Velo3D, Inc. ($VELO)

Greetings, and welcome to the Velo3D Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, James Carbonara, Hayden Investor Relations. Thank you, James. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon. and welcome to Velo3D's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. Before we begin, please note that today's call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please refer to our press release issued earlier today as well as our filings with the SEC including our 2025 Form 10-K for a discussion of these risks. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures during the call. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found in today's press release which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. A replay of this call will also be available shortly after its conclusion. With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Arun Jeldi. Arun, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. 2025 was a defining year for Velo3D, a year where strategy, execution and market timing converged to unlock meaningful growth and position us at the center of next-generation manufacturing. We delivered double-digit revenue growth, driven by accelerating demand for our rapid production solutions and our unmatched large-format additive manufacturing capabilities. And importantly, we exited a year with powerful momentum. In the fourth quarter, we achieved record bookings and built a backlog of approximately $31 million, which we believe is a clear evidence that demand is not only strong but accelerating. This momentum gives us high confidence as we look ahead to 2026 and beyond. We believe that what's driving this growth is not just adoption. It's reliance. Our technology has become mission-critical. In defense, we reached a major milestone by becoming the first additive manufacturing vendor qualified under the U.S. Army's Ground Vehicle Systems Center initiative. This is a breakthrough moment not just for Velo3D, but for the broader adoption of additive manufacturing and defense supply chains. We deepened that relationship through a cooperative research and development agreement with DEVCOM, positioning us at the forefront of solving some of the most urgent challenges in the defense manufacturing, speed, resilience and scalability. We also secured a key Department of War contract supporting Project FORGE, enabling faster prototyping and qualification of components to eliminate bottlenecks in defense production. And importantly, we won a multiyear full-rate production contract with major defense prime contractor, a strong validation that our technology is moving beyond prototyping and into sustained high-volume production. On the commercial side, adoption is accelerating just as quickly. Our rapid production solutions are now being used by Intergalactic to manufacture advanced heat exchanger components for next-generation aviation platforms demonstrating how our technology scales seamlessly across industries with precision, repeatability and performance. But what truly differentiates Velo3D and where we see the next phase of value creation is the evolution of our business model beyond hardware. As we scale our installed base and expand production capacity Velo3D's well positioned to pursue opportunity in digital manufacturing data and analytics. This is a powerful shift. Every build, every part, every material input and every design iteration across our growing network of production, systems generates high-value data. With this expansion over time, we expect to build a connected ecosystems that could deliver real-time insights across materials, design optimization and process performance. Over time, we expect that this platform could enable customers to not only manufacture complex metal parts, but to continuously improve that. We see a future where engineers can design, simulate, validate, refined components in a closed-loop environment powered by live production data, accelerating innovation cycles and unlocking entirely new classes of metal applications. This is about moving from manufacturing parts to powering next-generation digital manufacturing intelligence. And importantly, we see potential to expand across industries from defense to aerospace to energy, which we believe could create an additional, additional revenue year on top of our production business. This is a key pillar of our long-term strategy and a significant driver of potential future value. Now stepping back into the broader market across defense and aerospace, we are seeing a structural shift. Customers are demanding faster, more localized and more resilient supply chains. Programs are no longer staying in development, they're scaling into production. They're doing so rapidly, we believe this creates a compounding demand effect. Programs that begin with a single system are quickly expiring to multiple systems. Sometimes within months, as volumes increase and new programs come online, demand just doesn't grow. It accelerates, based on the programs we have already won, and the trajectory we are seeing across our customer base, we developed a long-term capacity plan envisioning up to approximately 400 production systems over the next decade, subject to securing additional financing and continued growth programs. This is a demand-driven road map grounded in a real program, real customers and real scaling needs that we are seeing today. To capture this opportunity, we are moving decisively. We are developing a near-term expansion plan designed to significantly increase our production capacity. This includes scaling our manufacturing footprint and investing in automation to drive higher throughput while maintaining the exceptional quality required for mission-critical applications. And with demand accelerating, we expect to raise additional capital to move faster. Our approach to capital is disciplined and shareholder-focused. We are leveraging asset-backed financing as a core strategy. Using our production systems as collateral to fund growth with minimal dilution. We already demonstrated success with this model and expect to continue financing a significant portion of new systems through debt. In parallel, we are actively exploring potential government-backed financing program designed to support domestic manufacturing expansion, which offer highly attractive nondiluted capital. Any equity we raise will be targeted, focused on scaling our workforce and operational infrastructure. With the goal of timing dilution while enabling us to fully capitalize on the significant market opportunity. This is about scaling intelligently, efficiently and with strong returns in mind. Beyond organic growth, we also see meaningful opportunities to strengthen our ecosystem through strategic M&A particularly in areas like feedstock and metal powder, where vertical integration can drive both cost advantages and supply chain resilience. As we look ahead, we believe the story is clear. It appears we are in the intersection of two powerful forces, the reindustrialization of critical supply chains and the rapid adoption of additive manufacturing at scale. Velo3D is not just participating in this shift. We are helping lead it. 2025 was the foundation year where we proved the model, secured critical partnerships and build the momentum. 2026 and beyond is about positioning us to pursue sustained growth, expanding our footprint, building a category-defining digital manufacturing platform and delivering long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Bernie Chung to walk through our financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Arun, for letting me serve as the acting CFO during this exciting time at Velo3D. I'm pleased to have [ Jim Suva ], our incoming CFO, began in early April 2026. Fourth quarter revenue was $9.4 million, down 25% compared to $12.6 million in the year ago quarter. This decrease was driven primarily by our product mix and timing related to the fourth quarter government shutdown. We expect in 2026 to build upon each quarter to grow revenues. Gross margin for the fourth quarter was negative 73.6% compared to negative 3.5% in the year ago quarter and 3.2% in the prior quarter. As noted in our non-GAAP net loss table, we recorded a nonrecurring $7 million inventory obsolescence write-off to better position our current inventory levels for 2026 production. We expect margins to improve as RPS scales and new Sapphire XC systems are built to order. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter were $14.9 million, down from $20.6 million a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding $1.5 million of stock-based compensation, operating expenses were $13.3 million, again, down compared to $18.9 million in the prior year quarter, demonstrating continued cost discipline. GAAP net loss for the quarter was $21.9 million compared to a net loss of $21.3 million in the year ago quarter. Non-GAAP net loss for the quarter was $11.6 million, excluding stock-based compensation of $2.2 million compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $15 million in the year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2025 improved to negative $10 million compared to negative $11 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Turning to the full year results. Full year 2025 revenue was $46 million, up 12% compared to $41 million a year ago. Excluding the $5 million other revenue related to the 2024 licensing rights, the increase was 28% growth in revenue. This increase was driven primarily by growth in RPS printed parts and XC system sales over the prior year. Gross margin for the full year was negative 16.1% compared to negative 5.1% in the prior year. As noted in our non-GAAP net loss table, we recorded a nonroutine $7 million inventory obsolescence write-off to better position our current inventory levels for 2026 production. We expect margins to improve as RPS scales and new Sapphire XC systems are built to order. Operating expenses for the full year 2025 were $47.5 million, down from $76.8 million in the prior year. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding $7.5 million of stock-based compensation, operating expenses were $40 million, again, down substantially compared to $66.5 million in the prior year. GAAP net loss for 2025 was $71.4 million compared to a net loss of $69.9 million in 2024. Non-GAAP net loss for 2025 was $41.3 million compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $79.4 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2025 improved to negative $33.3 million compared to negative $58.5 million in 2024. As of December 31, 2025, we had a backlog of $31 million compared to $16 million at the end of 2024 and $21 million at the end of the previous quarter. This growth was driven in part by Q4 2025 bookings which were the largest quarterly bookings in company history, reflecting strong demand for our rapid production solutions and expanding adoption across defense and aerospace programs. Importantly, the composition of our backlog has shifted significantly towards RPS fueled by strong demand from both the space and defense sectors. On the balance sheet at year-end 2025, our cash and cash equivalents totaled $39 million, up from $1.2 million at the end of 2024. The increase was driven in large part by the $30 million private placement of common stock and a $10 million equipment loan, providing a strong financial foundation heading into 2026. We used a portion of this capital to reduce accounts payable from $18.5 million to $10.3 million, helping unlock our supply chain. In addition, in the first quarter of 2026, we converted and aggregated $15 million of debt into equity with $5 million of premium, reducing outstanding debt by roughly 60% to $10 million, further strengthening the balance sheet and reinforcing confidence in our capital market value. These actions position the company to efficiently scale operations and capture growing demand across our defense and aerospace markets. In summary, these milestones position Velo3D and capitalize on growing demand, scale production of high-value components and continued driving growth with a strengthened balance sheet, record backlog and accelerating adoption of RPS, we are well positioned to execute on our strategy and capture an increasing share of market opportunities. With that, I will turn the call back to Arun for a few remarks regarding our outlook for 2026. Thank you.

Thank you, Bernie. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect continued momentum as we scale our operations and capture growing demand across defense and commercial aerospace markets. For a full year, we anticipate revenue in the range of $60 million to $70 million, reflecting both ongoing adoption of RPS and expansion of our large format additive manufacturing capabilities. We expect sequential improvements in gross margins, with margins products projected to exceed 30% in the second half of 2026 as production scales and operational efficiencies are realized. Non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses are expected to be in the range of $45 million to $55 million, reflecting disciplined cost management while supporting strategic growth initiative. Capital expenditures are projected to be in the range of $40 million to $50 million to support expansion of production capacity and enhance process automation. Finally, we expect to achieve EBITDA positive in the second half of 2026. And as we noted earlier, our long-term capacity plan targets approximately 400 production systems over the next decade. And the investments we are making in 2026 in manufacturing infrastructure, supply chain optimization and workforce represent the critical first phase of that build-out. We expect to provide periodic updates on capacity milestones as we execute against this plan. Thank you all.

We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Jaeson Schmidt with Lake Street Capital Markets.

Just curious if you could share how much RPS revenue comprised in 2025? And then as we look at 2026, how should we think about that composition increasing, either exiting this year or for the full year.

So the RPS is 10% to 15% of -- for the first year and the rest is systems, but it will rapidly grow year after year, doubling that number as we projected in the previous presentations of ours. It will take about two to three years to fully overtake RPS as our main revenue because of the infrastructure build and also project maturity time lines. But this 2025 has proven the concept of how the demand has grown by -- if you see the backlog -- that tells you the story why it is the high backlog ever in the company's history.

Got you. That's really helpful. And then just looking at sort of the ramp of the printers this year, can you remind us how many printers you currently have? And then how should we think about that number growing to exiting this year? And relatedly, can you provide any update on the Midwest facility plans?

So we have currently about 15 printers on our floor and 140 printers in the field. Our own hosting of the printers for this year will be at the range of 40 plus. So -- and on the expansion plan, the Phase 1 expansion plan for next 100 machines will be done in California to reduce the operational cost at the early stages. And then the later stages, we will expand it to the later part of the country, depending on the customer demand on those parts. But this also gives us the team to build the time line to have more teams to execute the future in the next two years. So just to reiterate, we're expanding the first 100 printers of footprint in California just close to the present headquarters. This will help our operational efficiency and reduce the cost this year.

Okay. That makes sense. And then just the last one for me, and I'll jump back in the queue. Just curious if you could provide some additional color on the U.S. Army ground vehicle announcement, how we should be thinking about that potential size and the revenue opportunity?

So as we mentioned in the contract itself, this is a milestone-based contract and the potential will be -- I mean, total potential will be much more. But the first 12 months is qualification and whatever the number we mentioned in that will be considered as a revenue part pretty quickly. So those are the details I can give now.

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Lucid Capital Markets.

Congratulations on everything you accomplished in 2025. I wanted to ask about gross margin. It looks like gross margin was low single-digit positive. The last two quarters, if you exclude the inventory write-down, quite a number of drivers. It sounds like that get you to 30-plus percent in the back half of the year. Can you talk about sort of what's -- what are the biggest drivers? And kind of help us understand the relative importance. I mean, obviously, it sounds like the growth of the RPS business is going to be a really nice tailwind to gross margins. How much of it is just going to be driven by scale and just improved pricing on the systems themselves. And then just any color on what that ramp kind of looks like in the first and second quarter on the way from 1% to 30% or more?

So last year, this is what we dealt with is like an extensive downdraft revenue, I mean, of inventory we have in storage. I mean if you go back and look at the balance sheets and P&Ls from '24 to '25, how we cleaned up. That is adding up for the loss of the gross margin losses like we have mentioned in our previous calls is like -- the overhead in 2024 were 400 employees and then the total COGS on it was very expensive. So these actually sitting in the inventory for too long is causing this overhead to drive down those gross margins. So the new builds from 2024 later quarter, we started building the new machines have very leased amount of overheads -- so as we push those out in the first quarter, second and third, fourth quarters, that's the driver for your highest -- I mean, big gross margin increases. That's why we took that effort to clean up all that downdraft and the inventory levels that we don't want to carry to '26. And we -- as we promised to the investors, we want to be gross profitable and then EBITDA positive is driving that, not having that overhead dragging our feet, okay? So we cleaned up the balance sheet, we cleaned up the debt. So this should give a good momentum for getting us where we want to be.

Okay. That's really helpful. And then I think you mentioned that most of the growth you're expecting to see in the RPS business is coming from aerospace and defense. Did I hear that correctly? Are there any other sectors where your focus there? And is that just a matter of where the demand is or where you put more marketing efforts.

So we are still focusing on our key areas of defense, space and semiconductor and energy markets. So the main force to drive RPS will be the qualification speed. So defense is moving as you see the unmanned vehicles and munitions programs and everything going on. It will be still a big driver, but space is also expanding the same way. So we consider those two as our main bread and butter in addition to semiconductor. Semiconductor qualifications take longer time, and these are expensive feats -- so that will come as a third layer and then the energy comes as a fourth layer. So by 2027, we should have a full good mix of all of them at least 50% on defense and 20% on space and the rest is semiconductor and energy markets. So that's the mix we are looking, but we're not depending like previously on few focused customers. It's now broadened, and we are adding more logos to our customer base. And if you have seen just in 2025, how it's diversified and how the interest grew by reducing the barrier of entry to what we do is driving that $31 million backlog, which the company has never seen. So -- and then 2026, we expect even bigger numbers as we projected in our revenues and others. So it's a snowball effect, like you start slow, but second, third, fourth, by the time you reach fifth year, you're tremendously profitable on these because of the gross margins. And the amount of operational -- operations to do this is very leased because of the -- I mean if you consider each machine as a robot and they are automated you don't really need too much of overhead. That operational efficiency will end -- I mean, will begin within the next two years and then we started seeing the growth at four, five year. So it's very clear on our -- how we want to expand. And Velo is not going to be just based on that. We are also now targeting the product market and expanding our portfolio in different areas. So that should give us a good scope of what we want to do.

Our next question comes from the line of Troy Jensen with Cantor Fitzgerald.

A couple of quick questions. The backlog that you quoted, can you just comment on the duration of the backlog? Is that more than one year? Or is that within one year?

It's within 12 months. That's the backlog we have. So we'll capture all that this year.

Okay. Perfect. All right. And then I guess I get a question. It's been a while since I got an update for you, but -- is your flight entirely Sapphire system still? Your fleet.

No. No. Like so we have three variations, I mean we still have Sapphires, but there are different sizes, right? So the biggest one we have is Sapphire 1MZ so that we can print up to 1 meter Z height. And will we -- I mean, in the future calls, I will disclose some of the things what we are doing as an engineering feat. So there is more to come. But right now, I think this fleet will suffice most of the RPS needs we have in a way to ways to do -- I mean, the size of the machine is not more important, the design aspect and other factors also matter.

Okay. I guess two questions for you, though. I guess my question was, is all of your machines and your RPS service internally developed by Velo. And I guess, I'm asking the question because I've always thought that your machines were so much more sophisticated much more harder to operate. I'm curious if you guys would consider deploying other metal machines that may be more efficient? And can you also just talk about the automation that you've added to these machines, if I'm wrong on the cost of kind of running them.

I think we -- I have mentioned this before, like Velo is not going to just adopt Laser Bed Fusion. As we expand, the offerings what we give to the customer have to come from customer demand on various sides of it. At the same time, we're not going to compromise our technology itself. I mean there are two reasons. So if you think RPS as somebody can just buy different kinds of machines and just run it, is the most impossible and hassle that you can take upon and not successful because then you have to have different people understanding different machines and you cannot control your own technology. The powerful thing Velo has is an OEM, which can control its technologies according to what we want to do, okay? That's a powerful tool which others will miss -- I mean, if you think of any of these -- I mean, machine shops or the guys who are contract manufacturers can do this, right? But what is that we are adding as a value is not -- I mean, the market is missing the point. When you are an OEM and the technology at the software and the hardware side, you have much more success to fastly iterate and collect the data to the point that no one has the abilities to do so. And when you can do that, you are the powerful machine on the data that all these companies are missing. So you cannot go and wait on a service. You cannot go and wait on somebody to fix your software or upgrade software or fix your machine. And at the same time, when we take upon any technologies, that's going to be under Velo wing. And when I mentioned M&A, the Mergers and Acquisitions, we have a strong focus on the business for the next five years where Velo will be the AWS of data and analytics company and a product-based company at a defense level, which what you see is the base of start. And what you see in the next seven years is the vision of Velo where Velo will make sure that we are ready for the next-generation manufacturing and digital platforms, which is very siloed at this point and does not have access to all the things I'm talking.

If I could just ask one more, and I'll see the floor here. Have you talked at all about what your margins are on the RPS side of the business looking maybe at scale?

Yes. So margins on RPS is between 40% and 60% depending on the project. But that's the highest gross margins, you can see compared to any of the machine sales or anything, but our machine sales gross margins range about if you make a brand-new machine and sell immediately, it's about 35%. So this is why it's so powerful for us to expand our fleet and have that adoption very quickly rather than just depending on the sale of the machine. And we are selling capacity now -- we're not just selling machines and put it on somebody's floor to struggle with it just like other machines. We're not -- we are customer focused mostly, and we want to be customer focused to give them the easy access to the parts they want. By end of the day, these tools are made to make parts, complex parts, whether it's a secure location for the customer or a nonsecured location for us, we want to fulfill both ends, and we will cover all of this with different technologies in the future.

Our next question comes from the line of George Marema with Pareto Ventures.

Nice to see the business model proving out. I had a question. Could you provide some color on your plans to strengthen supply chain feedstock materials you mentioned?

Yes. So I mean, if you imagine the scale of -- I mean, there is no one in the whole country has what we are building as a fleet. So Velo is taking the first initiative. And I always believe that if you can control your feedstock supply chain, you have a tremendous value as a company. Just like if you take some of the companies which are linearly integrated, you see the bottom line of their main source of metals or anything, they build themselves, okay? This is why our supply chain has to be robust if we have to scale to that 400 or 500 machines in scale. We're building a total ecosystem of how the additive manufacturing at scale happens. So I'm focused on that metal powders and the feedstock to be very well secured for years to come for us when we promise to the customer, we want to deliver it on time. And then I don't want any vendor wait -- I mean, we don't want to wait on vendors to give us what we want. At the same time, at the post-processing side, we want to make sure that we have full collaborations of contract manufacturers and a supply chain robustness to give the end product to the customer. It's a big feat, which no one has done, and we are taking upon that as a first digital manufacturing million dollar square foot facilities. Velo has a big project to do, both on the data of the industrial manufacturing as digital and also future -- in future how the manufacturing is done, which is used by any OEMs, anybody who wants to do a product.

Okay. And then one other question I had was on the acquisition side. Would that be sort of into the data software sort of to create the AWS sort of idea along those lines?

Yes. So not on the acquisition side, we do have our internal IP protected software which no one has the ability. I mean no one has that kind of complex software that can actually do algorithms that produces a complex part, which some, some companies outside is trying, but they're not actually in use of what they make. But Velo has already adopted that and most of our products are at a production scale and also prototyping scale. So not only that, but the traditional manufacturing is super important for us to make it digital and collect all that data. So the whole line from the material side to, I think every layer of what we print every layer of what the material is used and to all the way to giving that finished product to the customer is the target for us to acquire and then -- and basically give an ecosystem that is fully digitally manufactured. So now the siloed data is not working, and that's why you have the supply chain problems. And then when you transform the traditional -- some of the traditional parts into digitalized data collection from the early stages of design, it will really help everybody, not just one OEM or a prime to adopt those in scale. And then that's where you see the product being designed differently, manufactured differently and analyzed differently, which gives us the full scope of what Velo is trying to do.

There are no further questions. I'd like to pass the back call back over to Arun for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, who asked the question. Hopefully I answered your questions. But the vision is clear for Velo3D, and we are advancing and marching towards what I have mentioned in our questions. We're not trying to just be an OEM of machine manufacturer. We're transforming the digital manufacturing in while I talk to the future, where any part of the world or to the stars, these can be transferred. And this is necessary to manufacture and build things -- and we're taking that step as Velo3D. So the future is bright, and we have proven our remarks and concept in the year 1, year 2, 3, 4 is actual stability of the company financially, progressing towards the full digital manufacturing full fleet of digital manufacturing shown in numbers and also satisfying the customers as their needs come through. So I hope we'll have a great journey in the future, and thank you for your support from the investors, employees and all the supporters of Velo3D. I appreciate everything you say about us. and hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.