Gelion plc (GELN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Gelion Plc Full Year '23 Interim Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. Have the company review all questions submitted and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I would now like to hand over to John Wood, CEO. Good morning.

Thank you very much. Pleased be able to give you this presentation today. This will be our half year presentation that it's also fairly close to my 100-day mark as CEO. So a little bit of a [ state of the nation ]. And then for those of you who would like to stay on, we have a treat for you today. Our Founder, Thomas Maschmeyer, will be doing a special presentation, going to extra depth on our lithium sulfur ambitions as well. So I'd first would like to introduce our presentation team today. I'm your CEO, John Wood. I have a long history as CEO in high-growth innovation companies and particularly in the energy storage industry. It's a real honor to be stewarding Gelion for you, and a real privilege to be leading the remarkable team that I have. Let's pass to our founder, Thomas Maschmeyer, to give a little background.

Yes. So it's a great opportunity again to, I guess, talk to our investors, which are really the life blood of the company. Your support is extremely important to us, and we are very happy to be able to share some of our exciting news today. Very pleased to be sitting here with John, who's doing an outstanding job. In his first 100 days, he has really started to make a very positive and strong impact. And then join me is Amit Gupta, our CFO, who has been supporting those activities.

Thank you, Thomas. So my name is Amit Gupta. I'm the CFO for almost 18, 19 months with the business. And as previously, we have achieved a lot in the last 18, 19 months, but we'll go through what's been the kind of the key drivers in the last 6 months to 31st of December and then post the period end highlights as well. Thank you. John, back to you.

Thank you. Okay. So a little summary first. This has been a very, very important period for Gelion. I think that we've hit a very important transition point, and I'd like to explain that to you today. Gelion, I believe, is maturing from being a company that had great technology and a great team to a new positioning in the world stage. We'll talk today about the acquisition of the Johnson Matthey IP that we made. It complements our existing technology and our work with our existing team. But I believe that Gelion is now positioning to become a very important player in the energy storage ecosystem, and I believe the point of inflection with that importance of progress will start to be progressively recognized in the broader community. So in the period, we manufactured 1,200 zinc-bromide cells for our own testing and for the Acciona project. [indiscernible] commenced, we did a very deep dive on the match to market for zinc-bromide, and I'll be talking about some of the outcomes from that work in the course of this presentation. Our team made strong progress with our lithium sulfur activities. And we shared with you, a little while ago, some of our progress with that in terms of [indiscernible]. Very recently, we announced to you 2 IP transactions. Those IP transactions were driven by the progress that our team had been making on their own merit in the lithium sulfur space. So the 2 transactions. The first one was the acquisition of the IP portfolio, which came from Johnson Matthey. Now this is a very significant IP portfolio. 85 patent families, 450 patents, very important part of the global IP landscape for lithium sulfur technology. In lithium sulfur, very important new technology. We'll talk about it in detail later, and our Founder will present a deep dive. But even if you ask ChatGPT, what will be the next great step in energy storage, it will let you know we're on the right track with lithium sulfur. Gelion was selected by New Energy Nexus, an energy lab, Supercharge Innovation Program, which is a great recognition for people behind that energy lab and particularly, New Energy Nexus ran the lithium bridge program in the U.S. which led to the large investment in lithium industry acceleration in the U.S. And the idea with Supercharge Program in Australia, where your company does its primary research, was to turbocharge the Australian lithium community. And while we're making a lot of this progress, cash remains strong, and our CFO will present on cash as we progress this presentation. So looking at our business. When I presented last, we talked about that Gelion has 2 core technologies: one, the zinc-bromide technology, which we are positioning at the LDES ecosystem; and the other, the lithium-ion sulfur technology, which we see as the next stage of lithium industry. Collectively, between the lead acid industry and the lithium-ion industry, that is the bulk of the chemical energy storage industry today. They're both today roughly the same size, the lithium industry is a little bigger, but the lithium industry is projected to be 3x the size of the lead acid industry by 2030. Starting with our zinc-bromide technology, you can see here picture of some of their cells on the left and on the right, you can see some of our battery management systems that control the cells. We've made very solid progress, and there's a lot of detail in the pictures that you've got on the screen here, but we wanted to share these with you so you can understand the scope of the work that your team is doing. So firstly, it is a new chemistry. So we are implementing zinc-bromide in a flat plate format, similar to lead acid. And so we are managing every part of the launch of that technology. So that means the chemistry -- development of the chemistry for the cells that means development of the BMS to manage the cells. It needs the integration with the system, and we put that all together to create an overall customer experience. You're seeing the elements of our progress on this screen now. So first, we started with a single string 2 kilowatt hour system. Then we moved up to the 12.6 kilowatt hour system. And now we're extending that to the full-scale system at the moment. This [ digits ] you're seeing from your team. So battery testing, we are learning about our technology. There is a little bit of difference in the flavor and the approach that I've introduced to Gelion. So we had a program that was based on launching the zinc-bromide technology with its current capabilities and then promoting that into commercialization. We also had series of R&D that we were going to do to add new features to those cells as well to make the cells -- the proposition of the cells while going in to lower the cost of manufacture of the cells. So inherent in today's presentation, you will see what you could consider a pivot or a slight change in approach. So the R&D that we will be doing on the zinc-bromide cells was always intended as part of our program. But rather than pushing forward with the cell in its current state, which would have us, if you like, buy some market with some loss leader before we actually got to where we have completed all elements of the compelling proposition of our technology and cost reduction of our technology. We will be pushing forward with the research to attain that compelling match to market before we progress to the commercialization. Now that's an important decision and an important -- slightly important change in approach. Why are we doing this? Well, we've got a very strong technology that we're taking into a competitive market segment. We've talked in the past that this technology has a lot of very good features about the same technology. It has the capability to do a lot of cycles, enable temperature. There's a whole bunch of advantages to our technology, but equally as well, it has characteristics that we have to recognize. Like for example, if we charge the technology fast, it can develop dendrites. And so -- and also, we have management methods that we use with the technology like discharging the technology completely to strip those dendrites. So rather than try to launch the technology into market segments that suit the sort of management behavior that we do, we've decided to do the research to control those artifacts better so that we can make the technology out with confidence in the segments that is most compelling. Now one of that is that we've recognized that our technology is very good in fast discharge mode, and I'll talk about that in the economics in just a moment. But -- as this technology is targeted at the zinc -- at the lead acid world, those who understand that lead acid chemistry know that as you discharge faster, you actually get less energy out because the plates passivate. Whereas with the Gelion technology, we don't have that effect. So what we've done is new and substantial market opportunities that we want to work towards. So dendrite management, lower cost electrode materials, and then based on confirmation through our testing program to adjust our initial market focus towards those market segments that we've found most compelling. And this diagram now on the left-hand side of the screen, it's very important. So when you look down at the bottom of the screen, when we talked originally about zinc-bromide, we consider that the technology would be most compelling as a long-term duration energy storage effort. In fact, from our match to market work in, and I've done a lot of work in the lead acid world before, what we find is that as the rate becomes higher, we become progressively more compelling. And that's the orange line on the screen and the white line. So he won't be looking at his upfront costs for the cells in terms of dollars per kilowatt hour at pack level. And you can see that as the discharge becomes faster, progressively, we become very compelling in our cost comparison. So this is a market segment and market insight that we intend to be moving towards. So what can you expect in the next -- in the outlook for our zinc-bromide? First of all, we'll be accelerating the R&D and focusing our attention on R&D to address those performance enhancements that we've identified from our match to market and to be doing the testing to prepare ourselves so that when we start to lean into the commercialization, we know that we're doing that with a proper match to market in a compelling proposition. This is a mistake that a lot of companies make. We don't want to make this with Gelion. We respect and treasure the support of our shareholders. We want to utilize the resources you have entrusted us in the very best way, and this is the way that we see that we should be doing that. We'll be doing in-house and field battery managed test programs and when we'll be preparing for external testing and certification. Now to turn to our work in lithium sulfur and here we say lithium silicon sulfur. In fact, with Johnson Matthey IP acquisition, complementing what we're doing ourselves, we are targeting 3 different anode compositions with our lithium sulfur work. So first, those will be a lithium sulfur with the graphitic anode. Second will be a lithium sulfur with a graphitic and silicon anode. And the third will be with metal. But what your company has done is to -- has achieved, is to make the strategic acquisition of what we understand to be the world's leading lithium sulfur IP portfolio. It's a very important move for Gelion. This page I'm going to pause and make one point that I think is important to have said. You've heard me say that we've taken a deliberate decision to continue and focus our zinc-bromide towards the R&D to make it a compelling proposition. And you've also heard that we have made this strategic acquisition of the Johnson Matthey IP, complementing our own lithium sulfur IP to put Gelion into a very important position in the world energy storage marketplace. Well, the good news is that by doing those 2 things in our plan at the same time, we're able to still run the same -- largely the same cash profile that we had in our original plan. It just means that we're not going to be trying to spend money to buy into the market or to force our way in the market, we will instead do the research so that we can approach the market with a compelling proposition. And it's allowed us to secure a very important IP portfolio for Gelion, positioning Gelion as a globally important participant in the energy storage industry. So let's talk about...

And if I could just add something to that. So it's basically a continuation of what we said we were going to do. The only difference is that we are not going to try to get market share by loss lead kind of activities, but we're just going with the program that we have outlined in terms of cost reduction. And the money that we are saving not going out to gain market share early with a loss leader, that money has been able to be -- has been spent now in this strategic acquisition.

While it's not externally recognized yet, the decisions that your Board has taken has, we believe, positioned Gelion very, very strongly. We're very enthusiastic about where we are now. Gelion is at the global forefront now of advanced lithium sulfur cathode and lithium sulfur battery technology. It's a world-leading portfolio, and it's in the most important part of development of the whole energy storage industry. We shared with you some of our results, results are continuing. I won't preempt anything, but I can tell you that the test results remain very compelling that we're seeing coming from our work. In fact, those results were so compelling that, that was the trigger for us to decide to lean into our lithium sulfur work and to do the Johnson Matthey IP. So the Johnson Matthey IP -- I'll get to Johnson Matthey IP in a couple of slides. Why? Well, first of all, lithium sulfur. Sulfur can store more energy. In fact, it gives us the potential to store in a lithium cell up to twice the gravimetric energy density. Gravimetric energy density, that's really important. Gravimetric energy density means that, for example, things that fly can fly much further because you've got more energy away. It can also contribute in many ways to all aspects of mobility. So gravimetric energy density is a really, really important thing, can also deliver really compelling cost savings to lithium energy storage. It's safer. Thomas will talk later about and explain to you the reason that it's safer, but it introduces aspects of safety to lithium batteries. And of course, there's abundant sulfur around the world. It's one of the most abundant materials, and it's a very important consideration when we know battery chemistries that we don't need a lot of the problematic materials by going this lithium sulfur path. So what have we done? Well, our team had indicated from the test -- indication from our test results that our team were working toward fundamental breakthroughs in a couple of key aspects of the technology. Again, Thomas will talk about that in detail, and that's that sort of center part of the jigsaw puzzle there. So we knew we're on track. The Johnson Matthey IP surrounds us like a moat. So it does 2 things for us. There's 2 things this acquisition does for your company, or our company. It, one, allows our -- gives our technical team a resource that they can use to accelerate. And secondly, it provides a protective moat of IP around everything that we're doing. The second IP acquisition you saw was the IP that has been developed by the Gelion team in partnership with Sydney University at Sydney University. Now because we were doing that under an agreement, we have an exclusive license to that technology, but it was important at this point in time to convert it to ownership so that we could take this whole IP portfolio forward for you. Why do the Supercharge? I touched on that a little earlier for you, but you can see the quote from Danny Kennedy here. He's the Chief Executive Officer of New Energy Nexus, the company behind Supercharge. New Energy Nexus established the U.S. lithium bridge, targeting $33 billion in lithium battery revenues and 100,000 jobs in the U.S. And then these people -- the same people came to Australia and said, you know what? 50% of the world's lithium is actually mined in Australia, and there's got to be a whole lot more we can be doing to the supply chain and the ecosystem in Australia and that's what Gelion is doing. We do our research in Australia, and the Australian government has very solid plans around accelerating our ecosystem that we will be seeking to take this advantage of. I'll pass to Amit for the financial results.

Thank you, John. I think no surprises on the results. The results for the 6 months in December are in line with expectations, and what we had expected at the time of IPO. I think we need to give some consideration of how the market has changed, inflation, cost of doing business has gone significantly higher than what they have been expected in 2021. So I think we are very proud of what we have achieved in the 6 months to December. EBITDA loss is in line with what we expected. Our cash balance is very, very healthy, GBP 14.4 million at 31st of December. Obviously, we have made this acquisition and the plan is to sell a portion of the IP, which is not going to us to a third party. That discussion is happening. Should that be successful, the net impact from the cash flow will be around GBP 3 million. So we still have a lot of cash left on the balance sheet to kind of pursue and continue with our commercial and technological developments, but we'll get to the questions that have been asked, and I'll address the question on cash flow and data. This slide, again, no debt, well capitalized balance sheet. I think we continue to have a good control on cost. There's a lot of thinking that goes by the Board, by the Execs to make sure we're taking the right decision for the business and taking care of the cash that we invest in the business as well. On the cash flow, I think what I wanted to flag here is the cash from investing activities looks like a high negative number. However, it's only [ GBP 0.4 million ] because there was around GBP 5 million invested in short-term deposits. But that's pretty much from the financial side. I'll pass it back to you, John, for the summary.

All right. I got a script here. So where we've positioned the company now is in a very, very strong position. We have a brilliant team at Gelion. It's a real treasure to be the CEO of this group, to work with Thomas and to be able to work with the wonderful team that we have in Gelion. We have some great scientists, some great engineers and just great people doing all of the work around them in Gelion. They truly are absolutely world class. The Johnson Matthey IP just can't be overstated for how important this was to complement and supplement what we were already doing as Gelion. And it put us in a position, as best described, and I'll use a technical term, which is argy-bargy. To argy-bargy into and against the best around the world and to establish Gelion as a leader in energy storage and as a real force. Now what can you expect to see from us from here? So I'm [ off-script ] a little bit. Most of the board meetings I had from when I started with Gelion were looking at the technology, looking at the match to market, the positioning of the technology, looking at what we want to do in terms of systems to be well-test development practice in Gelion. Looking at our resource pool and looking at how to achieve our goals. Where we're focusing now on commercial outreach and towards partnerships to -- now that we've got the technology, we've got the team, we've got the IP. Now what we want to do is forge towards relationships around the world to position that as we start to scale and progress our technology through the different technical stages. Now our shareholders, I hope that's going to be good news to you because I think we've significantly changed, enhanced the value of your asset, although it's not yet reflected in perception. And I think for the first way that, that will start to happen is by external recognition of just where Gelion has got itself into the industry strategically. So I'm looking for progress going forward in terms of external recognition of what Gelion is doing. And I think that's going to reflect or that we plan and that's going to reflect to you, as shareholders, in perception of the value of the company that we are operating for you. So 2023, you'll see progress in our technology readiness, our development pathway for both technologies. You'll see us leveraging our novel zinc-bromide technology, focusing the development and targeting it towards these areas where we believe that it can become most compelling. You'll see the work that we're doing on our lithium sulfur technologies, particularly in the 2 key areas that Thomas will talk about on sulfide shuttling and electrolyte capability. You see progression on that. You'll see that progression reflected commercially in recognition by external parties -- market partners as well. In 2024, you'll see us start to take that zinc-bromide technology out for third-party validation testing and certification. You'll see the lithium sulfur start progress on match to market with industry partners. You'll see testing and validation; and hopefully, we won't be waiting for 2024. You will see progressively as we do this, Gelion reaching out to make the best of the government funding to scale up that is opening up around the world today. So certainly, in Australia, we'll be working on the Australian initiatives, but Gelion now being in a position with strong global compelling technology, we'll be reaching out to make use of government sourcing around the world today.

Right. So I'll take, I think -- you're still going?

Yes. All right. So Gelion, with our team have worked on our purpose mission, and the Gelion team recognizes that Gelion has a very important role to play in the climate fight and in sustainability. And so the Gelion team has adopted global energy freedom as our purpose. Of course, our purpose is to make money for our shareholders and generate returns for our shareholders. But as our impact purpose, our purpose is global energy freedom. And in that, we see that our work in Gelion can benefit the planet in several ways. Global energy freedom to us means freedom from geopolitical control of energy sources. That means freedom from the entrenched [indiscernible] that come from lack of access to energy and entails freedom from energy having to do damage to the planet. So they're our impact objectives. Our mission to deliver that purpose is to deliver 2x the gravimetric energy density, higher safety and lower cost lithium batteries, 4 or 5 years earlier than alternative power. Also, we'll be contributing to the mission with our zinc-bromide technology. We've highlighted the mission here towards the lithium sulfur because that's going to be a huge impact in contribution in the most important space. We believe this to be a significant geopolitical economic competitiveness and strategic importance. What that means, it means the stuff that we're doing in making batteries that can take -- go further with higher gravimetric energy density, lower cost, and safety, it makes all the things that they're used in more competitive. So we're aiming to get Gelion to a position where if you make the car using our batteries, it's more competitive than someone else's car, and that's our outreach from an industry and government perspective. We believe that if we execute this well, there's always risk in every sort of high technology and innovation game, but we believe, if we execute well, we're lucky, we get a few things going in our favor, we can cut 3 to 4 years out of the industry's timeframe to achieve the sort of goals that we have, and that will make a huge impact towards climate targets. We want to manufacture gigawatt hours of batteries in Australia, and we want to hit the global supply chain, to have maximum impact in the global supply chain. And we want to add value -- maximum value in what they're doing. We've got the right team to do it. We have a great team to boost. And this has been the most exciting thing for me. Personally, the reason that I joined Gelion was to be able to work with Thomas. Thomas has already been successful with a number of technologies that he has developed that are used globally today. So that's a matchless actual achievement. Here is one more technology and the opportunity to steward that technology from a commercial standpoint is a real honor. But when you look at the picture on the right as well, there are some incredible people inside Gelion. So we have the right team. And now I pass to Thomas.

Right. Okay. So thanks so much to be able to give a little bit of a more of a technology deep dive, not too deep, but just before I go on to lithium sulfur, I just wanted to highlight the fact that we've established now zinc-bromide, the zinc-bromide technology that we can do a fast discharge, that is really a very, very compelling advantage over lead acid batteries in a range of applications, especially uninterruptible power supply, et cetera. So that gives this match to market work that was led by John with his deep experience in the lead acid battery. Really showed us that, that is where the juicy morsels are, and so we will be very much focusing on executing on that opportunity now. So well, we talked a lot about lithium sulfur being a better proposition in terms of gravimetric energy density and anything that is -- where there's an issue, especially mobility, that is, of course, a major advantage, ships will go -- electric ships will sail or go for longer, drones will fly longer, submarines will stay underwater for longer, et cetera. But also, of course, EV vehicles, electric vehicles will go a lot further and range anxiety will be a thing of the past with our batteries as we move forward. So what are the 2 problems in lithium sulfur battery technology? They -- basically, a good thing and a bad thing in the same statement. So if I have sulfur on the one side and lithium on the other side, the sulfur can slowly migrate towards the lithium side and effectively corrode it. It makes it across and that deactivates the battery and depending on how this built that battery and formulated the insides, that can happen rapidly after just a few cycles or maybe 50 cycles or 100 cycles. And that is a big problem that needs to be overcome. The key IP that has been developed by Gelion was or is a set of technologies, technology approaches, platforms to handle this particular problem of polysulfide shuttle. However, there's also a benefit to this problem, and the benefit is the safety because if I have a mechanical deformation of my battery, an accident, if I have some other physical events happening to the battery from the outside, there was a thermal event, a fire or whatever, the battery will actually self-deactivate in this process because the sulfur will just go across to the lithium side, form this crust and the thing will be rendered very safe. So that is the dual-edged sword. On the one hand, we need to handle the polysulfide shuttling but at the same time, that we have this problem, it makes the battery very safe. Our IP handles the polysulfide shuttling, so we have the best of both worlds. The second problem is -- that needs to be overcome, it is overcome largely with the acquisition of the JM IP. It's the electrolyte compatibility. So we have, on the one hand, a sulfur cathode and on the other hand, a lithium anode and the electrolyte. So the liquid in which the ions move backwards and forwards to mirror the movement of electrons on the outside of the battery. So ion current inside the battery, electric current outside the battery. This liquid tends to really destroy the graphite side, the lithium-ion side, if it's compatible with sulfur and it will destroy the sulfur side, if it's compatible with the lithium anode. So we have now accessed and already have started to formulate our own solutions within Gelion of electrolyte formulations, which overcome this problem, and actually, make this dream become a reality. So this is a graphical representation of the first issue, that polysulfide shuttling. So if you have a look at the right-hand bottom graphic, it's basically dissolving bits of sulfur, moving -- now my computer has just died. That's not good, I've got to go across. So that was a small tech problem, but we're good. Am I still on?

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Because I've stopped. So on the bottom right-hand corner there, is the graphic where we see sulfur being dissolved and not managed well and going towards the top, which has the lithium anode and therefore, will form this crust. On the right-hand side, we see our technology represented by a box, and this box basically traps the lithium -- traps the sulfur as it is dissolving into the battery. And you can conceptualize it like a ball made out of velcro and that velcro attaches -- the sulfur attaches to this velcro reversibly. So discharging and charging that comes on and off with these velcro balls. Think of it like policemen catching robbers, whatever works for you. So that technology is very successful and has extended the lifetime compared to what's out there and other technologies very significantly. And we are moving forward to really getting that to a very commercially attractive proposition. Next slide, please. And here is some now a little bit older data that shows that we can do around 300 cycles to the 20% capacity degradation, and we currently have tests which we will be announcing in the next -- in the near future. So I don't want to preempt anything in terms of news flow, but they look extremely good. So we're very confident about some positive announcements around this technology. Next slide. And so this graphic just illustrates again what I was saying about the electrolyte, about the compatibility of electrolytes first that we have a lithium on the one side and the sulfur on the other that we need to have an electrolyte that speaks to both, can accommodate both. And we are very confident of being able to do that. We've done it already internally, and this is just [indiscernible] the IP. We have a whole deep moat of electrolytes, if you excuse the pun, that allows us to address this problem very well. Next slide. And so what does it allow us to do? It allows us to really increase the energy density, and depending on how you account for that and depending on how you assemble this, it can go up to 2x gravimetric energy density. So double the energy for the same weight; but here, it comes a little bit finessing because we are a platform technology with our polysulfide shuttling approach. And thus we can interact with 3 different types of lithium anodes: there is one, which is in your iPhone right now, which is a lithium graphite anode, and we've got some fantastic results, which we will be publishing soon. Then we have lithium silicon graphite anodes. They are able to increase the energy density of the battery. The current one, the lithium graphite just is the same energy density as what you have now in your iPhone battery, but it comes at a much lower price and without the trouble of potentially causing a fire. But then if I add silicon to it, a second type of anode, I get much higher energy density close to double what's available right now. And then the third anode we can match our sulfur technology to is that of just lithium. And so we are very flexible and able to partner with a range of digital partners out there in the battery world. Cost savings. So cost savings are substantial because sulfur is very abundant and is now a minor component of the cost of a battery. Whereas the common cathode, the metal manganese oxide represents about 60% of the cost of a battery with the sulfur that is much, much less. So if you go next slide, please. I talked about the differences in energy density. So here is a breakdown of what a battery costs in terms of its components. What you can see is that by far largest component currently in your iPhone battery is the cathode, which is about $103 per kilowatt hour. If you replace that with our sulfur, it drops down almost by a factor of 10. Then we have added different bits and pieces to indicate what it would look like if we have a high silicon anode, and that is the anode that gives the rise to double the energy density to what is currently in a lithium-ion battery. And even at that stage, although we have now other elements, which are a little bit more expensive, we still come in way below the cost of current batteries that are out there. So it's safer, it's cheaper and it lasts twice as long. How good is that? Sulfur itself is not a supply problem. It's the fifth most abundant element in the earth's crust. And even if we have a massive explosion in terms of production of lithium sulfur batteries, we will hardly scratch the surface of the supply. And there are, of course, suppliers which are really keen to enter into the green energy transition, and those suppliers are refineries that desulfurize -- do a highly desulfurization of crude oils and therefore, produce a lot of high-quality sulfur. And if they can use that sulfur to help enhance, accelerate the energy transition, that is a good match and a good win-win for everybody concerned. Next slide. And this is the puzzle piece that we've seen already, and really the key of it is our bit, which is the polysulfide shuttling technology and that is what was missing in the patent portfolio that we acquired, but there's a lot of IP around our polysulfide shuttling technology that protects us, and it allows us to really apply very well. And so overall, it's a very synergistic acquisition of those technologies. Next slide. And I think I'll hand over to John for some closing remarks.

Okay. So in summary, Right team. Right team to be furthering success on the technology and the assets that Gelion has. World leading IP portfolio, 82 patent portfolios. Multi-anode scope for our work. Next steps. We're absolutely serious about the way that we're going to exploit, progress this work. So we're embarking on a [indiscernible] approach, a total quality TRL approach. We welcome any engagement from credentialled partners as we do that. We're ambitious. We would -- we aim to get a broad adoption, greater than 70% adoption of lithium sulfur as the cathodes for lithium technologies globally. We aim to, in an Australian term, being an Australian, power really hard, get to the top of the wave on battery high performance and surf the front. And we're out there at the moment actively seeking industry partners and government support towards strategic funding to accelerate our work towards what we consider to be the most important or best battery innovation. So thank you today. Thank you for entrusting your company and your investment to us. I think we're progressing very strongly. And happy to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed from your investor dashboard. As you can see, not that you've had a great amount of time to have a look at them, guys, but we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. So thank you to everyone for submitting those. If I may just start with the first question, and I think I'll probably combine 2 here together for you, Amit. It reads as follows: how long is the cash runway expected to be? Have significant shareholders indicated they'll participate in any future fund raise? And just to sort of blend in with that, when does Gelion expect to be cash positive?

Thank you, Paul. So I'll take the question. So our average cash burn a month is around GBP 600,000. But yes, I think what I would like to ask investors is to consider what we have achieved since the IPO. Getting the Acciona trial on foot, manufacturing those batteries, developing the BMS system wasn't part of plan when we started the IPO program. So if you consider what has been achieved within the same budget that we had at the time of IPO, it's a massive achievement from a business perspective. We also did the IP acquisition. I think what I want to flag there is why that was so strategic for us. The estimated investment for the IP portfolio is around GBP 100 million. And that's -- and that also includes over 10 years of hundreds of scientists working on that research program. So not just from a quantum perspective, but also why we're so strategic, why and how it accelerates our development program is something that we should consider. So cash on that calculation can be done based on our average cash burn. Significant shareholders indication. I think we are not discussing any capital raise program at this point in time, but we have full support of our shareholders. We are doing our investor roadshows now, and the investors that we have met, we have got that full support in terms of our strategy and what we're trying to achieve. In terms of cash positive, I think you just heard from John as to what our plans for the next 12 months are. We just acquired the IP portfolio, which has significantly changed. Our -- changing our plans as to how we want to achieve. So we need some time to kind of work through what does it mean for us from a numbers perspective, from a milestone perspective and will report back to you in the next few months or so.

That -- explicitly, we haven't spoken to any of our shareholders yet about raising capital at all. We are, as Amit said, working hard now. So we have the IP portfolio on our planning for how the lead between our technology in the market, and how we will progress that, and which partners we will work alongside. So we'll come back to -- this is a phase that we're entering now, we'll come back and update our shareholders on the plan that we adopt.

And if I can also add, right, like in terms of support from institutional shareholders, the best measure is, if they continue to hold their shares, that they came in at the time of IPO. So as far as I'm aware, none of the shareholders have sold any of the shares so far, plus some of our large institutions have continued to acquire some shares through the last 12 or 18 months as well, which is kind of -- from our perspective, that's a good solid support from them.

And the shares that the CEO is acquiring...

Yes. And John has been acquiring shares progressively as well.

And I should say, there was one question about directors when they can acquire shares or not. Some of us are part of what's called the concert party. So myself included, so if I were to buy 1 extra share, I would have to launch the formal takeover bid. So the fact that I haven't bought, it's not at all a sign that I don't believe in the company. It's just I haven't got enough cash to take over.

The next question we've got here, after the 12-month research refinement period and the subsequent validation of Endure towards lead acid applications, how confident are you the industry will be willing to adopt the battery technology? And the second part, will the validation period of the battery being concert with any industry players similar to what is occurring at Acciona?

Yes. I'll take the question. So firstly, research is research. So in research, you have risk. You have technical risk, you have competitive risk, you have market risk. On the assumption that we are able to achieve the research targets that we've got, we'll have a compelling proposition. That's the goal of doing the research. Now I did say that I have had a big -- a lot of experience with the lead acid ecosystem and the manufacturers in the lead acid ecosystem. There are other competitive technologies out there. So the market is always developing. But if we can get our zinc-bromide technology to achieve those extra hurdles, that we said before, the ability to operate ad hoc, with strong control of dendrites, the ability to sit to top charge and dendrite management and lower cost and lower impedance. So currently all of which is in our R&D program, then we'll position the technology as a really compelling proposition in those markets. So that makes me confident that we will be doing the research towards those issues.

That's great. Next one we've got here is, what market segment target are you looking at with batteries which are produced in the lead acid battery factory?

So first of all, I think we have a super-compelling proposition once we've got those research goals on any activity in the lead acid industry that needs high-power discharge. And frankly, that's the bulk of the industry today, so the largest parts of those markets. So we actually see that, not in the face of the lead acid manufacturers, we want to work with the lead acid manufacturers, we want to work with the lead acid ecosystem as an extension for the markets that they service, and that will be the approach that we take when we go to market.

That's great. Next question we've got here is, will it be possible for Gelion to build a mega battery for use in place of the presently favored lithium-ion type at very large solar energy units such as the one in South Australia?

Yes. In fact, down that path, we're probably going to be taking the lithium sulfur. So the -- using just the graphitic anode on the path combining our sulfur technology with just a graphitic anode, then what we do is, we make a cell, which would be very suitable for the application that you describe that will be a very low cost cell and very safe cell. And that's what that particular part of the market demands. That market today is a lithium market, the majority of that market is a lithium market. So we think that of our 2 technologies, for that particular use case, we will target lithium sulfur graphitic anode.

Fantastic. Right. The next question we've got here is, given that Tesla is the EV leader and moving towards their batteries being 4,680 cylinder format, can the lithium technology be deployed in 4,680 and will Gelion focus on this format?

That's a very direct and technical question. I can tell you that I'm doing this call from London. On my way to London, I came through Singapore. Why is that relevant? Whilst in Singapore, I was talking with influential people from the industry and trying to understand the market trends. It's actually a bifurcation at the moment in the automotive electrical vehicle market. On one vector, people are going towards high performance, and that's where we're going with our lithium silicon sulfur and our lithium metal anode sulfur technology. There's another vector, and those 2 vectors -- that first vector tends to be happening in North America. The second vector is one towards low cost. And on that second vector, that's where [indiscernible] is going. So the most direct answer to your question is, yes, we can. With time, direct at the specific 4,680. In the first instance, we'll be targeting a [indiscernible]. Next question?

Fantastic. You've got there ahead of me, John. I'll read it anyway. Why will you succeed whilst a company the size of Johnson Matthey decided to quit?

I don't think Johnson Matthey quit. Johnson Matthey made a decision about where they wanted to focus. Johnson Matthey is an extraordinary catalytic technology company. It's a very successful company doing that work. And if you just look at the annual report on their website, you'll see that where they're doubling down is in what they're doing well. Their technology and the technology combines with our own is very important in the battery and energy storage industry. So if I was Johnson Matthey and I had that technology, then I'd be facing a really tough decision. Do I want to go all-in on energy storage because you're going to have to go all-in to compete with the giants in energy storage, the LGs, CATLs and so on. And it's a little bit outside of where Johnson Matthey is all-in at the moment. And obviously, they have decided to double down on the area that they are strong today, which is a very sound business decision. So we're little Gelion, and how can we succeed? Well, obviously, as little Gelion, a little, nimble Gelion, we have opportunity to enter the supply chain in different ways and with different objectives than what Johnson Matthey -- with the type of approach of Johnson Matthey might try to follow. And we've got some pretty ambitious ideas at the moment about how we're going to pull that off and what we're going to do. So the strict answer is, technically, if you look at just from a technology point of view, Johnson Matthey and the science team at Johnson Matthey did an incredible job. They were at the forefront of the industry right there. So there was never -- I don't think there's a question from the Johnson Matthey side that they were able to deliver the technology. They proved they could deliver the technology. I think it's just a commercial decision by their leadership about whether that was the right commercial direction for them. So they certainly had the capability to deliver technology and showed that. Now as stewards of that technology, with our team, we believe we can continue that journey and deliver the technology. No question on that, that there was no technological reason that it could be sound. And we've got all of those different levers that we can use as smaller and more nimble company to actually commercialize it to great benefit of our shareholders.

That's great. Thank you very much indeed. Next one I've got here. At the last update, the directors indicated there'd be a significant effort to raise awareness with investment institutions about Gelion's plans and technology to lift the share price. What's been done to raise awareness about Gelion? And why has there been no significant movement in the share price? And is the company significantly undervalued? What's the team doing to address this? So a fair few questions in one there for you.

So first off, we are doing a lot more to raise awareness about Gelion. And you're right, we -- I think, it's like a snowball going downhill when you start to gather momentum. I hope that the shareholders on the call have seen there has been progression in the information on the progress that we we're making. Now, as I said earlier in this presentation, we've reached this milestone in our company where we've got the technology and IP and all that sort of locked away. It is important for us not just from the perspective of the share market, but it's also very important to us from the perspective of the commercial negotiations that we want to engage in the profile Gelion continues to be lifted. So that remains a goal. We will continue to push on that because we want to be seen and treated with respect in the industry with where we believe we stand in terms of the significance of this company [indiscernible].

Great. Next we've got here is, will a Gelion battery actually have a place in the multitude of homes with solar panels looking for energy storage at a reasonable price? How would it compare with the Tesla Powerwall and the new Enphase IQ5?

Okay. So just to go back to the last question before I do that. From my perspective, I was at [indiscernible] and I saw this as an opportunity at this point in time. So moving on to the second question here. Will we have a place in the multitude of homes with solar panels? Yes. Yes, we will. How would it compare with the Tesla Powerwall and the new Enphase IQ5? They are end-use products that would use cells, and I believe that Gelion's path into products like that is likely to begin to be by going in earlier in the supply chain. And we would like to think that in the fullness of time, if we can secure what we -- the position that we are targeting for our lithium sulfur that it will be adopted into many different products in the world in those market sectors.

That's great. And we've got a few questions now. Sort of moving on to zinc-bromide. So what are some examples of application, the high discharge sector of the lead acid market that Gelion's zinc-bromide solution will be relevant for? And what proportion of the overall lead acid market does high discharge constitute?

A very large percentage of the lead acid market, and it services sectors like, for example, the critical power systems that back up the Internet or telecom services. There's 2 aspects to think about here. Our energy density is roughly the same as a lead acid battery within a [indiscernible] differences in gravimetric and volumetric energy density. But because we can use 100% of stated charge and because we have this advantage where we actually get more out during a high power discharge, that means both that we can pack more energy into a smaller space, and we can do it at a lower cost. So think about those reserve power applications. The only thing I'll caveat that with just to be reasonable is that there are other technologies that will also be trying to break in there like sodium-ion as well. So we not only have to benchmark ourselves against lead acid, but we have to be -- to gain real success for our shareholders, we have to benchmark and speak to attain performance goals that benchmark against the new introducing technologies as well. That's where we'll be going.

But the speed of discharge is higher for us than for sodium-ion.

Yes. It's a great [indiscernible] to take zinc-bromide into those applications.

Great. Next one we've got here. With the zinc-bromide battery, is the research to high-speed rating and reducing dendrite speculative or in an advanced stage of development?

So our zinc-bromide cells today can handle high-speed discharge. So we -- if we do a high-speed charge, we will develop or have any [indiscernible] dendrites. So people had thought in the past that this has been symmetric. When we're doing things like reserve power, the charge is actually slow because what you do in reserve power is -- when there's a power failure, you dump energy into the power failure quickly while you start a generator. And then the generator runs and the grid comes back on and you've got plenty time to charge after. So you don't have to force a high-speed charge into the technology. I guess, from a market perspective, we hadn't in the past made that relationship that the application could be asymmetric. You can handle the fast discharge, which we can do today and a slow charge. The second part of the question was pertaining to our work on dendrite control. Our dendrite control -- the advanced dendrite control we want to do is the research project. We're pretty excited because it can open up a whole lot of opportunities for Gelion, if we pull off that research project. And we've got a great part of our team. We have great team members on the lithium sulfur side, but we also have great team members on our zinc-bromide side. These are phenomenal scientists, and we're very excited by the challenge that we set ourselves on the research side. So if we pull that off, it's going to be really important...

But the slow charge, fast discharge is not speculative. That's proven.

That's proven. We do that today.

I think we time for one more question. We've just gone over the hour. Is there a risk that you think bromide does not have a market advantage, if lith is successful?

I don't think that's going to be a real problem for Gelion. I mean, to be fair, I anticipate we can get there with both technologies. But if we make one, either of our technology, the leader in the ecosystem -- if we achieve our goals, it's going to be a great outcome for our shareholders.

But there's always the advantage of the zinc-bromide system in terms of temperature. So zinc-bromide will always have a very large temperature window and will be very robust in terms of operating down to 0 state of charge, and they -- that is now not possible for lithium-based technologies, which have to be managed more carefully in terms of the discharging profiles and the environmental considerations in terms of heat. So therefore, those advantages in the zinc-bromide stay, and they're pretty unique to zinc-bromide. So the cannibalization of one with the other is not really going to happen.

So there's a lot to be done. A lot being done. There's always risk in everything you do, but you go out and do the best for the shareholders.

That's fantastic. I think you've covered a lot of those questions you can. Of course, any further questions that come through, the team will review all questions and publish responses where appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. John, I know you did have a quick conclusion, but any final just words before we redirect the attendees to give you some feedback, which I know you'll greatly appreciate?

No. Just grateful to everybody out there for your support of Gelion. There's probably some of our team on the line, if they are, thanks for all the hard work that everybody has put into making it happen. Your on the right ship here in Gelion. There's risk in everything, but well, the prospects if we pull off the ambitious plan that we've got is [indiscernible]. Thank you.

That's fantastic. Thank you all for updating investors today. If I please ask investors not to close the session, you'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback so the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I know it's greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at Gelion Plc, I would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good morning to you.