lot of work to do to capture what we believe is our fair share given our [indiscernible].

Okay. Good. And I guess just one quick follow-up. Just looking at your guidance and kind of like what's baked in from like a geographic perspective. Historically, Europe or international has been the main driver. Could you just kind of dive into kind of what's baked into that, like what we should be expecting from a regional perspective?

Yes, sure, Austin. We see a continuation of the same trends that we saw, especially in Q3 and Q4 and are really waiting to see where the U.S. comes out in terms of enabling us to deliver additional upside. So frankly, within the guide, we expect our mix to look pretty similar to where we were in Q2, Q3 of last year.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Shooter with William Blair.

Tom and Ricardo, congrats on the great progress in 2025. Question about some recent geopolitics. The [indiscernible], we're starting to see the U.S. drone warfare capabilities. But at the same time, we're starting to see some strain in the munition stockpiles. So I'm wondering, in the past 6 days, have you had any increased urgency from any U.S. military DFW defense contractors? Or are they looking for you to ship more batteries yesterday?

Yes. Over the weekend, we actually had one customer who themselves have a reconnaissance drone, tends to fly for hours and days at a time that was a little bit on hold that is getting a pull themselves, which creates a pull for us. And that's where this pilot line we have here where Ricardo and I are in Fremont can quickly do a student body right, okay, let's make those in this 108 cells, deliver them quickly, i.e., in a couple of weeks to that. So we're seeing some of that. It's hard to talk about more than that just a single customer, but that is one data point to share.

There's also a dynamic in play right now where some of the traditional interception hardware is running low on inventory. And so that is pushing folks to migrate to drones as the next generation of interception hardware. So we'll see how that trend plays out here this year.

That's great. I appreciate the color on both of you. About -- you did mention the Fremont pilot line, and that brings me to my next question. The Nanotech partnership, we thought was a creative solution to find some capacity. But how much demand are you seeing from these super NDA compliant customers where they need U.S. manufacturing? And are you looking to find more creative solutions like a partnership with another Nanotech? Or do you think that the pilot line that you're increasing capacity in Fremont with the DIU investment will provide enough capacity later this year?

Yes. The pilot line is well named because it's primarily to win initial designs. And once there's a volume that's a couple of thousand cells, that's when we transferred to one of our partners. Nanotech helps us on cylindrical cells, and we're getting a really strong pull. I was at December as they had NDA changes. They're okay with some of the sales they're getting today from the countries and content today, but they really want to understand the when we mentioned that earlier. So we share with them the road map. here's when we're really going to have volume from either Nanotech or others. And there will be more coming. It's -- that's clear. The pull is there. This will balance out in a couple of years. And some of our customers are insensitive to this. So great. We have a really strong existing set of partners -- some are not comfortable with that setup, and Korea is serving that, as I mentioned, as we know, we are sales from Korea today and some must have U.S. So it will balance out maybe 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 in a couple of years, grading that transition.

Our next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.

Tom, I'd love to get a better understanding of what's happening here within the technology road map. Are these fundamental changes in some of the electrolyte and binder technologies or any of the separator technologies as you move towards these higher-performance cells? And how mature is the testing process to give you comfort that you'll be able to execute on these over the next 18 to 24 months?

Yes. We -- thanks. That's let's go inside the battery a bit. So the anode, we believe, with our silicon design, which took us a little while to get right, we think is pretty strong. So the big question is, okay, why can we go above 450, 500 depending on the cell type, watt hours per kilogram. is that some of the other components, as you allude to. So there's knobs being turned by our R&D folks, primarily on the cathode. The thinking is that cathode may be slowing down the overall package. So there's some work being done. We had a Board meeting yesterday and we shared our goals to the Board on specifics related to and it's very focused on improving that. We're big believers you get what you measure. We are measuring our energy density here inside. We are R&D focused on that. On the testing part, we feel pretty good. We got a pretty robust system here at the small scale, right, the manual scale. P&L and folks are turning. And then as these 30 different tools arrive funded by the defense unit, that's getting stronger. So we feel pretty good about that. Stay tuned. We all want to make the goals that we set up here internally, of course, and we'll be able to report out that as we achieve some soon.

And then the follow-up here is really around the 2030 guidance. The performance that you're talking about here from a technology perspective is just fundamentally advantaged and looks defensible in a pretty material way. And the target markets that you guys are looking at are so much larger than what it looks like the target is for 2030. So can you talk a little bit about the considerations around the pacing of growth pricing and margin kind of internal targets. As you think about growing this platform and doing it sustainably, how should we think about the key gating items and how we should think about potential acceleration relative to those targets?

Yes, Colin. So again, I think this all really just starts with the technical performance that we're able to deliver. So in our view, if we deliver everything that's there on Slide 7 and the markets grow maybe not even to the full extent, but half of what we have on Slide 4, when we look at some of the main drivers. And as we were looking at the market, one element that people forget about is that there's a bit of a replacement dynamic within some of these end applications. And then it really comes down to us leveraging the capacity that we've contracted, having that capacity in the right place so that we can deliver the right cell at the right time from the right place. And yes, when we look at it, I agree with you. I think we can -- that's why we have $600 million plus. We'll find out over time what capacity is needed in 2030. But the way we're looking at the world today, I think this is, as you mentioned, pretty achievable.

The next question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities.

Tom, you mentioned market share earlier. Could you frame how you're thinking about your aviation market share today, maybe for drones globally or if you could get more specific within military drones or advanced drones?

Yes. Thanks, Ryan. It's as we say -- have said, it's single digits. These markets are large and growing. We have updated and you see that on Slide 4, our understanding -- that also into our 10-K. We're trying to really double-click on that for some of the specifics you drone taxonomy is groups 1 through 5. Okay, we know that batteries are used in 1, 2 and half of 3, but not in 4 and 5. How much of that is industrial versus defense? What's going on, on DFR, drone -- we have not yet found a good source for that double click. We got the first click to understand as we present it. But our goal is to have more definition that we can have both internally and share externally. We've started. We have a good third party who's helping pull that together. But it's so early and it's changing so fast, right? This dominance program. The U.S. has admitted that, hey, we got to catch up. So what we have today is what we can share. We're not holding anything back, but we are certainly trying to get smarter and understand that better.

And Ryan, I mean, I think the point that we're trying to drive here is that how you subsegment the market. In some cases, our batteries basically enable the duty cycle, right? By the time you power the drone, a camera, a gimball, a radar, multiple sensors, you wonder how there's energy left in the battery to still make the drone flat a couple of miles away. And so we're seeing our share be pretty high on those drones that have a lot of our other power draining devices. While those more inexpensive drones, some of them are frankly using remote control car batteries, and therefore, that's not a market for us to play in, even though the volumes are pretty high. So we do believe just through process elimination of the folks who aren't yet customers that we are positioned to do very, very well in that high-power, high energy draw drones, which tend to be the larger ones that are used for surveillance or more complex missions.

Got it. I appreciate that detail. And then just a follow-up on guidance. Could you give more detail around what's baked into the baseline revenue estimate, maybe what needs to happen to exceed it and what your revenue capacity is roughly today?

Yes. I'll answer it sort of in reverse order. So I mean, our capacity can definitely deliver the guidance, and we've got plenty of headroom above it. What's baked in our assumptions is what we see from current customers and some prospects that we're looking to convert here into customers in Q3 and Q4. Sort of going back to Austin's question, we still see the UAV market accelerating from being pretty well established in Europe. And what isn't baked in fully just yet is any upside that could come from additional drone production and sourcing here in the U.S. So in our guide, we're still assuming that the mix is meaningfully outside of the U.S. for 2026. And as I said, we'll size the upside here as we deliver it because there are some pretty quick decisions being made on the U.S. side around what this demand could be. Just alongside some of the calls that we got here this weekend and have been getting this week. we do see this evolving favorably from a demand perspective, but sizing it, we want to size it with POs, not with some loose idea of what the pipeline is.

The next question is from the line of Ted Jackson with Northland Securities.

I hope you can hear me. A xylophone band is literally set up behind me in the airport while we're on this call. So it's really loud. It's got a lot of really nice ambience music for you. I had a couple of questions. So a real simple one. You made a comment, if I recall, that your SiMaxx revenue has fallen about 50% of total. And I guess, where I am going -- and that you've transitioned your Gen 1 SiMaxx customers to Gen 2 SiCore. So I guess my question is, what was the mix of revenue SiMaxx to SiCore coming into the year? What was it coming out? Where do you see it at the end of '26?

At the end of '26, we see it at 0. And coming in, it was about 25%.

Then my next question, with the NDAA compliance success that you've had in terms of getting all your suppliers in place and your contract manufacturing in place, where do you think you stand in that process vis-a-vis the market as a whole? Do you think that you're -- are you in a path? Are you -- I get a sense you're either in the path with everyone else or probably perhaps you a few lengths, maybe some kind of thought with that? And then do you see the ability to get there first as a competitive advantage? And then I've just got one more behind.

Yes. So we think that we are near the front. It's hard to know whether we are at the front. Every battery manufacturer got the memo and is looking to serve. We tend to take only the paranoid survive. So we never really want to think of ourselves as being at the front. We are happy with our industry-leading advantages. So we're working hard. We got work to do for sure. As I mentioned, there's more announcing here, work is underway. You can imagine that there is a lot of effort long before they get announced. So we're happy with where we are. We are very focused on making sure that we keep up with -- because it's -- market. So happy but work to do.

Okay. And then my last question, just looking over at Slide 4 over to the right, where you have your OEMs and key market players. You have a lot of corporate logos up here. Are -- have all of these logos in some form or fashion sampled or looked at for your product? Are they customers or how like -- Like some of them you've clearly announced as customers, some of them have not. I guess the question is are any of the -- are all these people that you actually end up making your battery in the past for some form or fashion?

Yes, you're right. Some are customers, the title of that column on Slide 4 is appropriate, key market players. So some are customers that we can talk about publicly, some are potential customers where we are in testing and other ones we have to earn their trust. So that's the mix that we have on that right-hand column.

So in general, these are all folks who we see logical -- it'd be logical for them to buy cells from us, and they may have bought cells at low volumes for testing as well.

Okay, I'll step out of line. Congrats on the quarter.

Thanks Ted.

Our next question is from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

My congrats as well on the results. First one on the Nokia -- the first question is on the Nokia drone networks. Is this sort of a single product win? Or is it more of a platform win? Can you talk a bit about the unit volumes and ramp timing for that? And then as we sort of look into exiting the decade and can you sort of talk about how large the opportunity would be with the Nokia piece?

We like Nokia, Derek, because it is a communications platform generally, right? Our understanding of this platform is that it's able to beam 5G signals difficult to reach places where you can't cellular easily install -- it is a platform. There are -- if you talk to the Nokia guys, a lot of work that they have planned in the future, and they have their road map, of course. We don't tend to break out specific customer volumes and share those. We do like this because it emphasizes what we say, right, this espresso advantage as we tried to -- Nokia drones with our batteries can fly 40%, 50% longer and other customers twice the flight time compared to just standard batteries. That's what led them to us and -- in that same count.

Got it. That's helpful. And Tom, you've got a validated technology, hundreds of customers. You've been commercial for 7, 8 years now with Fortune 500s. You really have had a head start, at least in the drone opportunity. How do you think you can best leverage that position to really accelerate the growth of the business?

Yes. It's about execution on the operational side for sure, to get the customers what they want when they want it and again, from the right place. We're also investing into the customer-facing side of the house. We've added to our sales team. We have a pack partner program that is embryonic but growing. Some of our sales go directly to the folks who make crafts, products that fly or roll or walk around like robots do. Others go through pack houses and those packs then go into those end-use products. So we're investing there for sure. We're investing in some of our internal processes. We want to be able to meet and exceed this demand that we see coming.

Our next question is from the line of Chip Moore with ROTH Capital.

Ricardo, I want to follow up. Actually, you brought up a good point on the replacement dynamic for batteries. Have you done any sort of analysis on what replacement can become as some of these markets mature, understanding that there's still -- some of them are still pretty nascent, but where do you think that can go over time?

I think it can be pretty meaningful depending on the market. In eVTOLs, it could very well be even more than the initial installed volume if these things are was the same way if you look at gen engine manufacturers in planes today, the maintenance and the replacement of those -- of parts within those jet engines make the Rolls-Royces of the world more money than selling the jet engine the first time. And that's a dynamic that you obviously don't see in EVs because you hopefully don't have to replace the battery or you just replace the whole car. But in UAVs, in robotics and eVTOLs, we are seeing a little bit of a -- a reasonably dynamic, right, where the replacement market could be even larger than the initial sale market. And so of course, depending on what assumptions you have for that, you end up with completely different market sizing. And there's also a lot of work that can be done here to develop a standardized battery pack. And so this is something that we think about pretty frequently. We're looking for the right way to frame this out for the industry. So we don't have customers pulling in different directions when the duty cycle and the requirements are pretty clear and where we can drive meaningful convergence.

Yes. No, that's helpful, Ricardo. And maybe just for my follow-up, I appreciate all the new detail in the slides. Great job. Maybe on the market slide, on Slide 4, huge opportunities, what about opportunities outside of those core markets, fast charge and discharge capabilities, data center at the rack level? There's obviously higher volume electronics. Just maybe -- could we address some of the adjacencies?

Yes. We alluded to this on Slide 7. There's a little picture of a data center there for the high power cells. I think Tom mentioned it in his remarks as well, that's an opportunity. Another one that we're looking at are battery packs for military applications. So the average soldier carries over 100 pounds of gear, and they are the standard battery packs that currently use standard lithium ion cells. And of course, if we bring higher energy density, we believe that we can cut the weight of those packs in half, potentially even make them more powerful. And if you combine them with something like a supercapacitor, you can even trim the upper bounds of power peaks that tend to degrade batteries further. So theoretically, we could cut the weight of those things in half or double their capacity. And then at the same time, almost double the life of those battery packs, therefore, reducing the need to repeat them as frequently. So yes, I think outside of what we have in Slide 4, high-power cells for data centers are obviously a market. And then anywhere else where you're using a battery pack, particularly in military applications, looking to leverage some of the customers that we already have, those would be other ancillary opportunities.

And maybe just the pile on. The -- some of the characteristics that we show on Slide 3 are inherent with the silicon platform, right? Fast charges -- and oh, by the way, we also can charge a lot faster. Oh my gosh, no kidding. And also we have a wider temperature range. So we lead with our strengths, right? Our only [ misses ] is energy density or metric density. But some of these other ones really helped secure the win and secure the long-term relationships that we're building for customers.

Our last question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.

With respect to trying to bring sort of manufacturing costs down or the price of the battery is down, do you have any room as you iterate on your side? And how much of that may come from sort of the engineering side from your end versus when the contract manufacturers can support you with?

Yes. So certainly, design is a big lever on the cost for sure. Volume plays a part also. And as we get some of the volumes up, there's some pricing that we see with the 11 suppliers have. And then we're getting into that, as we mentioned, as we go full NDAA with the contracts and the negotiations with suppliers on the 11. So we're in the midst of some of that. But the good news is that volumes are increasing. That's a big lever. The -- and then we'll see that. When we do talk to customers and they are insisting on U.S., that's where this interesting dynamic comes in where they want U.S., but they want pricing. So we tend to have a little bit of an arm wrestle. But in general, we're happy with the margins we see, and you, of course, understand the guidance on think we can get.

Yes. Understood. And then just last one for me. In terms of the balance sheet, it looks really solid with over $90 million in cash. Looks like at this point, you really don't need to tap at the ATM anymore. What -- and especially going into sort of a capital-light strategy with Colorado out of the picture now, what are the uses of that cash that we can think of that could maybe accelerate sales or product development? Any color on that would be helpful.

Yes. As I mentioned in my remarks, Amit, with the current balance sheet, we are really only looking to fund working capital. As I mentioned, our CapEx will be funded by the DIU here in Fremont. Any little bit of incremental CapEx that could be needed at the contract manufacturers to accelerate production if demand ramps up even beyond our expectations can also be funded by the balance sheet. We're also looking at putting in place a working capital line with some of our banking partners to further scale the balance sheet. And then yes, as you mentioned, earlier this year, we put out an announcement saying that we are basically done with the ATM. I think the ATM did its job over the last 2 years. And right now, as you mentioned, the balance sheet is solid. We think our current strategy is more than fully funded.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the floor back to management for closing comments.

Thank you so much for joining us on the call. Stay tuned. We look forward to meeting some of you on the road here as we attend a couple of Investor Relations events, and be well. Thanks for your support.

Absolutely. As we talked about, 2025 was a great year. We think 2026 can be even stronger as we play to our strengths, our energy density and continue to push new products, expand our portfolio, respond to the country of origin request. We're in a fortunate position. We're certainly in it to win it, and we appreciate your support.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.