EnSilica plc (ENSI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EnSilica plc Half Year Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself, however the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from EnSilica plc. Ian, good afternoon, sir.

Good afternoon. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. I'm Ian Lankshear, CEO, and this is Kristoff Rademan, our Chief Financial Officer. Today, we're going through our interim results for the period ending the 30th of November 2025. So just the usual forward-looking disclaimer. Please read that to your leisure. And so I take you through, I think it's -- EnSilica is a very different company from the one that IPO-ed in 2001. And we've both got more scale, larger engineering team able to take on more chips in parallel. We've got a stronger IP portfolio and positions in our -- positioning us better in our target markets. And in terms of suppliers, we're now direct with all the major foundries, including TSMC, which has taken a long time to gain that position. And we've got very strong customers, and you would have seen the RNS that went out today talking about the Siemens chip tape-out. So we've got a real quality customer base. We've got increased focus on our markets, the communication one and particularly the space side. And I've got more slides on that later covering our progress in that area. And automotive -- we've also got the automotive and industrial markets where we have a strong pipeline in that as well. The business model is working. You'll see from the presentation that the recurring revenue and cash generation coming from the chip supply is coming through, and there's a clear path now to profitability. So we've got 5 ASICs now in the production phase. And I'll show an illustration of that later as well as a broad portfolio of chips, which are in the design phase. I mean some of that is in terms of -- we've taped out production silicon. Some of that is we actually have prototypes at what they call the MPW, multi-project wafer phase, but we've got a whole series of them coming through. A notable one is a road-tolling ASIC where we're in the process of taping out a test chip for that. We've got great traction in the space sector, and I'll cover that later, particularly around the payload and the user terminal side. So that's a really exciting area. One of the other key areas is that around security, cybersecurity in chips. There's lots of new legislation coming through, and we have a strong position where we've developed our own post-quantum IP, and we have a contract in place now with the U.K. government to develop a secure processor chip for critical national infrastructure applications as well as developing a standard part we can sell out of that project. It generates very strong core IP we can use across our portfolio of chips because all chips now that the markets that we're targeting need that strong security. We've demonstrated our ability to full-scale production by shipping 10 million ASICs on an automotive program, we're running I mean we announced the 5 million ASIC mark in '24. So within just over a year, we've shipped 5 million of those. So I mean, we really demonstrated there that our operations team and the supply chain is working and able to scale. And due to demand, we've design demand. We've opened an office in Budapest, which gives us a strong foothold in the EU, and that team have good mixed-signal ASIC experience, which is ideal for the automotive and industrial applications. I'll now hand over to Kristoff, who will talk you through some of the numbers.

Good afternoon. EnSilica is very pleased to present our first half financial results for 2026. We achieved record revenues, up 37% to GBP 12.7 million. That's our highest first half revenues ever achieved, and we're very, very happy with that result. This was driven by further supply revenue growth. As you know, last year, our supply revenues doubled from the year before, and we expect further growth this year. We were also helped by large NRE revenue growth from our contracted customers from those development contracts, which were signed last year. Gross margins in the first half, slightly up on the previous year, and this is due to the increase in supply revenues, which is at a higher margin than our normal development and consultancy revenues. The company benefited from other income or the RDEC tax credit included in other income, which is a change from the prior year, which was due to the change in the RDEC tax regime. We also achieved EBITDA of GBP 1.7 million in the first half, which is an increase of GBP 1.9 million on the prior year, which we're very pleased with, and we expect to generate further EBITDA growth in the second half of the year. So just looking at the revenue split. As you will see, chip supply is up 34% or another GBP 1 million, which we're very pleased with, and we expect further chip supply growth in the second half of the year and to maintain that 30% to 40% year-on-year increase that we've achieved thus far. We also expect chip supply to further increase in the outer years 2027 and beyond. NRE revenues have increased significantly due to the 5 contracts, which we signed in the prior year and are being developed towards tape-out and future supply. As you will have seen, there was a tape-out of a Siemens ASIC announced this morning through RNS Reach, which we are also very pleased with. Consultancy revenues down on the prior year, but that was largely because of the large increase in NRE revenues meant that during this period, there was a bigger focus by the business on the NRE and some of our staff were pulled into the NRE development contract as they are able to work across the different projects and areas. So just pulling out some key balance sheet items. Intangible assets increased by GBP 3.1 million. This is our co-development in customer assets, the ASICs that will generate future supply revenues. And this was then offset by amortization of GBP 0.9 million. The amortization is increasing as our chip supply revenues increased and we amortize those related intangible assets. Cash remained stable at GBP 2 million, and I'll talk about that in more detail on the next slide. And our external loans decreased due to the repayment of the term loan, which is taking place over 3 years. Moving on to cash flow, GBP 1.7 million of EBITDA achieved and then working capital, a positive inflow of GBP 2.7 million, which was helped by both our increased supply revenues and then also customer upfront development contracts on those contracts that were won during the year and also the year before. Intangibles and CapEx investment, that's largely the GBP 3.1 million investment in ASIC together with our customers, which is driving that increase. And then interest paid down from GBP 0.5 million to GBP 0.3 million. In the prior period, we had a very large refinancing charge, which didn't recur this year as we refinanced to lower interest loans with Lloyds Bank. That resulted in cash generation of GBP 0.8 million, and then that was offset by net proceeds from financing, which consisted mainly of the loan repayment of GBP 0.5 million and the lease liability repayment of GBP 0.3 million, leading to a stable cash position across the 6 months, which we are also very pleased with the result. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks, Kristoff. Okay. So this slide illustrates how our projects are moving through. You see the top 5 there where we've got 5 in production, generating that reoccurring revenue. And I mean all of those 5 have really not hit their peak volumes, peak revenues. And then we have a series of other ones marching through the design phase. So with the #6 here is the Siemens one, where we just got to the tape-out phase. And actually, that's going to have an accelerated time through to production this time next year. Those ones here, you see with an asterisk by them on the space sector. They're what you call ASSPs, application-specific standard parts. They are chips where we are free to sell them to any customer where the other ones are ASIC application-specific integrated circuits where we just sell them to one particular customer, their specific chip. So we aim to win 3 to 4 contracts a year. I mean, actually, this illustration here is basically taking the forecast revenues from these chips with very conservative amounts from these space ASSPs and overlaying them on our customer forecast showing -- providing an illustration of how it moves. As you see there, our NRE and design efforts about designing the chips, that remains relatively fit just with a small 10% increase per year. But what we really see here is the supply revenue in the blue there on the right, increasing as those chips move into the supply and start generating the reoccurring revenue. And I say, I feel we've taken a conservative approach here. Certainly, those space ASSPs sort of post FY '28, '29, I mean, they could certainly show a considerable increase to what we're illustrating here in terms of their potential. And I mean that will lead me into talking about the space sector, a very exciting sector. There's a lot of companies out there that are developing new constellations. Everyone's heard of Starlink, but there's other ones there, the IRIS�, which is the European one, Eutelsat that recently acquired OneWeb and there's other ones from Viasat, SES, et cetera. And it was only a couple of weeks ago that Blue Origin, who are probably more famous for their rockets announced that they were putting up their own satellite communications constellation. So lots of activity, lots of investment going there, lots of growth. And the space sector requires chips -- I mean, chips in the satellites to make them higher performance, lower power, helps reduce the number of satellites, helps reduce the launch costs. So there's a lot of investment that goes on using the latest technology in those chips. So we're active in 2 areas in the space sector. One is the payload. These are the chips that go into the satellites, particularly beamformer chips. We previously announced that we were contracted to do the payload chip for AST SpaceMobile, but we've got quite a position here of expertise. Now we're working with other operators and satellite manufacturers in terms of developing payload ASICs. We're certainly recognized as a world leader in this area. The sort of dynamics of these types of projects, large NREs, lower volumes, and that will lead to good margin supply revenue from selling those chips. And in some cases, we've negotiated royalty or service-based revenue where we basically get -- for every satellite that uses our chip, we get a revenue stream per month. So that really sort of demonstrates the value we bring to this particular class of chip and sector. And the other exciting area is the user terminals. We're developing ASSPs, and we've had some very good backing from the European Space Agency and the U.K. Space Agency in terms of providing us funding to develop ASSP chipsets in this area. We're one of the -- only provider that is actually focused on developing a full chipset. So that includes RF beamformers, mixers, digital beamformers, modems. So our aim here is to develop those -- the full suite of chips that you need in one of the user terminals. We already have 4 chip sampling with customers with further devices in development. And we have a number of funded engagements with user terminal manufacturers and satellite operators who are evaluating our chips in funded engagements as they're funding us to support them. So we're working with -- we're also working with multiple user terminal OEMs in terms of their responding to operators' RFIs using our chipsets. So very exciting area, a lot of potential of future revenues -- future very high revenues when those constellations get launched.

So just coming to our outlook. The company feels very positive about the rest of the year and also the future with 95% of revenues contracted for the full year revenues, we feel confident that we will be able to achieve the GBP 28 million to GBP 30 million of revenues that we forecast and the GBP 3.5 million to GBP 4.5 million EBITDA that we forecast. Looking out beyond 2026, with GBP 250 million of lifetime supply revenues, which are underpinned by contracts with customers, we feel very, very positive about the longer-term prospects of the company -- we also have approximately GBP 400 million of sales opportunities in our pipeline, of which we expect to win some of these probably 25% to 30% over the next few months. So the future is looking positive for EnSilica. We're also seeing that due to the increase in chip supply revenues and also the strong upfronts we're seeing from our customers, the cash burn is starting to decrease, and we are looking forward and feeling positive about starting to become cash flow positive on an operational monthly basis towards the end of calendar year 2026. So in conclusion, the customer is growing -- the company is growing and the future is looking very bright for EnSilica. Thank you.

Perfect, guys. If I may just jump back in there and thank you very much indeed for you presentation this afternoon. [Operator Instructions] But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with the copy of the slides and the published Q&A can all be accessed via your investor dashboards. Guys, as you can see that we have received a number of questions, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But if I may just hand back to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that would be great. Thank you.

So just going through the questions. Starting off, we've had a few questions from our customer, AST SpaceMobile, who is a NASDAQ-listed company and been doing very well. Unfortunately, we can't comment on the specific activities of the company and how that impacts our contract with them, but we do wish them all the best that they will be successful. So -- next question, with increasing amounts of government money going into defense spending and with your specialist market already in satellites, are there opportunities arising for EnSilica in this market or other niche areas in defense?

Yes. So certainly, I mean, a lot of the applications in defense, both defense needs communications and the other area that is required is sort of resilient positioning, navigation and timing. I mean they are all areas where we have key technology and certainly, a lot of the chips that we've been developing will have a dual use aspect. So I certainly see defense as a key area, particularly on the sort of dual use aspect.

Next question. Do you expect to announce any contract wins before the end of financial year '26? If yes, how many? We continue to target 3 to 4 contracts to be won during the year. Some of them will be announceable, others not, but that remains the target of the company, and we feel that we are well on our way to achieve this. Next question. How confident are you that Siae Micro contract will be revised at some point during this calendar year? At this point, we -- the situation remains the same as when we updated the market previously. We remain in negotiations and discussions with the customer, but we have taken them out of our forecast in order to be conservative and haven't yet added them back in. The PQC market is forecast to grow rapidly in Europe by 2030. What role in terms of size do you expect EnSilica to play in this market? And will it be a growth engine for the company?

Okay. Very good question. Just for people that PQC is post-quantum cryptography and that's cryptography, which is developed to be resistant to attack from quantum -- from quantum computers. And I mean this is an area we've developed the IP. I mean in my -- in one of my slides, I talked about what we were doing with cyber resilient chips. And we -- this post-quantum IP, we actually have plans to design it as well as the contract for the critical national infrastructure chip, which will have post-quantum cryptography. We'll be designing this in other chips, including the satellite comms one and ones in other areas. So we see this as key fundamental IP to help differentiate our offering, both on the ASIC offering and the ASSP offering.

A question from [ Double Bubbler ]. Once again, thank you, team EnSilica for the continued strong execution and your aspiration for becoming Europe's premier ASIC firm. My only question relates to the Edge AI contract, which appears pivotal for achieving or exceeding the financial year '26 outlook. Can you provide any reassurances or insights to confirm the tape-out won't be delayed from H2? We can confirm that at this point, the team remains highly confident that the tape-out will occur in the second half and the project is moving closer to tape-out. So positive moves. Germany is planning to increase its military space capabilities, which will include spend on intelligence gathering satellites and sensors. Do you have any plans to bid for suitable contracts? And how would you rate your chances of being successful?

So I mean, I covered the question on the defense market. And I mean Germany traditionally hasn't been one to develop their own chips in defense. They've probably been more reliant on U.S. chips. I mean the French have certainly one who've done more investment and have more independence on the semiconductor side. So we've got some unique expertise, and we see us being able to bid across Europe on these type of contracts. And we have an EU footprint. We have an office in Germany as well with the German sales team. So we should be in a good position for bidding for these.

Can you please advise us when you expect the sampling of the satellite user terminal chips to be completed?

So in terms of the user terminal chips, I mean we have customers and some of them are funding us, some of them are developing themselves prototypes and test platforms for them. And we expect within the sort of 6 to 12 months to know whether we've got confirmed design slots in particular constellations. As I said, it is a long game on these. I mean those constellations are not really not going to be launched until late '28, '29 and then that's where the volumes will -- the real volumes will follow.

Could you provide more details of your technology road map and leading-edge developments satellite peer Filtronic makes much comment on its GaN and higher spectrum leadership with EB and W-band product development and SSPAs. Is EnSilica developing similar products to meet future demands?

Okay. So I mean we're developing different types of products related to high-frequency SATCOM. So Filtronic are focused on the link between the satellite and the gateway, which is the connection to the Internet. We are focused on the beam former. So in modern satellites rather than using a single GaN amplifier and a dish, they actually use a thing called a phased array where you need lots of little transmitters to add up the power. And I mean, our focus is on developing this the new technology, which has beamformer technology that goes in the satellite, which actually replaces these high-power amplifiers for the user link. It's not always replacing it for the gateway link, but various satellites have different topologies. So we're not -- at the moment, we're working up to Ka-band, which is the main band used for the user link, which is up to 30 gig. So we're developing technology, but it's a different set of technology to Filtronic solving a different set of satellite problems.

Will the current cash balance be sufficient to get you to being cash flow positive? The answer, we believe, is yes. Our cash burn in the second half of 2025 decreased to GBP 0.2 million of cash burn. And for this 6 months, it was actually a cash inflow. Therefore, we feel quite positive. Whilst we think there will still be cash burn, we think this will be limited and our cash balances will remain positive until we start becoming operationally cash flow positive towards the end of calendar year 2026. Of the 12 chips soon progressing to tape-out, as mentioned in the latest press release, how many do you forecast to reach tape-out in first half and how many in second half? So in the next 6 months, we've obviously just announced the Siemens tape-out, which occurred in the second half. And then obviously, the Edge AI tape-out is also forecast for this next half year. And then there are probably another 2...

2 by the end of the calendar the end of the calendar year, Yes. So very busy time for our team with these tape-outs. But they're a key milestone in the move towards production.

Has the additional GBP 3 million debt facility been approved? We have the GBP 3 million accordion facility with Lloyds Bank. We haven't gone back to the bank at this point and requested the additional GBP 3 million. We may in future, but we haven't, at this time, requested access to it. With potential 25%, 30% contract wins from GBP 400 million, will this be seen in financial year 2026 or future years as revenue growth? In all likelihood, it would be in future years. Most of the work that we expect to generate in the second half, which is not contracted yet, is in the discussion or the contract stage at this point. So that -- of the GBP 400 million, any wins would probably go into financial year '27 and beyond, and we would generate the development revenues over 2 to 3 years and the chip supply revenues over 7 to 10 years thereafter. Could you comment on the motivation for opening the Budapest design site and what end markets they are addressing?

Okay. I'll pick that one. So -- so the motivation, I mean, we were actually looking for a -- to set up a design center in Europe to help with -- shall we say, being more European. And this -- we were also looking for a low-cost location. So Hungary is a great combination of very, very talented people, well qualified. And in this case, we picked up an experienced team. This team is particularly focused on automotive, industrial type chips that include things like high voltage and sensing. So very much aligned with the types of chips we're doing in the automotive and industrial sector. So very, very pleased to have the team on board, and they're really, really contributing well.

I think those are all the questions. If there's anyone that would like to publish a new question, then obviously, we can take that now.

Guys, if I may, I'll just jump back in there at this point in time. And thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time in addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this afternoon. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you after the presentation. But Ian, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that would be great.

Okay. Thanks very much. Well, I mean, thanks, everyone, for joining us on this presentation, and we have a lot of followers now. And I mean I think we've shown with this good first half performance and the increase in the supply revenue that the business model is working, and we're very well positioned to capitalize on all of these opportunities in the various sectors, particularly the space sector. So a very exciting time ahead.

That's great. Ian and Kristoff , thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of EnSilica plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you.