RocketDNA Ltd. ($RKT)

Earnings Call Transcript · May 1, 2026

ASX AU Information Technology Electronic Equipment, Instruments and Components Earnings Calls 41 min

Highlights from the call

In the March 2026 quarter, RocketDNA Ltd. (RKT:AU) reported revenue of $2.5 million, consistent with the previous quarter, but highlighted a significant 13% increase in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Management emphasized that this quarter marked an inflection point for the company, driven by strong demand from Tier 1 mining customers and the successful deployment of their Skylink operating system. The company also indicated a positive operating cash flow outlook, reinforcing their growth trajectory and operational efficiency.

Main topics

  • Monthly Recurring Revenue Growth: RocketDNA reported a 13% increase in monthly recurring revenue, indicating strong demand and customer engagement. CEO Christopher Clark stated, "the recurring services, that operating leverage really strengthens in the business."
  • Skylink Operating System Launch: The launch of Skylink, described as the 'Uber for drone,' is expected to enhance operational efficiency and customer engagement. Clark noted that Skylink is driving up usage and prompting customers to order more systems, stating, "customers can clearly see that they're sort of hitting those limits in terms of what the drone can physically actually do in a day."
  • Positive Operating Cash Flow: Management highlighted a positive operating cash flow outlook, attributed to two consecutive strong revenue quarters. Clark mentioned, "this is really about that delivery and the overall xBot solutions recurring revenue, which has effectively grown about 73% quarter-on-quarter."
  • Customer Expansion and Use Cases: RocketDNA is expanding its customer base and use cases beyond mining, with ongoing trials in agriculture and security sectors. Clark stated, "we're starting to see a lot of new verticals on the engineering and security and lots of other spaces as well."
  • BHP Contract Update: The BHP WA Iron Ore contract trial was ceased due to site-specific decisions rather than performance issues with RocketDNA. Clark noted, "the relationship is still there. We're continually chatting to them, and we're in active discussions on finding alternative sites."

Key metrics mentioned

  • Revenue: $2.5M (vs $2.5M last quarter, inline)
  • Monthly Recurring Revenue Growth: 13% (quarter-on-quarter increase, positive trend)
  • Operating Cash Flow: positive (sustained positive cash flow from operations, strong outlook)
  • Recurring Revenue Growth: 73% (quarter-on-quarter growth, significant increase)
  • Customer Base Expansion: multiple new contracts (ongoing growth in customer engagements)
  • Deployment of Skylink: increased usage (driving demand for additional systems)

RocketDNA's strong quarterly performance and positive outlook on recurring revenue growth position it favorably for future investment. Key catalysts include the successful deployment of Skylink and ongoing customer expansion, while risks include potential contract losses and operational scaling challenges. Investors should monitor the company's ability to maintain growth momentum and expand into new verticals.

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

Operator
#1

Good morning, everyone, and thanks again for joining us. My name is Mark Flynn, and I'm the Investor Relations for RocketDNA. Today's webinar will cover the RocketDNA's March 2026 quarterly results, which we released to the ASX earlier this week. And in quick context, a lot of new investors and interested parties listening today with some great response to the webinar. So RocketDNA is an ASX listed autonomous drone platform serving Tier 1 mining customers across Australia and Africa. The business runs an integrated stack of proprietary xBot hardware, the amazing Skylink fleet operating system and the SiteTube data platform. Our customers include Rio Tinto, BHP Mitsubishi Alliance, Sibanye, Glencore and also Norton Gold Fields. As we've stated a couple of times, the March quarter has been very much an inflection point for the business. I'll now hand over to Chris Clark, our MD and CEO, to walk through the quarter in detail. And after Chris' presentation, we'll open to Q&A. You can submit your questions any time through the chat, and I have also received from prior. So please send them through if you've got any questions. But over to you, Chris.

Christopher Clark

Executives
#2

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Inflection point is definitely the key theme for this quarter as well. And I think from a Rocket's point of view, we've done a really, really great job and very excited to chat to all of you today. A little bit about us, and thanks, Mark, for the intro as well. But we're a 15-year-old company, which recently focused on towards autonomous drone systems and the data delivery behind that with our focus on Tier 1 mining customers and other verticals as well. The real big play for this business is our recurring revenue model. Everything that we do and focus on is really around that monthly recurring annualized billing, which has got a hardware, software and services led to it. So really a hybrid model, global reach and really a growing customer base and demand for the technology that we're deploying. From a company snapshot point of view, just a little around about the $27 million market cap sort of mark, plenty of cash in the bank, and really to really kind of finance the growth story that Rocket is today. We've got a really strong collection of very supportive shareholders behind us who really believe in this specific story and what we're looking to achieve and where we are taking this company as well. So yes, we're really tough to have everybody on board. From the financial highlights, point of view and really kind of comparing over the last couple of quarters as well. We had a -- we hit the sort of the $2.5 million around about the revenue mark for the quarter similar to the last quarter as well. What has increased a notable difference is the monthly recurring revenue portion, really up 13% since sort of last month when we put out this presentation as well. And when we kind of look at these metrics from a financial sort of perspective, when we're looking at putting out a financial M&R and actually, the bit of the good news really this quarter is a positive operating cash flow outlook is really a testament to the amount of that hard work that we've put in. We had really a lot of good contracts that came in towards the end of last year. All of that work has now been deployed and is up and running and is executing well. We obviously invested money into the CapEx portion to realize that work and to invest and to build these assets, which are now fully operational and are revenue generating. Probably, again, to reiterate that the business model, how we make money is on 3 different ways. One is on the hardware, then the services and the flight or the data element. So we really kind a look at our business as a drone infrastructure business model. We're looking at the number of users -- well, let's say, we're looking at, first of all, the number of units that we're deploying out to site. So these are doing the automated data capture, doing the day-to-day sort of work. We're then also then secondly looking at the number of flights because you can have a fixed number of units, but RocketDNA is probably one of the largest in terms of operators who are in terms of the number of flights. There's really no one that beats us at this kind of level because the way that we're charging is really per flight or per flight hour. And that really is about collecting data, which is then used further down the pipeline, which is used to for customers to do their reporting or further analysis. On top of that, we've also got our own software platforms. As Mark sort of mentioned, we've got Skylink, which is our new one, which I'll chat a little bit more about, but SiteTube, which has been our continuous sort of visualization tool that the customers receive and analyze the data in. Both these products combined are seeing exceptional growth. This particular number at 470 really was at the end of March, but the number is probably nearly close to double that number, really where we're seeing now at sort of the end of April. So a lot of growth just in the user base and uptake of these systems, what we're seeing on-site. And I think what's really pertinent to highlight with that is that they all feed each other. The easier that you make it to deploy and for customers to consume this data, the more flights that they request and thus then the more hardware units that they order. So we're seeing not only expansion and growth across new customers and newer verticals, but also the organic growth internally within those existing customers who are ordering and planning for expansion of these systems within their own sites as well. To reiterate the highlights really for the quarter and a couple of announcements that we put out, the operating cash flow perspective, well, again, while we've invested a considerable amount of money in, obviously building the assets as well to really have got that perfect operating model now that's now returning a positive return was really great, something for the team to achieve. When you're building a new business or building a new product line, it's -- yes, there's one thing about getting those contracts. There's the second thing about delivering them. And third about -- is really about the operating model and about the consistency and the sustainability of that going forward. So there's a lot of moving parts. And when you're getting these kind of financial results, which deliver a positive return in a very short period of time, we're really quite chuffed as a business. So there's a lot of hard work that's gone into that, and we'll continue to tweak and sort of stretch that model as well as we go and where we see the demand coming from customers. But yes, it was a really great highlight from this previous quarter and continued growth on the last quarter as well. Skylink was a really big thing for us this month. I think the market probably and we'll set up a maybe a separate session to do a demo to some of our shareholders and investors as well to give a bit of insight into Skylink. But effectively, Skylink is our operating system and how we not only manage our assets and fleets, but how the customer interacts and submits requests and demands. Skylink also enables further autonomy and automation from not only people requesting drone flights, but also machinery and other kinds of applications as well. It's really the glue that brings everything together because what we're kind of seeing is that we've sort of had a Skylink, let's say, version 0 that we've been running up until now before sort of this version 1 release. And it's really -- if you think about it, it's really this Uber-style drone where you're getting Uber-style platform, apologies, because we're getting thousands and thousands of requests, sometimes them very ad hoc, some of them really on-demand emergency type style requests. And it's all about how you're managing your resources internally from the people to the assets, everything on-site, the weather, the daylight, there's a lot of factors that go into play when you're delivering this kind of service and solution on a consistent day-to-day basis. And I think Skylink is really going to become our secret sauce in the matter of how we pull this all together because anybody can go and deploy drone hardware and operate and fly the systems, but it's about how do you do this at scale? How do you look at the 100 drone systems? How do you look at a global single language or standardization for enterprise companies. And RocketDNA has just got years of experience on top of this, not only in understanding the data that needs to be output, but understanding the safety protocols of process, how do you make sure that drones and other airspace users are not crashing into one another, how do you segregate that airspace. So a lot of thought and consideration is then going into and really ticks all the boxes from a Tier 1 customer space as well to make sure that this happens. So it's about finding a balance of short-term deliverables and data needs and what customers need, but also giving those customers the confidence that they can look at these platforms and expand to 100-plus systems globally or within their operations as well. And that is truly achievable. It's on the tips of where people are seeing the technology and the uptake not only just from the number -- again, the number of hardware units that you're deploying or for the xBots, but actually really the variety of the users all the way not only just from surveying, which has been the typical users of this technology, but now we're seeing the geotechs, the geologists, mine -- even mine management, really needing these up-to-date critical reports, making sure that it's happening on a recurring basis, same time, same day, or every day and that it's happening. And it's a lot to really bring together. So Skylink for us is a massive big moat. This is something that we've really been working on for quite a while, and we're very excited to deploy. And as I mentioned, we'll look to create a separate presentation for that to show you what it's all about and how it looks. We finished up with the BMA deployment. So that's been complete and all pushed out. Obviously, a lot of questions around the sort of the 6 months of trial of that. The customer -- what I can say is the customer is exceptionally happy, and those conversations are ongoing. So we're pretty confident from our side that BMA is obviously going to continue with that. So the team have really done a lot of good work, and we're really ingested within their systems and their workflows. So it's been a really, really positive and strong project. And yes, we should have some further news on that soon. Other than that, we're continuing of the customer expansion, as mentioned, not only expanding horizontally into new customers and trying out a couple of new sectors and projects as well within the security and engineering space, but also growing within the customers themselves and deploying more and further systems. This is really kind of testament from Norton, who was actually one of our very first customers just after King of the Hills, who took one of our first systems and now they've procured to further systems as well. It really is as customers are realizing that they're reaching the capacity and these systems are doing amazing jobs, again, not only just automating workflows, but being a massive safety improvement. Some of the feedback that we're getting, less injuries, less need for people to go into these hazard working areas has been a really big attractive point of the systems and really just effect of the ease of use, customers just being able to request flights on demand, get that feedback and really kind of get their data without any hassle. We've also seen that with Sibanye, who is a security customer of ours back in South Africa as well. They're now expanding their base doing perimeter patrolling, nighttime patrols, and a lot of security work there as well. So the use cases are only growing even within the mining sector as well. Some of the highlights for those of you who may be new to RocketDNA, what really, really makes us different and quite unique from other sort of technology or other sort of drone companies as well is, number one, that is our focus on that recurring revenue model. Again, to reiterate the 3 blended revenue streams of the data, the services and the hardware that will come through into one. On top of that, really a strong demand and tail growth. The industry, not only just in mining, but what we're seeing in governmental sectors, agriculture, other engineering sort of customers as well, everyone is really now sort of cottoned on to actually the benefits that this technology can provide, especially considering complex or very remote or very large spaces like Australia, where it just takes a long time to get to places and some assets are very far away, and -- but they need to be continuously monitored. So a lot of strong benefit there. The -- I've been in the business since inception as well. Evan, who's our Technical Director based with us in Perth is also when we bought the Arvista business a couple of years ago, he's still in the business and heavily invested within it as well. So what you can definitely guarantee from all of us is that we've been through the cycles. We've seen the original sort of drone game. We're now identifying the opportunities and the cycles that's happening with the autonomous drone or drone in the box sort of solutions as well. So I think what the difference really is here is that we're taking all the experience that we've learned over those 15 years and really kind of putting into this new wave of opportunity that we're seeing and really going full on. I think we're -- from a management team, there's a lot of energy and a lot of excitement to realizing this true potential again because drones are not going anywhere. They're only getting more embedded, especially from a commercial application. And lastly, one of our biggest sort of moats and strength is really around the regulations and approvals. We've been conducting beyond visual line of sight operations for plus 10-odd years now. We've got approvals to operate across multiple jurisdictions and countries and partnerships in other areas as well. So really, the ability now combined with low orbiting satellite connectivity allows you to deploy these systems pretty much anywhere. And that's really the big play here is really to kind of show these customers that you can start off small, 1 or 2 go for a specific application or use case that you want to target. But really, the goal here is to standardize across all the operations globally and that this data is just automatically feeding into their software processing and analytics tools or any other kind of third-party applications that they need. So it's having the ability to not only deploy and scale, but that integration and software engineering piece is really what also makes us very unique and very different from other players. Some of the drivers, particularly in the mining industry and what we're continuing to keep seeing, and I think it's just exuberated by the current conflict in Iran is that operational complexity is only increasing. Even with all the diesel restrictions, people are not allowed to travel or there's been travel bans placed on certain organizations. Camps are really a problem in terms of the availability of space. It's just -- everything is just becoming more and more complex, yet the pricing keeps increasing. So the incentive to mine and to explore and to get out to these foreign areas is really driving a big demand and need from a lot of our customers. So we're seeing it all the way from gold -- from Tier 3 gold mining companies now. Pretty much it was obviously a very big focus on Tier 1s and 2s, but we're even seeing the Tier 3s now starting to really kind of knock on our doors and saying, how do we do more with less. And it's really about taking the customer through that process and understanding exactly what they want to achieve and what the data output is and when they need it and automating that for them. So yes, massive big driving forces there. So to kind of bring our whole xBot sort of solution together, and I've sort of will start if we go from right to left. What -- where the demand is coming and where the data needs are is we're looking at how we connect the customers without reinventing the wheel, how we connect the customers to their data and to make -- help them allow them to make decisions a lot -- better decisions a lot quicker. A lot of the customers might already have their own tools, they got their own equipment on site or they already got consultants that they're working with. And we're really about providing the platform, not again, not just only the hardware, but the software layer as well that connects all of these together that allows people to make those decisions. So we're -- as a RocketDNA, we're investing in building out the capacity in how we deploy and where we get there, but then really kind of taking this consultative approach in identifying all the stakeholders, where all the endpoints that the data needs to go and then focusing on that integration piece. So you've really got a seamless end-to-end workflow, whether you're just doing a simple integration or where you're doing a complex one and feeding into an enterprise maintenance system. So for example, if you find a border leak or an oil leak as well that, that feeds directly into the SAP enterprise asset management systems and creates maintenance orders or were you just doing a simple object detection and reporting scheme or just providing continuous surveying photogrammetry data out of the systems. Every customer is unique. Every site is unique. And so you really need to take that consultative approach and kind of bring all the pieces of the puzzle together for them to deliver into that particular user's hands. And what we started to see was and is, again, not only just starting on the survey department, but actually the growing number of tools being used by mining planning, engineering, operations, geology, environmental teams they've all now got their own tools now. It used to really kind of be software was kind of left up to the accountants or the surveyors. But now all these new tools have come in and they're all relying on continuous feeds of drone data to make that happen. And that's what we're all focused on. So we've got a couple of projects and on the go as well and how we're integrating with third-party software suites to really make the process a lot simpler and quicker for them. As earlier sort of mentioned, Skylink is our operating system for the deployment. We -- like I say, where we sort of -- from a customer endpoint, where the need sort of arise was as customers were sort of getting to the 5 sort of units, really, number one, the safety factors sort of coming up saying, how do we make sure that these drones are not crashing into each other? How do we segregate them? How do we make sure that the airspace and the areas and not flying over people in certain areas? How do we manage that? How do we know what assets do we have, what batteries, when do they need to be changed? How does it all work and how does it all come together? And that was really the first sort of trigger for Skylink. On top of that, we really identified the opportunity to have an operator-agnostic platform where even a customer can set up their own drone teams internally and really use it as a single source where all the requests can go into and all the data that's being collected can be managed and organized or rescheduled from a fleet management and fleet maintenance and data request capabilities as well. So that was really our sort of initial sort of drivers. What we started to see is a really positive feedback. And for every customer that we've now deployed, we started off with one Tier 1 customer and now we begin rolling out to another 2 and 3 others. And with the goal is really in the next sort of month to have all our customers over onto our new version of Skylink. But what we saw in the very first ones was, number one, the customers love the transparency and accountability because they could really understand and plan. But number two, what it actually ended up doing was driving the right questions because now customers understand if you only deploy 1 or 2 systems, you can only achieve so many flights in a day with the available amount of daylight hours. And so now it's actually driving customers towards those -- the real positive conversations, which is I need more units on site. We need to get more flying because the requests are only coming in thick and fast. And yes, we need more data. So it's really an insatiable demand and need. And again, bringing this all together, it's been quite an art form. Again, not just on the software and the deployment and the hardware sort of side, but it's -- yes, we really feel like we've nailed the recipe and really looking forward to seeing how this next quarter pans out from a flight demand perspective. I'll go through all of this. We've actually released this. You'll see this on our website as well, this presentation. So continuous growth quarter-on-quarter as well. Cash receipts continue to grow. So a lot of sort of the green shoots coming through. And that really again kind of speaks to the team where as these systems come in, it's not -- they're not -- some of the components are off the shelf, but a lot of it's got to be assembled and put together. But it's really about getting it to site deployed and start flying is when you start earning the money. Priorities for the rest of -- for the year, and I guess this is sort of our guiding North Star for 2026. It's really about the land and expand. We're being very aggressive in how we make sure that we land the market now and ensure that we're signing up and focusing on that mining space because we feel that's the immediate sort of demand and need for this kind of technology. So we're going all in, in making sure that we really kind of step up that market as much as we can, while at the same time, increasing our points of difference. It's really a big thing to consider again because anyone can go and sometimes of the conversation is how do you sometimes we make it look too easy and the customers think, could I do this myself? And really the way that you create that point of difference is really through the software and the services part of it. Because this is all that we do, and this is what we focus on, we've become really efficient and really smart about how we integrate and how we just really make it just really easy to provide these kinds of solutions as well. Talking about capacity enhancement as well. This is really about using our regulatory understandings and reach to sort of supplement what we're already doing, but really operating multiple drones at the same time to increase our overall production capacity and our overall reach across Australia and the world as well. We've had conversations from even some of our existing customers based in Australia for the international operations to really start looking at how do we deploy there and what are the conversations involved. So we're really focused on meet going where the customers would like us to go and what they need and building up the capacity to match that. Saying this, mining has always been our primary focus on where we see the short-term demand. We're starting to see a lot of new verticals on the engineering and security and lots of other spaces as well. There's been a lot of other sort of enhancements really within the space. They are obviously a lot more cost conscious in some of these other sectors as well. So it's really about building and finding a solution that works well for them that adds and delivers value. But continuous trials that are ongoing and a lot of great feedback that we're receiving there as well. So how we scale that is the next steps. And on the final sort of point there being really focused on continuous R&D effect. Again, we view hardware is important, but it's not the biggest differentiator because we feel that a lot of people could be able to compete on the hardware front. How we unlock SiteTube and Skylink within our customers' organizations becomes the stickiness, becomes the glue, because once that's in, it doesn't matter what hardware, what version -- new versions ever come out, the software stays the same. And so it's about following that journey with the customer, being really embedded and entrenched in their systems and then scaling with them globally. And probably to sort of end off, we look at really just the local market from an Australian perspective, really in the sort of annualized recurring revenue from the mining sector really around about the $300 million sort of mark. This can be extrapolated into utilities around about the $500 million and public safety within $33 million. We're just seeing more and more use cases, more and more uptake, more trials, more questions being asked about how certain tasks or even roles can be fully automated within the space, whether that be by drones or robot dogs, there's -- the scope is pretty endless. But it's really about, again, doing more with less. How do we reallocate our resources? How do we pull people out of dangerous areas? And how do we really build this at scale so that it becomes a -- you're making additional revenue on every single application or every request or every flight that comes through. So it's about playing for the long game, but satisfying the short-term needs and pain points for our customers right now. That's all from my side. Thanks, Mark.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#3

Thanks, Chris. A couple of questions coming through now, more on the financials initially. So the positive operating cash flow, the sustainability of that operating cash flow from here?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#4

Yes. It's a great question, Mark. So look, we've had 2 consecutive strong revenue quarters that have really kind of driven this result. So this is really about that delivery and the overall xBot solutions recurring revenue, which has effectively grown about 73% quarter-on-quarter. Our focus has always been on that monthly recurring revenue figure now. So as that continues to scale and new contracts sort of start ramping up through into this quarter as well. So bringing on, as I sort of mentioned, Sibanye and now Norton as well, we're starting to see that recurring services, that operating leverage really strengthens in the business. So yes, I think the trajectory really speaks for itself.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#5

And the monthly revenue growth, what is driving that revenue growth, that monthly recurring revenue growth?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#6

Yes. It's essentially coming from 3 places. It's the new units that are being commissioned that are reaching their full sort of operating cadence across sites like BMA, Norton and African operations as well. We're getting deeper penetration on these existing sites. So the customers are now running much higher flight frequencies. They're expanding their use cases. And really, that's being driven by the overall adoption of SiteTube and Skylink within that as well. So we're starting to track those -- that sort of requirements through there. So it adds just more recurring revenue per site beyond just the hardware lease. What we're really excited to see is that these new April additions of Norton, which are all going to be commencing more paid will just continue to support the momentum through this quarter.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#7

A question from Baxter Kirk from Bell Potter has come through. It's quite a detailed one, but I would summarize it with how does Skylink make money?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#8

Yes. I would say, Skylink is the Uber for drone. So right now, Skylink is -- the way we've given Skylink to all our customers because it makes our lives easier and reduces our cost, increases our efficiency for number one. So it's really in our interest right now for our customers to give it them at no particular cost. What it is doing is that it's driving up usage and the units that we have deployed are reaching capacity, so customers are ordering more systems, which Skylink is making obvious to them. Before the customers were just sending through requests, we were trying to complete as many of them as we can. And the customers were unsure where the constraints were, was a capacity thing on the pilot side or lighting side or weather, where would it be? So now through Skylink customers can clearly see that they're sort of hitting those limits in terms of what the drone can physically actually do in a day, and they actually need to be considering additional units. Saying that, though, what -- the way that we built the system is to allow for multiple different flight types or mission types, which have different rates. So the plumbing is all there to allow us to charge different rates for different applications, different sites. And I think that will really come as a Phase 2. So our first sort of goal, very similar to SiteTube is get it embedded, get it in, see where the usage is coming from and then start testing and playing with the commercial models within that to allow us to see where we can not only add value, but where we can then charge and recover for that value as well.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#9

I'm going to join 2 questions together. So do you see a scenario where customer systems will always coexist with XBots? Or does it make more sense for the customer to replace an entire fleet with its own drones? And then the pipeline, where we've obviously given a bit of drones that have out deployed now. There's some in the pipeline. Can you go further on that pipeline out further into the year?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#10

Yes. Look, the way that we built Skylink is that customers can bring their own drones onto the platform as well. So we're hedging our bets there to make sure that it's attractable to a broad range of customers and where they're thinking for their strategy. If you kind of look at mining in Tier 1, a lot of these companies up until now have been wanting to fly their own drones and kind of do it themselves. Now the sort of the drone in the box concept has sort of shake them up and they're not sure what they want to go. What Skylink does is kind of brings that all together. And if they want to operate their own fleet or allow us to operate it, that can all be done via the Skylink operating system. So there's a way to make multiple money on whichever way the customer decides to go and what they want to do. That obviously means that they would have to go do all their own regulatory approvals and go get all -- build up the capacity in the fleet and get all those remote pilots to be able to do that. I think there are very few customers that can and would probably do that. So really, the opportunity right now for us is to make this easy to buy, make it just simple, make it pay-per-use consumption-driven model and then just negotiate on a large SLA level. Talking about the pipeline, I think that's the -- a lot of the good work that the team has put in. We've got a lot of units currently in production for particular orders or trials that are going on at the moment. So yes, it's really the pipeline is sort of broken up to kind of show where sort of the demand and what's coming and the projects that we're working at the moment and how those are -- we sort of expect them in the short-term to start being revenue producing as well.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#11

One that we've covered before, but obviously, for us, operational scaling and obviously, the remote operating center, pilot to drone ratios, can you give us an update on pilot to drone ratios for those current deployments and how we would scale that up for larger orders?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#12

Yes. No, it's a great question. So when you're looking at the autonomy, so I think what's important is from a CASA regulatory point of view, you currently have a remote operator to every drone that's flying. So you've got a human in the loop. Are they physically flying it? No. Do they take manual control when there's an emergency? Yes, that they fly. But ultimately, what you got out of the, let's say, the mission mix is that you have a lot of missions that are automated. You kind of preprogram the flight routes in and you don't really need anyone flying that. You just need someone monitoring it. Typically, when you're getting into security or emergency response, that's when people need to get involved. On top of that would just be if there's airspace or any other kind of confliction that needs to be handled manually, that's what they human the loop for. So that's really from a CASA baseline perspective. RocketDNA is currently trialing 4:1 on a particular customer site. That allows us to improve our efficiencies and cost ratios. So while we're still charging per sort of flight hour, we only have a single cost of a single pilot. So again, that's what just builds makes us different, keeps building our moat, we keep pushing. Where do we see this going? Well, and I'll give you a bit of an indication. If you look at the recent FAA, they've just put out a new Part 108 for commentary. And that's -- they've started to bring in new terminology instead of remote operators, they're now also adding on remote supervisors. So the thinking really is and it's the way that the world is going to go is that you effectively will never have an actual physical pilot flying these. You'll just have a one single supervisor in a remote ops center monitoring 20, 50, hundreds of these systems. So the efficiency is only going to get better and better as this goes along and Rocket really being one of the leading providers in this kind of technology solutions is we'll continue to keep engaging with the regulators on this to keep pushing it beyond even the 1:4 as well. So yes, watch this space.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#13

Thanks, Chris. A number of questions through earlier after the quarterly in regards to the BHP WA Iron Ore contract, probably just cover why that trial was ceased.

Christopher Clark

Executives
#14

Yes. Yes. Look, it was a site-specific decision. It was nothing that was directed at anything that Rocket did or didn't do. I think there's been probably without going too much detail, there's obviously been a lot in the news recently. And I think you'll probably see with BHP and some of their customers who sort of stopped buying a lot of their product as well for a very long time. And so that was where this specific site where we're going to sort of go and deploy to and why it didn't proceed. So it was never anything that we just didn't get a chance to get out there. It was really the customer -- it was a constraint on their side. And so look, the relationship is still there. We're continually chatting to them, and we're in active discussions on finding alternative sites. I think also on top of that, what's important to note is that we've got deployments at their copper and coal sectors as well. So they're very supportive. They know us. We're deploying at that full sort of operating cadence as well. And those sites are sort of contributing towards a recurring revenue at the full contract level. So yes, we'll keep going at it, and we'll have another crack where we can.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#15

Fantastic. A lot of focus on mining and especially the last few quarters. What's the strategy beyond the mining and what's ahead of us?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#16

Yes. Mining has and still is our current short-term core focus where there is a strategic and customer-driven requirement, we're building those early foundations. So we've got a unit out doing an agricultural trial, doing cow counting scenarios as well. We've got security and infrastructure trials as well. So -- and maybe just to give an example, like Glencore, we've got a security deployment there at the moment, which is currently expanding, and this is within an existing customer base. So yes, it's really about being led and again, that consultative approach with the customer saying, here, we've got this technology, you can adapt it to many different applications and use cases. We're at a particular price point, the technology is getting and the solution is getting more cost efficient over time, but only certain kinds of customers maybe can afford it at this particular sort of level. So it's really about finding a balance, understanding the agriculture sectors are really needing very low-cost solutions. I don't think we are fully there yet without maybe really big commercial clients taking very big strategic decisions behind that to trial and test it. But look, we continue watching the space. We keep engaging. We're driving the efficiency up and thus the cost down. So I think it's just going to be a matter of time before these systems are deployed beyond mining, which is probably going to be a bigger deployment than mining in a lot of these other sectors.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#17

Thanks, Chris. Probably last one, just in the interest of time. So what's the June quarter look like now for Chris and RocketDNA?

Christopher Clark

Executives
#18

Yes. Thanks, Mark. So I think you want to -- what you want to keep your eye sort of on is the ramp-up and the deployment of what we really currently have in the pipeline. So we keep doing the good work, Sibanye, Norton, Glencore, rolling out the Skylink and SiteTube, driving up the usage and the use cases. Overall, that real progression of additional opportunities. And yes, our goal really remains to focus and build that recurring revenue base that grows month-on-month.

Mark Flynn

Executives
#19

Excellent. Thank you, Chris. Everyone, that covers the formal Q&A. If there's anything we didn't get to -- there's a couple of questions we didn't get to, I'll look to follow up directly, but you can always reach us at [email protected]. Chris will be running some lots of one-on-one investor meetings through May. So if you like any time with Chris, please reach out to me, and we'll look forward to speaking to you again. But as always, thanks for your time and continued support of RocketDNA, and thanks very much, Chris, and a great job.

Christopher Clark

Executives
#20

Thanks, all. You're well. Ciao.

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